 His own father was a Bohemian Jew, and his wife, Helena's grandmother, was Jewish.He later served as Minister-Counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C.Her maternal grandmother, Baroness Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper class Jewish family; she was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French banker descended from the Ephrussi family and the Fould dynasty) and Marie-Cécile von Springer (whose father was Austrian-born industrialist Baron Gustav von Springer, and whose mother was from the de Koenigswarter family).