Family life in Vienna, 1936

Ellen (Maexie) Regenstreif Illich (1901-1965) came from a family of converted Sephardic Jews who had settled in Germany. Her industrialist father, Fritz (Pucki) Regenstreif (1868-1941), had a lumber business in Bosnia where he owned a sawmill at Zavidovic and an Art Nouveau villa on the outskirts of Vienna in Pötzleinsdorf built by Friedrich Ohmann. Piero Ilic (1890-1942) came from a landed family in Dalmatia, Yugoslavia with property in Split and extensive wine and olive oil producing estates on the island of Brac. Ellen and Piero married in 1925 and established a home in Split. There was a resurgence of anti-foreign and anti-Jewish sentiment in Yugoslavia, so in 1932, Ellen returned to her father's villa in Vienna with their three children: Ivan (1926-2002), Michael (Micha) (b. 1928), and Alexander (Sascha) (1928-2009). Piero died of natural causes in Split in July 1942 (the boys never saw their father after they moved to Vienna). After the death of Fritz Regenstreif on May 8, 1941, the splendid home was taken by the Nazis in a forced sale, and Maexie moved into a pension in Vienna with the children. In Nazi Austria, Maexie was considered an ethnic Jew although she was a baptized Christian, and the children were classified as half-Jewish. In 1942, they made their way to Florence by way of Split, where they lived for three months. Later, Maexie made her way to the United States, where she died in 1965. Introduced with German titles throughout, some are comical. This film is titled "Dreibubenhaus" [The House of the Three Boys] in honor of a then current theatrical presentation in Vienna. CUs, the twin boys don hats and joke for the camera. Sequence of the boys waking up, saying prayers, washing faces, getting dressed, and ready for school. The three Illich boys eat breakfast and exit their home (filmed from mother Ellen (Maexie) Regenstreif's room on the top floor of the villa), walking the grand grounds of Villa Regenstreif. The governess "Selli" Frauer escorts the boys onto a tram and kisses them goodbye as they enter school. Pan of the city square with the school on one end, panning up to the grand Baroque Piarist Church of Maria Treu. The boys eat lunch with their grandfather, Fritz Regenstreif, and governess. Views of the ornate home. CUs of the boys eating. 01:05:34 Sascha and Micha play the piano and the violin with teacher and friend Olga Novakovic, and then sit at their desks and do their homework. Ivan holds a little bird named Hansi. The twins play with a wooden model house. The three boys say their prayers, kiss each other good night and go to sleep. 01:08:24 Part 2 - on Sunday. Pan of the Vienna skyline from the top of the landmark highrise building at Herrengasse ("Hochhaus Herrengasse", built in 1931-32 by architects Theiss and Jaksch, was Vienna's first highrise). The boys chase a car as it drives by the camera. The family makes a trip to the grave of their grandmother, Johanna Regenstreif (d. 1934), in Potzleinsdorf. 01:09:43 The boys go sledding in winter on the meadow of "Wasserturm". For Three Kings Day, the family dresses in costume and act for the camera. The women -- Maexie, friend Vita Kuenstler [who worked at the Neue Galerie and apparently took over its management when it was Aryanized], and the governess -- playfully hassle one another. One of the twins is costumed as Hans Albers, and another as Michael Moser [probably 'Hans Moser', a prominent film and stage actor of the 1930s whose role as the muckraking civil servant ("Amtsdiener" as the intertitle suggests) were legendary]. 01:12:56 Blossoms on the trees in springtime, followed by a sequence in autumn with the family visiting Vienna's most famous overlook at Leopoldsberg (a church and estate at the top of a hill). They continue on to the monastery at Klosterneuburg and pose for a photograph at St. Leopold with their grandfather. 01:15:10 Children gathered around a table with sweet treats for a birthday tea party. Ivan sits next to his friend, Marion Stein (daughter of Erwin Stein, a very important colleague of Mahler, Bartok, Weber).