Remembering the Jewish inhabitants of Klíše

Heller and Šosvald

Herbert Heller was born in May 1902 into a family of clerk of the Ignatz Petschek company, Karel Heller, originally from Kovač near Jičín, and his wife Ida, born in Ústí nad Labem. He had one sister, Felicitas. Thanks to his father's secure employment, the family slowly prospered, bought their own house in Klíše on what is now Masarykova Street, and Herbert and his partner founded the company Heller a Šosvald, a leather goods and car trunk factory.

“Our company was founded on August 15, 1926 by Mr. Herbert Heller and Mr. Emil Schosswald. It started with three employees, after just one year it was declared a factory and today it employs more than 40 workers. The company supplies the entire Czechoslovak Republic and exports mainly women's handbags and travel shoes to England, the United States of America, Palestine, Egypt, South Africa and South America, where it also has its own representative office. It also has a permanent export representative in Hamburg. The company also produces exclusive car trunks, in particular a box trunk with a roller shutter according to its own patent, and promotional gift items for trade and industry.”

Advertisement from a German sporting magazine, Ústí nad Labem City Archives


Why do you think the name of Heller's partner was sometimes spelled Schosswald and sometimes Šosvald? What do you think guided the use of the variant name in the text?

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