Biberstein Family Collection
Biographical History
Mali Leist was born in Vienna on 21st April 1893, and married Wolf/ Wilhelm Biberstein, who had been born in Taropol on 12th September 1880, in August 1919. Their marriage certificate refers to him as Wolf, but later records and correspondence refer to him as Wilhelm, the reason for which is unclear. Both were from Jewish families. The couple had one son, Otto Biberstein, born 22nd May 1921.
After the Anschluss the Bibersteins sought to leave Austria. Mali got a domestic servant’s visa for Great Britain and arrived at Exeter in September 1939. She, along with her sister Gisela's sisters-in-law, Rebecca and Ernestine Schwarz, were employed as domestic servants by the Bishop of Exeter, but had to relinquish the positions when an Order prevented aliens from living within twenty miles of the South Coast. Mali continued to work in domestic service for the rest of her life, except for in 1942 when she worked in the ‘war industries’.
Wolf/ Wilhelm and Otto Biberstein both went to France. Otto had gone to Switzerland first, but could not extend his visa; in France Otto was denounced and arrested by the Nazis. He was sent to Drancy and then to Auschwitz, where he is presumed to have been killed. Wolf/ Wilhelm survived the war but was almost blind and unfit for work. Mali supported him by sending one pound a week. He died in France in 1957.
Mali faced financial worry in later life due to her emigration, the low wage jobs she subsequently worked, the need to support her absent husband, and her lack of a family support network. Several of the documents refer to her applications to the Austrian authorities for a pension as a victim of persecution. She was later a resident of Otto Hirsch House.
