Herzl's grandfathers, both of whom he knew, were more closely related to traditional Judaism than his parents, yet two of his paternal grandfather's brothers and his maternal grandmother's brother exemplify complete estrangement and rejection of Judaism on the one hand, and utter loyalty and devotion to Judaism and Eretz Israel. In Zemun (Zemlin), Grandfather Simon Loeb Herzl "had his hands on" one of the first copies of Judah Alkalai's 1857 work prescribing the "return of the Jews to the Holy Land and renewed glory of Jerusalem." Contemporary scholars conclude that Herzl's own implementation of modern Zionism was undoubtedly influenced by that relationship. Herzl’s grandparents' graves in Semlin can still be visited.Alkalai himself, was witness to the rebirth of Serbia from Ottoman rule in the early and mid 19th century, and was inspired by the Serbian uprising and subsequent re-creation of Serbia.
Jakob Herzl (1836—1902), Theodor's father, was a highly successful businessman. Herzl had one sister, Pauline, a year older than he was, who died suddenly on February 7, 1878 of typhus. Theodor lived with his family in a house next to the Dohány Street Synagogue (formerly known as Tabakgasse Synagogue) located in Belváros, the inner city of the historical old town of Pest, in the eastern section of Budapest. The remains of Herzl's parents and sister were re-buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
In June, 25, 1889 he married Julie Naschauer, daughter of a wealthy Jewish businessman in Vienna. The marriage was unhappy, although three children were born to it, Paulina, Hans and Margaritha (Trude). Herzl and Julie declined to have their son Hans circumcised. Herzl had a strong attachment to his mother, who was unable to get along with his wife. These difficulties were increased by the political activities of his later years, in which his wife took little interest.
All three children died tragically.
His daughter Pauline suffered from mental illness and drug addiction. She died in 1930 at the age of 40, of a heroin overdose.
His son Hans, successively converted and became a Baptist, then a Catholic and flirted with other Prostestant denominations. He sought a personal salvation for his own religious needs and a universal solution, as had his father, to Jewish suffering caused by anti-Semitism. Hans committed suicide (gunshot) the day of sister Pauline's funeral.
Hans left a death note explaining his reasons.
"A Jew remains a Jew, no matter how eagerly he may submit himself to the disciplines of his new religion, how humbly he may place the redeeming cross upon his shoulders for the sake of his former coreligionists, to save them from eternal damnation: a Jew remains a Jew.... I can't go on living. I have lost all trust in God, All my life I've tried to strive for the truth, and must admit today at the end of the road that there is nothing but disappointment. Tonight I have said Kaddish for my parents--and for myself, the last descendent of the family. There is nobody who will say Kaddish for me, who went out to find peace--and who may find peace soon..... My instinct has latterly gone all wrong, and I have made one of those irreparable mistakes, which stamp a whole life with failure. Then it is best to scrap it."
Hans was 39.
In 2006 the remains of Pauline and Hans were moved from Bordeaux, France, and reburied not far from their father on Mt. Herzl.
Paulina and Hans had little contact with the youngest daughter, "Trude",(Margarethe, 1893—1943). She married Richard Neumann, a man 17 years her elder. Neumann lost his fortune in the Greateconomic depression. Burdened by the steep costs of hospitalizing Trude, who suffered from severe bouts of depressive illness that required repeated hospitalizations, the Neumann's financial life was precarious. The Nazis sent Trude and Richard to the Theresienstadt concentration camp where they died. Her body was burned.{Likewise her mother who died in 1907 was cremated-her ashes were lost by accident}
Trude's son (Herzl's only grandchild), Stephan Theodor Neumann (1918—1946) was sent to England, 1935, for his safety, at the request of his father Richard Neumann to the Viennese Zionists and the Zionist Executive in Palestine. The Neumann's deeply feared for the safety of their only child as rabid Austrian anti-Semitism expanded. In England, he read extensively about his grandfather. Zionism had not been a significant part of his background in Austria. Stephan became an ardent Zionist. He was the only descendant of Theodor Herzl to be a Zionist. Anglicizing his name to Stephen Norman, during World War II, Norman enlisted in the British Army rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Artillery. In late 1945 and early 1946, he took the opportunity to visit the British Mandate of Palestine "to see what my grandfather had started." He wrote in his diary extensively about his trip. What impressed him the most was that there was a "look of freedom" in the faces of the children, not like the sallow look of those from the concentration camps of Europe. He wrote upon leaving Palestine, "My visit to Palestine is over... It is said that to go away is to die a little. And I know that when I went away from Erez Israel, I died a little. But sure, then, to return is somehow to be reborn.And I will return."
Norman planned to return to Palestine following his military discharge. The Zionist Executive, through Dr. L.Lauterbach had worked for years to get Norman to come to Palestine. He would be the symbol of Herzl returing.
Operation Agatha of June 29, 1946, precluded that possibility: British military and police fanned out throughout Palestine and arrested Jewish activists. About 2,700 individuals were arrested. July 2, 1946, Stephen wrote to Mrs. Stybovitz-Kahn in Haifa. Her father, Jacob Kahn, had been a good friend of Herzl and a well know Dutch Banker before the war. Stephen wrote "I intend to go to Palestine on a long visit in the future, in fact as soon as passport & permit regulations permit. But the dreadful news of the last two days have done nothing to make this easier."
He never did return to Palestine.
Demobilized from the British army in late spring 1946, without any money, or job and despondent about his future, Norman followed the advice of the Dr. Selig Brodetsky. Norman secured, through influence, a very desirable, but minor position with the British Economic and Scientific mission in Washington, D.C. in late August 1946. Shortly after arriving in Washington he learned that his family had been exterminated. Norman had reestablished contact with his old nanny in Vienna, Wuth who informed him of what happened. Norman became deeply depressed over the fate of his family and his inability to help the Jewish people "languishing" in the European camps. Unable to endure the suffering any further, he jumped to his death from the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge in Washington, D.C., November 26, 1946. Norman was buried by the Jewish Agency in Washington, D.C. His tombstone read simply, 'Stephen Theodore Norman, Captain Royal Artillery British Army, Grandson of Theodor Herzl, April 21, 1918 - November 26, 1946'. Norman was the only member of Herzl's family to have been a Zionist, been to Palestine, and openly stated his desire to return.
After 61 years of forgetful neglect, he was reburied with his family on Mt. Herzl, in the Plot for Zionist Leaders, December 5, 2007."A Zionist who deserves to come home", by Jerry Klinger, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 12, 2003. Crash Course in Jewish History Part 63 - Modern Zionism at www.aish.com
In Jerusalem, on Mt. Herzl, the Stephen Norman garden/park is being completed in Stephen's honor and memory. It will be the only memorial in the world to a Herzl, other than to Theodor Herzl. The Stephen Norman garden/park will be dedicated May, 2011 by the Jerusalem Foundation, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.