Amalia Mamcze Rothenberg Rutenberg (1860–1944)

Born: 1860, Hyrawka (Drohobyczka), Podkarpackie, Poland
Died: c.1944, murdered during the Holocaust
Married: Berl Joel (Dov) Friedländer
Children: Nine children, born between 1879 and 1902

Amalia Mamcze Rothenberg Rutenberg was born in 1860 in the village of Hyrawka, part of the Drohobyczka district in what is now Podkarpackie, Poland. She was the eldest daughter of Zindel (Sindel/Juda) Rothenberg, a brewer, and Rozalia (Rywa/Riva/Roza) Zuckerberg, who had married young - Zindel was just 20, Rozalia only 18 at the time of Amalia’s birth. Her family came from a long line of Galician Jews, rooted in the towns and villages of Drohobycz, Skole, and the surrounding areas.

Amalia grew up in a household that expanded rapidly; her siblings included Mechel Wolf (b.1861), Leiser Leo (b.1864), Pinkas Pawel (b.1868), Krancie/Krenicia (b.1876), and Chaje (b.1879). The family moved around the region, including time spent living in Raniowice and Drohobycz, mirroring the migratory nature of many Jewish families seeking opportunity and safety in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

By the age of 19, Amalia had given birth to her first child, Mendel Friedländer, in Drohobych (1879). Over the next two decades, she and her husband, Berl Joel (Dov) Friedländer, an accountant originally from Drohobycz, would have at least nine children. Their home address—repeatedly listed as House 38 in Drohobycz or Boryslaw—served as a locus for this growing family.

Her known children included:

  • Mendel Friedländer (1879–1944)

  • Ryze Friedländer (b.1880)

  • Debore Friedländer (1882–1884)

  • Aron Hersch Friedländer (1885–1887)

  • Lieba Friedländer (b.1886), later Goldstein

  • Dr. Nechuma/Natalie Friedländer (1888–1942), a physician who was murdered during the Holocaust

  • Bibcia Albina Friedländer (1894–1944)

  • Matilda Friedländer (1894–1944)

  • Pepa Friedländer (1902–1944)

Amalia’s life spanned monumental shifts in Jewish life in Galicia—under Austrian rule, through World War I, the interwar years under Polish governance, and finally the catastrophe of World War II. Despite being religious minorities in a region often marked by antisemitism and economic instability, the Rothenbergs and Friedländers were industrious and educated. Several of Amalia’s children went on to receive higher education or professional training, including in medicine and commerce.

The family endured profound losses. Amalia buried several children in infancy, and by the early 1940s, the spread of Nazi occupation into Eastern Galicia brought further tragedy. Her daughter Dr. Nechuma Friedländer perished in 1942 during the Holocaust, and Pepa, Bibcia Albina, and Matilda were all likely murdered around 1944. Amalia herself is believed to have died that same year, at the age of 84 - possibly in the final waves of deportations or mass shootings of the Jewish population in Drohobycz, Boryslaw, or Skole.

Her legacy lives on through the fragments that remain - names in birth records, addresses on marriage certificates, the occasional reference in deportation lists or postwar testimonies. Through her children and siblings, Amalia is connected to a broad network of Rothenberg descendants across Galicia, Vienna, and beyond.