Hella Maria Hochstadter Holman Memoir - University of Illinois ...

University of Illinois at Springfield
Norris L Brookens Library
Archives/Special Collections
Hella Maria Hochstadter Holman
Memoir
H735. Holman, Hella Maria Hochstadter, b.1914
Interview and Memoir
3 tapes, 240 mins., 66 pp.
Holman recalls her early years while growing up in Berlin, Germany, her parents,
and the changes that occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler; moving to the
United States, her marriage to Dr. John Holman in 1938, moving to Springfield,
and her children Andrew and Robert. Holman recalls her childhood passion for
the arts that remained with her throughout her life. She discusses her roles as
President of the Springfield Art Association, President of the Springfield
Symphony Guild, and longtime member of the Springfield Symphony Board.
Interview by Eugenia Eberle, 1994
Gift of Eugenia Eberle, 2005.
OPEN
Archives/Special Collections LIB 144
University of Illinois at Springfield
One University Plaza, MS BRK 140
Springfield IL 62703-5407
© 1994, University of Illinois Board of Trustees

THE MEMOIRS OF
. . . .
HELLA MARIA HOCHSTADTER HOLMAN

PREFACE
This manuscript is the product of tape-recorded interviews
conducted by Eugenia Eberle for the Sangamon State University
Archives, fall of 1994.
Hella Maria Hochstadter Holman was born November 28, 1914 in
Berlin. At that time, Imperial Germany. An only child, her
father was a consulting engineer with Siemans-Schuckert until the
Second World War at which time he became a military man. Hella
thoughtfully touches on her carefree childhood of vacations
throughout Europe's treasured old world hideaways and elaborates
on the abrupt changes brought upon her family during Hitlerls war
in Germany. Early exposure to the arts and performers has
remained her style throughout her life. A civic leader in
Springfield, she was President of the Springfield Art
Association, President of the Springfield Symphony Guild and a
longtime member of the Springfield Symphony Board.
She is the wife of Dr. John Holman, now retired from his private
family practice in Springfield, and has two grown children,
Andrew, a Real Estate Developer in Denver, Colorado and Robert, a
Cardiologist living in Pocatello, Idaho.
Eugenia Eberle was raised in Haverford, Pennsylvania where she
earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Virginia.
Her interest in journalism led her to write for the Arab News
while living in Riyadh Saudi Arabia for six years with her
husband, now Professor of Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery at SIU.
Mother of four grown children, her civic interests and
involvement in museum studies subsequently led her toward an
interest in oral history at Sangamon State University where she
has returned to further her education toward a masters degree in
Public History.
Readers of this oral history memoir should bear in mind that it
is a transcript of the spoken word and that the interviewer,
narrator, and editor sought to preserve the informal
conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources.
Sangamon State University is not responsible for the factual
accuracy of the memoir, nor for views expressed therein; these
are for the reader to judge.
The manuscript may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not
be reproduced in whole or impart by any means, electronic or
mechanical without permission in writing from the Sangamon State
university Archives, Springfield, ~llinois, 62708.

CATALOGUE
Holman, Hella Maria Hochstadter (1914 - )
Holman recalls her early years while growing up in Berlin,
her parents, the changes that occurred in Germany under
Adolf Hitler, moving to the United States, her marriage to
Dr. John Holman in 1938, moving to Springfield, and her
children Andrew and Robert. During her childhood, Holman
developed a passion for the arts that remained with her
throughout her life. She discusses her roles as President
of the Springfield Art Association, President of the
Springfield Symphony Guild, and longtime member of the
Springfield Symphony Board.
Project: Hella Maria Hochstadter Holman Memoir
Interviewed by Eugenia Eberle January 18, February 4,
April 11, 21, 1994
Terms: Open Length: 4 hours
66 pages

January 18, 28, February 4, April 11, 21, 1994. Interview with
Hella Maria ~Zchstsdter Holman in her home at 31 Tophill Lane,
Springfield, Illinois, 62704.
Eugenia Eberle, Interviewer
Today is January 18th, 1994. Probably the coldest day of the
year at 20 degrees below with the wind chill factor of 20-40
degrees below.
Q. Hella, what is your christened name?
A. My christened name is Hella Maria Holman. Actually I was
Hella Maria ~zchstadter.
Q. When were you born?
A. I was born on November the 28, 1914.
Q. Where?
A. In Berlin. At that time it was Imperial Germany.
Q. Did you have any siblings?
A. No. I don't have any siblings. I was an only child much to
my regret. I would have loved to have had a brother or a sister.
Q. But you got a lot of attention as an only child.
A. Well yes, but the German children are not as indulged as the
American children are and that was especially true at the time
that I grew up because there was still a much stricter rule about
bringing up children than there is today. I think the German
children remind me very much of the American children when I go
to Germany because they are pampered. They are given much more
freedom. I did not have that because I had loving parents but I
had a strict upbringing.
Q. Your father was a military man?
A. My father, Otto, was not basically a military man. My father
was a consulting engineer and he was with Siemans-Schuckert which
is a big engineering firm with branches all over Germany but at
that time he was on loan. . .or let's say when the war broke out,
he was on loan to a big firm in Czechoslovakia and in Mahrisch
Ostrau which is now Ostrava Morava and he was the director of
that firm which was called the Bergrnan Werke, and because he was
a reserve officer, as soon as the war broke out, he was called to
duty as an officer.

