My paternal grandparents, Oma and Opa, were Paul Joseph Mühlrad (1897–1959) and Aranyka Mogány (1900–1991). Opa died several years before I was born—I was named in his memory—but he had such a presence in my family when I was growing up that I still knew him as Opa. Oma was the only living grandparent I ever had. Paul and Aranyka married at the Stadttempel in Vienna’s Innere Stadt (District I) on Friday, January 2, 1921. Aranyka was 20 years old, and Paul was one month shy of his 24th birthday. At the time of their marriage, they were both living in the home of Paul’s parents, Julius and Zdenka, at 14 Rotensterngaße, Apartment 20 in Vienna’s second district, Leopoldstadt—just across the Danube Canal, about a 15-minute walk from the Stadttempel.

Aranyka was the second eldest of four children born to Szigmond (Simon) Joachim (1872-1935) and Charlotte “Lotti” (née Steiner) Mogány (1873-1941): two girls, Aranyka and Ibolya(1903-1941); and two boys (Rezsö (1898–1968) and Jenö (1905–~1945). Szigmond and Charlotte were married in Pápa, Hungary (Charlotte’s birthplace), in 1897. Their young and growing family moved frequently, perhaps due to Szigmond’s career as a pepper and spice merchant.

Rezsö was born in Győr, in the Danube Valley of northwestern Hungary, on the train line roughly halfway between Budapest and Vienna. Two years later, Aranyka was born in Mitrovica, Kosovo, about a nine-hour drive south by modern highways. It is not clear what brought the family to Mitrovica, but three years later Ibolya was born in the town of Siófok, Hungary, on the shores of Lake Balaton. Jenö was born two years after that, back in Győr. Sometime before 1913, the family moved to the eastern suburbs of Vienna, first to the town of Langenlebarn and, a few years later, to Kritzendorf.

Paul was the third of four children—Irma, Hans, Paul, and Leopold (“Poldi”)—born to Julius and Zdenka (Kohn) Mühlrad, both recent immigrants to Vienna from Bohemia. Julius and Zdenka were married on November 7, 1893, in the central Bohemian town of Kolín, but they were already living in Vienna, at Kaiserstraße 83 in the Neubau (District VII). Their marriage was registered through the Jewish Community of Vienna (Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, or IKG).

Julius was a glovemaker (Handschuhmacher) by trade and established his glove and clothing business at Praterstraße 11 in Leopoldstadt. Soon afterward, Julius and Zdenka moved next door to Praterstraße 13, where Irma, Hans, and Paul were all born.

Paul met Aranyka shortly after returning from the First World War, where he had served in combat on the eastern and western Italian fronts (Isonzo and Tyrol) with the Imperial and Royal Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 37 Gravosa (k.k. Landwehrinfanterieregiment Gravosa Nr. 37—renamed k.k. Schützenregiment Nr. 37 in 1918). Upon his return from the war, he trained to become a professional artist, reporting in his 1938 IKG emigration questionnaire that he attended the Vienna School of Applied Arts (Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule) between 1919 and 1926. Paul and Aranyka quickly began their family, with a daughter, Hertha Lucy, born January 10, 1922, and a son, Norbert Fritz, born February 13, 1923.