The Kirschner-Moszcowiczs were a prominent Viennese family whose lives were upended by the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938. Ludwig Moszcowicz was a well-known doctor who pioneered a number of surgical techniques and until 1914 was chief surgeon at the Rudofinerhaus. His wife Elisabeth (Else) was director of nurses at the same institution. Her father, Otto Benndorf, was an Austrian archaeologist who supervised the excavation of Ephesus (Turkey).

Otto Benndorf (1838-1907) was born in Greiz, Germany in 1838. He studied archaeology under Professor Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868) at the University of Bonn. In 1869 he was appointed as professor of archaeology at the University of Zurich, and later on in Munich and Prague. He became a professor at the University of Vienna in 1878 where he founded the Archaeology and Epigraphy departments, and in 1898 he founded the Austrian Archaeological Institute. In 1893 he began the excavation of Ephesus, continuing the work of John Turtle Wood. In 1869 he married Sophie Wagner, daughter of the physiologist Rudolf Wagner.

Ludwig and Else Moszcowicz had two children, Heidi and Otto. In the late 1930s Heidi graduated from medical school at the University of Vienna and married a fellow student, Franz Kirschner. As the Nazi invasion of Austria loomed in April 1938, the couple fled to join Franz's parents in Zurich. Several months later they secured a visa to the United States. After settling in Seattle, both Kirschners had long and successful medical careers.