Q. What year was that?
A. That was in 1914. The war broke out in August and I think it
was within that my father had to leave his position in
Czechoslovakia, it was then really Austria, for him to report to
his, what would you call it, to his station in Bavaria where he
had been an officer, where he was trained as a reserve officer.
He had been with the cavalry.
Q. Then you were born during his absence?
A. Yes, that's right. I was born in Berlin. My father was
already at the front at that time.
Q. So, your mother was a journalist?
A. My mother was a journalist, an early journalist really and at
first she started out as a reporter and the funny story is that
as her first assignment she had to stand on the street corner in
Berlin and count vehicles as they'd come by and I think my
grandparents were totally outraged that their daughter, a lady,
was supposed to stand at the street corner, counting vehicles.
That was one of her first assignments. Really very funny.
Q. Beginning at the bottom.
A. (Laugh) Ya that's right. Ya.
Q. Did you know your grandparents?
A. Oh very well because I was born in their home in Berlin.
They had moved to Berlin, maybe, in 1910 from Silesia where my
Grandfather had owned a factory and he. . .
Q. What kind of factory was that?
A. Well it's kind of hard to describe. They did do, what is it
called. Turn it off. They were doing military cloth but they
were dying military cloth. This was a large enterprise. He had
big assignments to dye military cloth. That was his big factory.
Q. Was there a name for the factory?
A. No, I do not remember. He owned it together with a partner,
a Mr. Von Morse. There's an interesting story actually that Mr.
Von Morse who was a noble man started to cheat apparently
regarding the cloth which was returned to the Army and my
grandfather then was the one accused of doing wrong and my
grandfather had fortress imprisonment for six months until Mr.
Von Morse committed suicide and the whole story came out. It's a
very interesting story actually.

Q. In the mean time, your mother was. . .
A. Well then my grandparents moved from Silesia. They were
living in a town by the name Gruenberg which was in lower
Silesia. My grandfather had been a Silesian and he came from
Lowenberg in Silesia and because Gruenberg was a relatively small
town, my grandmother who came from an excellent family in Poland
just couldn't stand it any more and for her sake my grandfather
moved to Berlin and bought a furniture factory.
Q. Did they take care of you while your mother worked?
A. No, my mother then became sort of a free lance writer after I
was born because this assignment on the street corner in Berlin
happened before she got married and she moved away when she got
married and then of course when I was born, she stayed home with
me. But she did some freelancing but not very much as that time
because, you know, it was war time and they were very busy after
a year or two providing food and milk and all these things
because there were tremendous shortages of everything during the
first world war.
Q. So then as you grew a little older she began to do more
journalism?
A. Oh yes, she did then after I was about a teenager, or before,
she always contributed to newspapers but mostly on a freelance
basis because she just didn't go to work. I mean this was not a
requirement and actually very few women of her status did. But
she always needed the outlet of writing.
Q. She was basically a journalist?
A. Yes, she was basically a journalist.
Q. Now, did she sell any of her free lancing?
A. Oh yes, she was paid for it but she did not write any books.
She wrote poetry, very nice poetry and she wrote articles,
observations of her life, you know and things like this.
Q. Was she involved in the arts?
A. In the arts?
Q. Did she write about the arts? What did she write about
besides poetry?
A. Actually, she wrote more about the human condition. She did
not write about the arts. She was not as art conscious at the
time before she married my father and really she was never as art
interested as I have become or my father was.

Q. That's my question because you are definitely interested in
the arts. Let's go back though. What are your earliest memories
of Germany?
A. My earliest memories are really the last days of the war when
my grandfather held me in his arms on the balcony of the
apartment where we lived where soldiers were returning from the
war on the street below. It was a rather busy thoroughfare
between Berlin and Potsdam where we lived and my grandfather said
to me, "Hella, I want you to see what a defeated army looks like.
Yes, I do remember that, yes, and I was four years old. And I do
remember seeing very dishevelled men and otherwise very sad
looking bystanders on the street. That's all I remember.
Q. Total defeat.
A. Yes, total defeat.
Q. Did that do something to you. You think that made an
impression on you?
A. Yes, I think I never forgot it. It also pointed out to me
how my grandfather felt. He was not a hurrah patriot, he was a
very upstanding German citizen but I think he realized with many
other Germans that there was no chance for us to win, especially
once the Americans came in. It wasn't a dishonor this had
happened, he just meant to say that a defeated army is a very sad
thing and a defeated country is a tragic thing, but that could
have happened to any other country. He did not particularly see
the defeated Germany, he wanted me to see a defeated army. It
was, I think it was a philosophy behind it. That I would not
ever think all armies could win, or something to that effect. I
don't know, but it stayed with me the rest of my life.
Q. You think it's had an influence in your point of view?
A. Absolutely. And of course, I grew up in a very liberal
thinking family. My father, even though he was an officer also
had a very very, what should I say, healthy attitude towards the
whole thing.
Q. Broadminded?
A. Yes, broadrninded. And as a matter of fact, he was, according
to my mother, always astonished what we civilians went through in
Berlin in comparison to his status on the front because most of
the food was at the front and we lived on substitutes. I think
the family, my grandfather and grandmother, my mother and my
mother's brother who was at my birth fourteen, he was by that
time eighteen at the end of the war, and the maid, had one quart
of milk, the equivalent of one quart of milk for a week, so you
know, I never did get much milk and I never liked milk (Laugh) to

