You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Melanie Reizes was born in 1882 in Vienna, where she spent her childhood and adolescent years. She left the city in March 1903, when she married Arthur Klein. At no time during this period did she meet Sigmund Freud, or even hear about him or his work.
Melanie Reizes’ family was Jewish: her mother was from a cultivated, liberal, Jewish background, her father from a family of orthodox Jews. Both families had produced Rabbis.
Melanie’s father was a doctor and was 50 when she was born. His family had wanted him to become a Rabbi, but he had succeeded in getting himself released and had managed to sit and pass the equivalent of a baccalaureate (university entrance exam) and then go on to become a medical student and to qualify as a doctor, without the assistance of his family. His first marriage was a traditional one, but he and his first wife later separated. He married Melanie’s mother, Libussa Deutsch, when he was over 40. She was much younger, at 25, and very beautiful. At that time a medical practitioner did not necessarily earn very much money, and this was Moritz Reizes’ case. His wife was obliged to open a shop for exotic plants and animals in order to make ends meet.
When Melanie was 6 years old, a providential windfall improved the family’s situation considerably. They moved into a larger apartment and her father bought a dentist’s surgery to complement his medical practice. Hanna Segal (I. 1) recounts that Melanie remembered vividly this change in living quarters and the material well-being that went with it.
Melanie was the youngest of a family of four. At the time of her birth her eldest sister, Emily, was 6, her brother, Emmanuel, 5 and her second sister, Sidonie, 4. She was not really desired and was not breast fed, as the others were. In spite of this, she had a happy, harmonious childhood, in a close-knit family.
She greatly admired her father, was very impressed by his great culture and learning, his intellectual capacities and his gift for language