Frederic Morton is a Jewish Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n writer who emigrated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1940.
Born Fritz Mandelbaum in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Morton was raised as the son of a blacksmith

Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...

 who had specialised in forging imperial medal

Medal

A medal, or medallion, is generally a circular object that has been sculpted, molded, cast, struck, stamped, or some way rendered with an insignia, portrait, or other artistic rendering. A medal may be awarded to a person or organization as a form of recognition for athletic, military, scientific,...

s. In the wake of the Anschluss

Anschluss

The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....

of 1938 his father was arrested but later released again. In 1939 the family fled to Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and the following year they came to New York. Morton says that back in 1940 his father decided, with a heavy heart, to change their family name to Morton to be able to join the then anti-Semitic

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

 labor union.

Frederic Morton first worked as a baker

Baker

A baker is someone who bakes and sells bread, Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades...

 but from 1949 studied literature. In 1951 he visited Austria again for the first time after the war, and in 1962 he returned, this time to Salzburg

Salzburg

-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...

, to marry his fiancée, Marcia, whom he had met at college.

From 1959 Morton worked for several American periodicals, mainly as a columnist (The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Esquire, and Playboy

Playboy

Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

).

Select bibliography

• A Nervous Splendor: Vienna, 1888-1889 ( ISBN 0-14-005667-X )
• Thunder at Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914 ( ISBN 0-306-81021-2 )
• The Rothschilds
  Rothschild family
  The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...
  
  : Portrait of a Dynasty ( ISBN 1-56836-220-X )
• The Forever Street (novel, 1984) ( ISBN 0-7432-5220-9 )
• Runaway Waltz (memoir
  Memoir
  A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
  
  , 2005) ( ISBN 0-7432-2539-2 )

External links

• Complete bibliography (Literaturhaus Wien)
• New York Times | The Memories of a Jew, Now Honored by Vienna (By Richard Bernstein, June 28, 2003)
• L.A. Times | On Thelemanngasse (By Frederic Morton, February 20, 2006)