this day. Because I remember in the evening as my evening meal,
I got what they called Mehlbrei which was a gruel made of water
and flour and a little sugar poured on it and milk. That was my
evening meal and we were not poor people. It was just. . .it was
just. . .there was nothing there.
Q. Where Russia is today?
A. Yes, very much so. Then, of course, there was one other
factor in Germany during the war and towards the end of the war.
These black, what do you call them? Turn it off a minute. The
black market. Unbelievable. Can I tell you a funny story?
A very rotund man who looked as though he didn't suffer anything
came to the apartment of my grandparents and for awhile he would
bring things which they would buy and seemed to be okay. Well,
one day, he came with a big crock with what looked to be like
butter (cheese maybe?) Say he brought a crock of butter and my
grandmother was delirious with happiness and she bought it and
after she started to take off the top of the butter she found out
that underneath was nothing but sand. (Laughter) He sold a big
crock of sand with maybe an inch of butter on the top, but you
couldn't do anything about it because you could not really. . .
well we're not allowed to deal with black marketeers and so she
couldn't say he cheated us, and this is the way these people got
away without being punished for their dirty dealings.
Q. They made a lot of money?
A. They made a lot of money, yes.
Q. Your grandmother was from Duczek?
A. No. My grandmother was born in Bielitz Biala which was a
city which was very Polish in feeling but it was at that time
part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, but she came from a Polish
family and I think they spoke Polish most of the time and her
maiden name was Duczek. DUCZEK. The family graves are still in
Bielitz Biala because a cousin of mine went just before the
second world war and looked at it because he was interested in
family history more than I am. But my grandmother came from a
very very distinguished family and therefore it was very hard for
her to fit into, for instance, the life of a Gruenberg which was
a small town and very nasty about gossip and so on and so on and
when I told you about my grandfather's fate there, she just
couldn't tolerate it any more and he had to remove her from
Gruenberg because she, she would have died I think because she
was a very proud woman.
Q. Where did she go after that?
A. Well they went to Berlin.

Q. And was she happy there?
A. She was as happy as she could be. She was not a well woman
any more. I really think my grandmother suffered all her life
under a transplantation from one area to another. And she was a
lovely loving woman, really.
Q. How old were you when your grandparents died?
A. My grandparents died in the 1930's. My grandmother died in
1930 and my grandfather, I believe, died in 1933. He was 76 and
she was only 69. She died after a long illness.
Q. Did your mother continue working at the paper then?
A. She worked again when we moved to Munich. Because when my
father was discharged from his duties as Army officer we went
back to his hometown, Munich.
Q. What kind of schools did you go to?
A. I went to a public school in Munich and to a high school.
Gymnasium they called it where I was taught English Latin and
Greek.
Q. Do you still know some of that?
A. I know some Latin but the Greek almost totally escapes me
because you know, if you don't keep it up. Well, you know. And
it was the classic Greek and it didn't do me much good when we
travelled in Greece later on because it changed so much. But
then I attended the University of Munich but only as a . . .I
audited it. There will be some stories later on I can tell you.
Q. You have a very keen interest in the Arts and are
knowledgeable in both music and art. Did you play an instrument
when you were young?
A. I did play a piano and I had nice instruction, first from a
basic teacher and then yes, I had instruction, as a matter of
fact, from a teacher who probably liked the Orff method. For
instance Carmina Burana is one of his compositions, but she was
an Orff admirer because she believed in having me, not only
playing the piano rhythmically, but had me walk around the room
to clap hands in order to get a certain rhythm out of it. And I
think she was an Orff student.
Q. How old were you when you began these piano lessons?
A. I was only six or seven. In Munich. That was in Munich.

Orff lived in Munich. One of my classmates married Orff in her
first marriage.
Q. When did you meet Jack? While you were in school or after
school?
A. I met him during the summer of 1937 when I was attending
University. I met him unrelated to his or my studies.
Q. Back to your childhood. What do you remember most vividly
about celebrations, Christmas, say?
A. Well what I most remember is. . . of course, after we left
Berlin because my father moved back to Munich and opened a
consulting engineering firm, I remember. . .
Q. Do you remember the name of this firm?
A. Well it was Otto ~:chst;dter. It was his own firm you see.
He started his own business. But of course I do remember Munich
as being a very colorful city also beset by lots of problems
after the first world war.
Q. He must have been very busy?
A. Busy?
Q. As an engineer, reconstructing. . .
A. There was not the damage as after the Second World War?
There was of course a feast for engineers. No, Munich had hardly
been touched by the war and most of the German cities were
untouched after the First World War. The war played itself out
along the western front and part in Roumania and Russia. No,
there was no visible damage. The damage in Berlin occurred
during the Revolution. I think we should talk about this because
I do remember when my father returned from the front, he took me
on a walk to show me what a Revolution is like.
Q. How old were you then?
A. Four or five.
Q. Well tell me about it.
A. I tell you about it because we walked through some street
where windows had been smashed and I do remember somebody
throwing out a chandelier. (Chuckle) Throwing a chandelier out
of a window. And having the shards of window panes lying on the
street and everything seemed awfully grey. This was the fall of
1919 and, again, my father also said to me, "You must see what a
Revolution is like." My grandfather talked about the defeat in
the war, the defeated army and my father talked about the

