Nazi Era
Go to Images

The March 13, 1938, the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany marked the forced end of all Jewish-owned business in Austria. Even though the Goldscheider Family had left the folds of Judaism at the turn of the century, according to Nazi racial laws, the Goldscheiders were still considered Jewish. In 1937, at the last Art and Craft Exposition in Paris before the Second World War, Walter Goldscheider won the Grand Prix. Barely a year later, his company was “Aryanized” by a German of the name Joseph Schuster.

In 1940, Walter and his family emigrated to the United States, where he established a new manufacture in Trenton, New Jersey, with the initial name of American Goldscheider, Inc., and later became Goldscheider-Everlast Corp. In addition to the animal figurines produced in the beginning (the first model was a foal lying down), Goldscheider expanded to include vases and ashtrays, as well as Rococo statuettes, Viennese figures, Madonnas and Civil War era items.

By 1947, the Goldscheider-Everlast Corporation had well over 100 employees. While still managing his company in Trenton, Walter Goldscheider returned to Vienna to reclaim the old company that the Austrian government now restored to him. The two companies marketed each others products, for instance, the Viennese sold Madonnas from Trenton, while the Americans sold Mozart figurines from Vienna.

By 1952, cheap competition from Japan and Italy rendered the Trenton production plant unprofitable and it was closed down. The sole remaining Viennese manufacture followed suite a year later. Even though the company is no longer in existence, the thousands of motifs originally created still enjoy great popularity among collectors and are traded around the world.