The American Jewish Historical Society’s Museum Collection includes an original set of carved English and Hebrew printing letter blocks. Charles Untracht (1883-1945), the proprietor of “Chas. Untracht & Sons Printers” owned this currently uncataloged museum set. The collection record states: “2400 individual printing letters, carved from maple. Latin alphabet: 300 individual printing letters, carved in maple, Hebrew lettering.” The only condition requested by the family was that if the printing letter blocks were ever to be exhibited, the collection would be in the name of Charles, Milton, and Harold Untracht. Little or no information regarding the family was included with the records. However, with the use of genealogy sites such as Ancestry.com and other public records, we were able to assemble a basic history of the Untracht family.
Charles, also known as “Haskel,” married Bessie Hirshenhorn and immigrated from Zamosc (Janowice Duze), Lubelskie, or Lubin, Poland (Russia at that time) to New York City in 1906. Charles started his printing career at 91 Clinton Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with his home address being 417 Grand Street. The expanding family eventually moved the business to 2609 Pitkin Avenue in Queens, with a home address of 604 Logan Street, where the family may have lived until Charles’ death in 1945.
Photographs from the New York City Tax Records of 1940 and 1980 show the family’s printing business as a tidy space on Pitkin, with a large glass window display under the Fulton Elevated Train. In 1940, “Chas. and Sons, Printers” appeared in lettering, situated between a beauty salon and a plumber. The Fulton Elevated Line was demolished in the 1950s, and by 1980, the “Chas. and Sons, Printers” sign, printed materials, and display were gone, and the windows were covered. 2609 Pitkin was rebuilt, and records show the family bought at least two buildings on this block.
Fanny, their eldest child, was born in Poland while five other children, Rebecca, Samuel, Milton, Harold, and the youngest, Alvin Joseph, were born in the United States. Fanny married a man named Benjamin Wolff in 1927 and they had at least two children. Benjamin died in 1992, but there is no record of Fanny’s passing. Little is known about Rebecca’s life.
Several of the sons appear to have worked at the printing shop, though some connections are based on speculation. The siblings appear to have led accomplished lives as doctors, lawyers, and artists. A Brooklyn Eagle notice of February 22, 1940, records Milton as being one of the eighty-five men and four women who went into the practice of law. Milton was a 2nd Lt., commissioned in 1943, and on his draft registration card, Milton put his occupation down as both “self-printer” and lawyer. Harold’s draft card indicates that he was self-employed, presumably at the printing shop. Samuel may have made his mother happiest by becoming a well-known physician. Dr. Samuel Untracht died with professor emeritus status at New York Medical College with affiliations at St. John’s Riverside and Dobbs Ferry Hospitals. He also appears to have been a musician and horticulturist. According to his National Jewish Welfare Board–Bureau of War Records file located here at the AJHS, Dr. Samuel Untracht served in World War II as a physician and was awarded a Purple Heart for injuries sustained by German strafing fire as he helped a wounded German officer.
Alvin Joseph, known as “Oppi,” was the youngest and most famous of the siblings, as he was beloved in the enameling, jewelry, and metalworking world. Alvin lived with Bessie after Charles’ death while attending college for metalworking. Alvin, like his sister Fannie, was a New York City public school teacher. He taught Fine Arts at the New York School of Printing, a vocational school in Manhattan. The school existed from 1925-2016 and is currently the High School of Graphic Communications Arts. In 1957, he left teaching after he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study contemporary and traditional Indian Arts. He married the Finnish artist Saara Hopea in 1960. In 1963, Oppi won a second Fulbright, and he and Saara went off to Nepal’s University of Tribhuvan at Kathmandu. During his time in Kathmandu, Oppi studied jewelry making, and photographed large sets of documentary images, especially marriage jewelry. He donated collections of metals and textiles to museums and even currated several shows. His works regarding enamel, metalworking and jewelry making became foundational works of these crafts. He and Saara ultimately moved to Porvoo, Finland, where he died in 2008. No existing records were found of how Charles’ work could have possibly influenced Oppi’s artistic inspiration. In a search of several Jewish museums and archives no record of Oppi’s artwork or documentation was found.
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Sources
British Museum. Collecting the World Exhibit. https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2020-08/R2-Collecting-the-World_LPG.pdf. Accessed August 10, 2025.
De Vecchi, Silvia. “A journey into the Oppi Untracht photographic archive of Indian jewellery.” Victoria and Albert Museum Blog. 2021 April 30. https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/a-journey-into-the-oppi-untracht-photographic-archive-of-indian-jewellery?srsltid=AfmBOorF80Z5EjsXSTTPZJYWmhEnBiWoC2Ba-GnMr8FcvFOPyslmx1mt&doing_wp_cron=1754412567.1576440334320068359375. Accessed August 5, 2025.
Museum of Family History. Pitkin Businesses. https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/brooklyn/pitkin-businesses.htm. Accessed August 4, 2025
Photograph of Alvin Oppi Untracht and his wife, Saara Untracht. The Indian textile collection of Saara Hopea-Untracht and Oppi Untracht to be seen at Porvoo Art Hall in March 1971. https://www.finna.fi/Record/museovirasto.121a7931-a37a-4209-9776-44dfb001a04a?sid=5104741141. Accessed August 18, 2025.
Printing Trades Blue Book. General Directory. New York: Lewis, A.F. & Company, 1916, pg. 341, https://archive.org/details/printingtradesb00unkngoog/page/340/mode/2up.
Street View of 1940s New York. (Easier Function for Municipal Archives Photographs). https://1940s.nyc/map. Accessed August 4, 2025.
Tax Photo, 1940s and 1980s. Municipal Archives of the City of New York. https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/1940s-tax-photographs/. Accessed August 10, 2025.
Untracht, Alvin Joseph “Oppi.” Works by Oppi Untracht. Enamel Arts. https://www.enamelarts.org/oppi-untracht/. Accessed August 5, 2025.
Untracht Family Research by Untrach Family Members. https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/G8VG-TZ3/alvin-joseph-%22oppi%22-untracht-1922-2008. Accessed August 18, 2025.
Untracht, Samuel. National Jewish Welfare Board—Bureau of War Records. Individual, Series I: Ungar-Uretsky. I-52. American Jewish Historical Society.
