Ervin Schillinger in the army

This is Ervin Schillinger, one of the brothers of my maternal grandfather Emanuel Schillinger. He sent this photo from from the Villa Stefania, in 1917. [Editor’s note: the Villa Stefania is located in northern Italy--what was then a part of Austria-Hungary.] On the back of the photo it states that it was sent while he was stationed on the Italian front. My grandparents, Iuliana and Emanuel Schillinger, received it from Ervin as a Pesach greeting.

My maternal grandfather, Emanuel Schillinger, was born in Elek, Hungary, in 1858. He grew up with both German and Hungarian as a mother tongue. He had five brothers and two sisters, and I know many of them only from pictures.