Revolution in order to open my eyes that it wasn't all a
sheltered life. I think this is what they were trying to tell
me.
Q. Would it have hardened you a little bit?
A. It didn't harden me but it gave me an early insight into
life as it could be. I don't think that inspite of the fact that
I was partly a dreamer that I was ever unaware that there were
lives other than myself and that I was not going to be self
centered.
Q. They wanted to expose you to hardship?
A. To hardship or to not to think of myself as being very
important. That can work for or against you. In some way it
worked against me because I was always very very modest and very
shy. I did not assert myself and I believe that I didn't start
to assert myself until I was maybe in my forties.
Q. Do you call yourself a late bloomer?
A. ( Laughter) I don't know whether you call it blooming or not
but it really awakened me early that there were other things in
life which were beyond our control first of all and secondly that
there were things which were very ugly and yet you could still
maintain a certain innocence. Innocence about life in spite of
it.
Q. They wanted you to be realistic?
A. Yes, realistic. You know my relationship with my father was
first a little difficult because he was gone most of the time
when I was a baby and a toddler. He was a little rough because
he came from the front and didn't know how to deal with a little
girl but our relationship became very very close over the years
and I owe him a lot in regard to my appreciation to art and in my
appreciation of nature. I really felt that my father has done a
great deal for me in that respect.
Q. He was a sensitive man?
A. Yes he was, even though he had a seemingly rough exterior and
my grandmother always feared when he came because he would toss
me in the air and she thought he was going to kill me, but he
didn't. (chuckle) No, we were very very close, and I was close
to my mother but my relationship to each one had it's special
flavor and so I remember them both with great love.
Q. Your mother died only several years ago?

A. No my mother, well she died twenty years ago. She died in
1974 and she died here in Springfield at St John's Hospital. She
had gotten bad doses of blood. She died of cirrhosis of the
liver which was induced by a blood transfusion. Yes.
Q. What did you do on vacations as a child?
A. In Germany? Well, every year my father shipped us out of
Munich to a summer resort. These are my happiest memories. We
were gone for six or eight weeks and he installed us either in a
Hotel or in a pension near Munich so that he could always. . .in
the mountains. . . so that he could always come on weekends. He
would spend Friday, Saturday, Sunday with us and left again on
Monday. So I had very happy memories of my childhood vacations.
Q. From the pictures that I've seen, you haven't really changed
much. You've had a tremendous joy of living all your life and
always many people around you. Full of fun.
A. Yes, yes. Well, I liked people who had a good sense of
humor, but I cannot agree that I was always surrounded by a lot
of people because I also need solitude and besides, as an only
child in a one child family, you do not create that kind of
excitement as for instance in my girl friend's home where she had
three brothers, I loved to visit her for that reason because
there was always something going on in that family and then I had
another friend with just one brother but it wasn't the same. I
loved that multi-faceted family where the brothers were kind of
rowdy and they were very nice with me but still rowdy and we had
a very good time. Yes. I did have a good time and I can't say
that I was ever deprived of happiness as a child and as a
teenager.
Q. You read a lot?
A. I did a lot of reading and, as I say, Munich of course,
offered a great deal because it was a city with lots of art
galleries and a lot of theater. I was very early exposed to the
theater, not only by my parents but also by the school system.
They would give us theater productions to which we were asked to
go. . .the tickets were provided by the school so that we would
learn all about the classic dramas and so on and my parents
started to take me to the Opera when I was very young. I think I
was ten years old when I attended the first Opera which was an
Opera by Hans Pfitzner. There was another little story which I
have to relate. The woman who sang Christelflein. . .it was
called . . . I have to spell it for you, it's never given here.
Christelflein. It's really a Christ-elf or something like this.
And I do not remember the story really but Pfitzner was a well
known Munich composer and he's quite well known. . .known well
enough, let's put it that way, but I think very little is being
performed by him. He wrote the Opera, Palestrina which I think

has been given in the east coast because some of those conductors
may have performed it.
Q. And, what about the Opera?
A. The main role was sung by an acquaintance of my mother and
she had met her through a friend of hers, a lawyer. I must tell
you the story because this Christelflein was very alive and very
graceful and she was barefoot on the stage, and after the Opera,
we were supposed to meet her at a hotel in Munich near the Opera
House and we first met her mutual friend, the lawyer, who was a
friend of my mothers and really the love, I think, of the singer
and then the singer appeared and she used the worst language
because she had to be barefoot and she said that the floor was so
ice cold that she was sure to have gotten a very bad cold, but
the disillusionment of meeting Christelflein which had been so
wonderful on the stage in the hotel lobby (where she was so mean
spirited) was also a perplexing thing for me but it taught me
early that what they are performing on the stage isn't what they
really are. (What you see isn't always what you get). This is
why I was always laughing about Ingrid Bergman and the
disillusionment she gave to the American public. She played Joan
of Arc and then suddenly had illegitimate children by Rosselini.
I could say to some of them I learned very early that what they
seemed on the stage, they aren't in real life. It meant in most
instances.
Q. You became wiser!
A. I became wiser, and yet I was a child. I played with dolls
for many years. I think I still played with dolls when I was
eleven or twelve.
Q. So you have a keen imagination?
A. I do have a keen imagination but I also have an awareness and
not too many illusions. Unfortunately I don't have illusions
about people anymore. This is bad and this is where I differ
very much from the Americans who are full of illusions or at
least they are pretending to have illusions.
Q. Americans, on the whole, have had a pampered life.
A. A pampered life but also want to be cheated, in my opinion in
regard to characteristics. I notice that over and over again. .
. can you. . .
Q. I notice on your signature that you've left out ~Zchstzdter?
A. Well, I really don't use my maiden name now. My mother used
to use another name when she worked for the newspaper. She would
write Olga Hayn ~6chstsdter. Hayn was her maiden name but her

