In the upper left hand corner is a snapshot taken in 1936 of
Emmy von Ephrussi and her grandsons, Victor and Constant de
Waal. In the upper right is seen a detail of the ceiling in the
study of Palais Ephrussi, in Vienna. In the lower left, Emmy von
Ephrussi as a young woman out dancing. In the lower right,
German tanks in Vienna, March 14, 1938. This is what happened.
The rise of the Ephrussi, a Jewish family, began in Odessa.
Odessa was a city within the Pale of Settlement, the area on the
western borders of imperial Russia in which Jews were allowed to
live. It was famous for its rabbinical schools and synagogues,
rich in literature and music, a magnet for the impoverished
Jewish shtetls of Galicia. It was also a city that doubled its
population of Jews and Greeks and Russians every decade, a
polyglot city full of speculation and traders, the docks full of
intrigues and spies, a city on the make. The family business,
masterminded by Charles Joachim Ephrussi, centered on the
exporting of wheat grown in the