Residence Freud family, Tom Seidmann-Freud

Tom Seidmann-Freud was born on November 17, 1892 in Vienna with the name Martha Gertrud Freud. She moved to Berlin with her family when she was still a child, where they lived at 6 Ansbacher Strasse. When she was around 15, she dropped the name Martha and decided to go by Tom. She enjoyed a good education, studied in London and in Berlin at the 'Unterrichtsanstalt des Kunstgewerbemuseums' and received attention for her artistic work at a very young age. Her first book, the „Baby Liederbuch", was published in 1914. Tom then moved to Munich, where she lived for two years and quickly established herself in the local art and cultural scene.

In 1921, she married the writer Jankew Seidmann, and their daughter Angela was born a year later. The couple, who now lived in Berlin Charlottenburg, at Schillerstrasse 12/13, founded the Peregrin publishing house together, under which Tom published one of her best-known books in 1923: „Die Fischreise".

The artist also enjoyed great success in the years that followed. Her stories were translated into several languages and became bestsellers with numerous editions.

However, her life took a dramatic turn at the end of the 1920s. The Peregrin publishing house went bankrupt during the Great Depression in 1929 and Jankew Seidmann committed suicide out of despair. Tom then fell into a severe depression from which she never recovered. In 1930, she also took her own life.

During the National Socialist era, her books were banned and fell into oblivion, but her daughter Angela (now Aviva) managed to escape. It is thanks to her descendants, who now live in Israel, that her works have been brought back into the public consciousness. 

„The fish speaks: Come with me, the world is wide and there are many shores!" (Tom Seidmann-Freud, die Fischreise 1923)

This entry was created as part of the exhibition „Defiance - Jewish Women and Design in the Modern Era“ at the Jewish Museum Berlin (July 11 to November 23, 2025). Further information on the exhibition can be found HERE and in the links below.