middle name or middle initial for her given name was Olga
Leopoldine Hayn ~ochstsdter. In Germany, you see, you could not
get a name which was, for instance, as a middle name or middle
initial. . . well as a middle initial it would be acceptable but
as a middle name or any given name you can not give the name of a
family. You have to have either a Christian or an Old Testament
name which is acceptable to the civil register, but it may have
changed now, I'm not sure, but I remember when my grandfather
went to register me because I was born in my grandparents' home,
he had to go the Municipal Building to register me. And my
mother said "You know, we want to name the child after
grandmother Hayn, and again after grandmother ~gchs~adter and you
know her name?" and he said "Of course I know her name. So she
didn't repeat it. When he came home, he showed the signature,
and it was Hella Maria. My mother said to him "well I know where
Hella comes from. My grandmother's name was Helen, Helena you see
but she said "where's Maria from?" and he said that's
grandmother ~&hst&'&ter's name." "No, absolutely not. Her name
is Clara." So, in a way, I'm lucky my grandfather made a mistake
because Hella Clara didn't sound too good. (Laughter) Maybe it
was a Freudian slip, I don't know, but he didn't get scolded very
hard because Hella Maria is much nicer sounding than Hella
Clara, don't you think so? You have no opinion. But I do not
use my maiden name, ever, here. No. But I could get started.
Also when I write to the newspaper, I had this letter in the
newspaper, I use my married name.
Q. Before you left, we talked briefly about Ingrid Bergman and
your early awakening about the realities of life?
A. Well, what they are acting out is not what they are.
Q. Have you done any acting, being interested in the theater?
A. No. I was interested in the theater but very superficially.
I really didn't want to do any acting, no, I really didn't.
Q. Did you ski?
A. I skied as a young girl, not as a child, well as a young girl
from maybe fourteen, fifteen on but I skied some, enjoyed it. It
was hard work in those days because we didn't have any lifts to
take us up. We had to walk up, either with the skis, we had
something to put on the bottom of the skis. Skis were very hard,
no very heavy wooden skis. I think, what is it now, plastic?
Q . Fiberglass
A. Fiberglass yes, so it was hard work to get up to the mountain
or to the hut from where we were skiing down and. . . but it was
enjoyable at the time. I have never done it again since I lived
in this country.

Q. Were you sports minded?
A. Not really. I liked to swim and loved to hike. That was my
thing. But. . .
Q. Have you done any writing? Do you like to write as your
mother did? And poetry?
A. Oh yes, I like to write. I've done a lot of writing.
Q. And poetry?
A. No, no. No poetry. I try it but I'm not good. My mother was
the poet and she did beautifully. I do like to write and I did
write for the German language paper in New York. I was the
associate editor for the Sunday Supplement and I did that for
four years.
Q. Sunday Supplement?
A. Sunday supplement for the Staats Herold which was a German
language paper. The oldest German language paper in this
country.
Q. I noticed that your father wore a monocle.
A. Yes, when he was an officer. Later on when he wore glasses.
A monocle is just a status symbol.
Q. You mean there's no correction in it?
A. There is a correction but I mean I'm saying that he really
didn't wear the monocle other than to show off who he was.
Q. Were you impressed with his monocle?
A. NO I wasn't. (chuckle)
Q. Did he ever lose it?
A. Oh I'm sure he did but later on he only wore glasses.
Rimless glasses most of the time.
Q. Jack looks very much like him.
A. Did you say this? Yes, you said this. It's astounding.
Somebody else said this but I can't remember who it was and you
know some times when we are riding in somebody's car and Jack
sits in front of me to the right, I also get this impression that
he looks a lot like my father. At least some line in his cheek
and his jawbone, and I don't know why because I certainly didn't

marry him because he seemed like my father.
Q. You don't think so? A lot of daughters do.
A. Yes, I understand that some do and some women marry older
men for the reason that they feel more protected but in this
case, Jack is seven years older than I am. I don't think so, but
it is strange you are right in some way.
Q. Well, they both wore moustaches. Perhaps that's the
resemblance.
A. That's right. (chuckle)
Q. Tell me a little bit about your vacations. Where were they?
A. Well as I said the vacations were great. We spent vacations
in the ~llgau, a mountain range which divides the lake of
Constance to Bavaria, and then we had a wonderful vacation at the
Tegern See. But the best vacations we had were at the Schliersee
which was a Hotel called the Finsterlin, (spells it out) and that
was the happiest vacation I had because it was a hotel right at
the lake front. I learned to swim there. It was in 1926 and
there were lots of young children my age and there were dances at
night and I started to be allowed to dance at least one or two
dances with those young boys who were maybe thirteen or fourteen.
And I also met, by accident, my girlfriend's later husband who
was vacationing nearby. He came from a very boisterous and fun
loving family, so we did have a very good time and I think I won
a prize with him, dancing. (chuckle) I mean, it was just all
fun because I was only eleven years old. I was not half as
mature as the eleven years old are today.
END SIDE ONE; TAPE ONE
And hike up mountains with me. It is undescribable for me to be
up in the mountains again because I will always remember the
wonderful air, the wonderful feeling of being high up and to hear
the bells of the cows which were grazing around. That is so
melodious. This is something you cannot reproduce. I think
Gustav Mahler tried it once in one of his symphonies but it's
just a sham of what is really like because all the cows have
different bells and when they are moving around, these cowbells
are moving around, it gives you a symphony all its own. Just
beautiful. And the whole atmosphere in the mountains is
indescribably lovely that I always would like to go back and do
this but today it is so different because there are roads leading
up to almost all the points where we hiked up and all the places
where we stayed or where we had lunch or whatever are now just
clustered with people. It is just an entirely different world.
It is open to everybody and yet the enjoyment is much less for
the other people too because here you had solitude and yet you

could converse with somebody quietly sitting on a grassy knoll
and look to the distance and see the other peaks of mountains and
nobody would disturb you. Now you can't do that anymore. I
tried it and just doesn't work any more. For some reason. It's
a big disillusionment.
Q. It's commercial?
A. Yes, it's too commercial. Yes, and jet travel has brought
more people from everywhere and of course the roads are cluttered
with cars. It is just an entirely different thing.
Q. Population explosion?
A. Population explosion of which I am talking since 1957, I
think. And very few people even want to admit that there is such
a thing. And I do feel sorry for future generations which have
to live with that because it will be even worse, say, in fifty
years from now because people will be fighting for a glass of
water, in my opinion.
Q. I agree with you. It is a big problem.
A. It is a big problem.
Q. Do you think our environment is changing very quickly now?
A. I am sure the environment is changing very quickly. We are
becoming more aware of the ecology. For instance when I grew up,
I wasn't as much aware of the balance of ecology and that there
is such a thing as a balance. The moment where the balance was
destroyed, this is. . .or when it was starting to be destroyed,
people became aware of it. But, yes, I think what they are doing
to nature, for instance, when we moved to Springfield, a drive
out on Jacksonville Road put you immediately into the country.
There were barely any houses. We went out to the Barringers and
there were very few houses along the way. Now you have one subdivision
after the other and the country feeling has been
destroyed. Absolutely. And this is true on all sides and
Springfield had one benefit. You could be out of the city within
minutes and be out in the country, whether it was beautiful or
not. It was the country. You don't have that anymore. It is
all subdivisions and some of them are not too beautiful.
Q. Itls a lot of greed as well. A business.
A. Of course it is greed. Business, yes it is. And we're
supposed to have city planning or country planning here. I don't
see anything of it. I think in a moment when you pay somebody
off, you get a new subdivision in. A shopping mall. It's
pitiful. And similar things are happening over there (Europe)
except it isn't as easy to acquire a piece of land because you
have to go through the Mayor of the city. I remember a cousin of

mine, who in the mean time has died, who wanted to buy a piece of
land to build a house on. It's in Wuerttemberg, near the Black
Forest, and in order to get this land, he had to go through the
Mayor, then there was a commission which allotted him this piece
of ground which was a small piece of ground, but he could not
just go out and buy it and build on it. He had to have
permission from the Mayor and the Mayor wanted to keep this town
within its borders and not make this a, what do you call it, a
mega town, or what ever.
Q. He wanted to keep the old world feeling in that town. When
was that?
A. This was after the war. Maybe in the late 60's that he
acquired this piece of land because I think in 1970, wait a
minute. . .maybe in the early seventies because we were there to
see it in 1975 or 76 to see the house, and it was very nice, and
see the ground. There was very little growth in that town. It
was a very pretty town. Muehldorf. (spelled out) It's on the
Danube. . As a matter of fact it is very close to the origin of
the Danube River.
Q. During the sixties, did you see a large change in Germany.
Was it growing as fast as it is here?
A. No, not as fast then as here but now I can see the
difference. It's tremendous.
Q. Gaining momentum?
A. Yes, gaining momentum and they have. . .for instance, Munich
which was a city of six hundred thousand when I left is now a
city of nearly two million, you know. But of course, this is now
fifty years, or more than fifty years. But they also built these
satellite towns which have their own government or management but
they are adjacent to Munich and create a tremendous traffic
problem. And ~unich is now being surrounded by these different
by-passes. Oh my goodness, there's an inner ring, there's a
littler ring and there's an outer ring. It's just very
confusing.
Q. Do you remember any disasters as a child besides, of course,
the war?
A. There was a big railroad disaster, I remember and I think it
happened east of Munich and it really was quite a bad one. A
number of people killed. I remember it was very big but, of
course, there were so many more disasters later on.
Q. You have a lot of nostalgia for your childhood?
A. Yes, I do. I had a very protected and wonderful childhood, I

eally did and I have no quarrels with it whatsoever and I
really was brought up in a very stimulating and safe surrounding.
My father would take me to art galleries on Sunday or to museums
and sometimes he would take me along to meet one of his favorite
painters just to have me listen to their conversation.
Q. Who were some of these painters?
A. Kalman was one. Peter Kalman. We still have. . .he was a
Hungarian born painter. My father believed very much in him and
bought quite a bit of his art.
Q. So your father was an art collector?
A. My father was the art collector, yes. Then there was one by
the name of Buttersack (spelled it out). We have some of his
paintings and he was a naturalist. Kalman was more of a genre
painter. He did beautiful human figures and the clothing was
painted by an old Dutch painter. Well, Buttersack was a
landscape painter, and I remember we spent Sundays at his house
and he had a wonderful collection of little wooden villages and
animals and he allowed me to play with it.
Q. Do you remember. . .
A. And then we knew a painter by the name of Hummel. We still
have a few paintings by him. He did still lifes.
Q. Was this the same family of the Hummells? The figurines?
A. No, no Humrnel is a very frequent name. No, no he had nothing
to do with those Hummels.
Q. What about the writers? You talked about Thomas Mann?
A. Yes, Thomas Mann. Well I did not know him personally but I
did know his daughter. She was in a parallel class with me at
school and I do remember seeing him dropping her off in a
chauffeur driven car. Of course Thomas Mann lived like a king in
comparison to every one else because he married into a very
wealthy Jewish family.
Q. It wasn't only his writing that did it then?
A. No, no, because when he married his wife, he was, he knew he
would be sitting very pretty yes but, on the other hand, the Mann
family had lived in Munich for many years. After his father, the
Senator, died, his mother, for some reason, wanted to live in the
southern city because she was really partly Brazilian. The
mother of Thomas Mann was brought up and was of Portuguese
origin, partly. Also German. She had German blood and
Portuguese blood. We knew all kinds of people. We had a varied

circle of friends. For instance, there was an Opera singer by
the name of Rehkemper of whom I still have a recording. He was a
very good friend of my parents. (Spelled Rehkemper.) Then there
was an academy professor by the name of Eduard Bach who was a
pianist. His son was a dramatist and he was. . .actually the
friendship with the academy professor came about in a very funny
way and I can tell you this too. With his son Rudolph Bach.
Shall I tell it to you?
My mother and I were at a resort in Berchtesgaden after I'd
had a bad case of bronchitis, and I think I was only five or five
and a half. We spent several weeks there in order to help me get
over the bronchitis and at the same time, the son of Bach,
Rudolph Bach also was recovering from an illness. He was
nineteen, and he was there with his grandmother and his
grandmother and my grandmother became friendly and he was very
nice to me because I sort of appealed to him as a little child.
When it got very nice and warm, we went out into the field and
played. . .I was the shepherd, (chuckle) and he was the sheep or
something. He played the sheep and he started apparently to eat
the grass and so, during the night he got a terrible diarrhea.
(chuckle) His mother was wondering where he got the diarrhea
from and he said he was the cow or the sheep and he ate the grass
because Hella was the shepherd. She said "You didn't have to eat
the grass." He said he didn't want to take the illusion away
from her. Chuckled, I think that's a wonderful story. Suffering
diarrhea because he didn't want to disillusion me.
Q. Sounds to me as though everyone has been trying to keep you
from being too disillusioned.
A. Well anyway then after we all came back to Munich he always
said, "You've got to meet my parents." I mean he said this to my
mother and of course my parents and his parents became very good
friends and his father was a very well known pianist and he gave
me some lessons too later on when I was eighteen, nineteen or
twenty years old and I had another funny experience with his
father because his father would call me from time to time and ask
me to take a walk with him and because he felt lonely, he liked
to walk and there was this Nymphenburger Schloss with a beautiful
park surrounding it and he would call me up and we would meet
near the Schloss and then take a walk in the late afternoon and
talk about music and musicians and one day we saw a bicyclist
approaching us in the park and he said, " That must be Prince
Ludwig Ferdinand of the House of Wittelsbacher and I want to
introduce him when he comes." Well Prince Ludwig got off his
bicycle when he saw Professor Bach and he said "Hello Bach" and
Professor Bach "Hello your Highness, I think he said, and Ludwig
Ferdinand "Did you know that Cosima Wagner died today." She was
the widow of Richard Wagner, and Bach said " No, I didn't know,
that is interesting. Did you hear it on the radio?" "Yes, I
heard it on the radio." Then he said, "I don't know what Richard

Wagner saw in her. She was such an ugly woman." But he said it
in his Bavarian dialect because it sounded very funny and with
this he got back on his bike and drove off. He would have been
the only one allowed to ride a bicycle in the park because he
lived right there near the castle.
Q. The only one allowed?
A. Ya, ya because this is 'his' property. Bavarian state
property and you cannot ride a bicycle in the park. There were
no paths for bicycle riding but since he was the Prince of the
House of Wittelsbach, he could ride the bike.
Q. In his own private park!
A. It was very funny because. . . He said this in such a funny
Bavarian accent. And really Cosima Wagner was very much like a
bird. She had this big nose and very thin face. Nobody could
understand what he saw in her. Well he saw in her the daughter
of Franz Liszt. Cosima Wagner was the daughter of Liszt.
Illegitimate daughter of Liszt as a matter of fact.
Q. Do you have a favorite composer?
A. Actually I don't have one favorite. I love Schubert and his
song cycles. The winter Reise and the Mueller Lieder. I have
wonderful memories and I still love to hear them when they are
sung well and I think only German singers can sing these cycles
very well and then of course, my other favorite is Bruckner.
Anton Bruckner. He wrote nine symphonies or ten symphonies I
think, and I'm very fond of Bruckner. But I cannot say that I
favor him over others too much, but I always recognize Bruckner
and always love to hear Schubert.
Q. Did you hear these early in your life. Do you think they
have something to do with your nostalgic sentiment?
A. Yes, I do. I knew this baritone Rehkemper, I mentioned him
before, but he was a very fine baritone and then I had very great
love friend who was a singer but he sang a lot of Strauss,
Richard Strauss, but, I mean my love for music was developed very
early because of the exposure to it. There was no problem in
going to the Opera, going to the concerts. It was all there.
Munich was full of it.
Q. And your family took advantage of it?
A. And my family took advantage of it. Most Germans are very
musical and great music lovers and another thing, even the common
man in Munich or in Germany is interested in art. This is
something which had only been developed in the last thirty years
in this country because there are still men who are afraid to go

to an art exhibit because they are afraid to be called a sissy.
It's ridiculous.
Q. What do you find different between the German man and the
average American man?
A. The average American man? Too sport interested. I mean it's
to me a sign of utter nothing to read the sport pages and sit in
front of the tube and watch baseball, football, and basketball
games. I mean for hours on end. I just never. . .
Q. But the Germans have soccer and. . .
A. Yes, they have soccer but I really think the American non
culture has impressed itself on the European mind. I'm not only
talking about the German, but I think that the lifestyles and the
manifestations of what is in and what is out has become very much
like here. I do think the Americans are guilty of transporting
this to Europe.
Q. Is it possible that the Germans have come here and seen a
little more awakening and taken it back with them? Have the
Germans come here and seen something maybe that they were
missing?
A. Life was so hard for the Germans you know, between the First
and the Second World War that there was little chance for play
because they were out of work and were desperate or if they were
working, they were working very hard. Then after the second
world war, the reconstruction of Germany took every man, woman
and child and also brought two million foreigners because it
needed to be done fast. The Germans are very impatient people
and I think this is one characteristic I have inherited. I just
don't like to wait for something, but I hate to be standing in a
line (chuckle) but they knew it had to be reconstructed fast
otherwise they would be living among ruins for decades. It is
amazing. I saw Germany for the first time in 1947 when I wasn't
even allowed officially to see it but I did manage to get in. It
was the most devastating experience.
Q. When did you leave Germany?
A. In 1937. And I saw it for the first time in 1947.
Q. So you saw a big change?
A. Change? It was a devastated country. It was unbelievable to
see how much damage the war had done and I saw it two years after
it was all over. Munich was unrecognizable, practically. I had
a friend who drove me into Munich and I wept. As we came into
Munich, I couldn't believe what I saw. Nothing but ruins and
nothing but torn up streets and a few trolley cars were working

and people were hanging on to them like grapes to a. . . they
were clustering outside, practically on the roof in order to have
some transportation. But the worst was the absolutely shadeless
city scape of destroyed buildings. I did write some articles
about it in German and I translated and am still looking for this
translation. Well I could give you a better example of what I
felt because it was an unbelievable experience.
Q. How did they rebuild it? ~idn't they try to replace it to
duplicate it?
A. One Museum left in Munich was the Army Museum. Did you ever
get to Munich? Yes. Well it was at the end of the official
courtyard, the Hofgarten. And this building was left in ruin and
during the last two years they were using it and reconstructing
it and making it into an administration building. It is so
terrible. I wish they would have left the ruin because it was
something to remind people of what they had done to the world and
what had been done to them. It would have been much better to
leave it as a ruin because it was the background for a war
memorial for the First World War and that war memorial was the
most impressive memorial eventhough there were a lot of people
who didn't think it did the soldiers any justice. But I always
thought it was beautiful and in the back of it was the Army
Museum which was partly destroyed and it should have been left
this way. Why they built this huge, neo-renaissance building
which is so massive and so graceless.
Q. What do they call it?
A. I don't know exactly. The Army Museum.
Q. And what did they do with this Museum?
A. They had armament in former years but it was empty because it
was partially destroyed. They couldn't use it at all. And as I
say, it was a fabulous background for that memorial.
Q. What's in it?
A. It was a neo classical building and it contained cannons and
whatever armaments. It was an army museum and was destroyed in
the Second World War and has been left destroyed until about two
years ago when they decided. . . yes, and that's okay because in
Berlin the famous church is left as a destroyed building. . .
What church is that?
A. MMM. What church is this? The Gedaechtnis Kirche
is left destroyed. And it's good to remind people of all the
horrors of war. There is a church in Cologne which is still left
destroyed and it should be that way and the Germans, the Munich

people should have left it destroyed. They've built a terrible
building there now in stead of it. They used part of it and then
they expanded it with two wings. And as I say, it's sort of a
neo classical or neo renaissance. It's utterly. . . I don't like
it. It's too massive.
Q. When you were still a young girl, you had some sort of a party
didn't you? The coming out party?
A. The coming out party occurred in my father's fraternity. My
father belonged to a fencing fraternity which only the upper
class belongs to and when you are seventeen years old, you are to
begin coming out where there's a ball. The young men who are
members of the fraternity come and call on the family to invite
you to participate in the season. You know this is a whole
season which starts in maybe October-November and goes through
April. There are a number of balls and I was invited to this one
and to another one, to another fraternity but it isn't as it is
in Springfield, I mean the United States. It's not a costly
affair where parents sponsor the ball. No, being introduced to
society means that you are being invited to one of these
festivities and then, you know, if you have some social standing,
you will invite young couples, or young men or young women to
have a dance at your house, or something like that.
Q. This is in Germany?
A. Yes, this is in Munich over in Germany.
Q. Yes, customs may be blending more now but when you were a
child this is how they presented one to society?
A. This is the way it was. I don't think that they have the
coming out as they have it here (in the states). I don't think it
has ever been taken on. I know bridal customs have changed but
not these customs.
Q. This was about 1931?
A. I think it was in 1931.
Q. After this particular era in your life, you did go to the
University and studied a lot of art history?
A. I studied a lot of Art History, mostly Renaissance and Dutch
paintings, and we had some very good lecturers at the University
of Munich and I was very interested in that, of course but I
still didn't know exactly what I wanted to do.
Q. Did you have any favorites?
A. I did like the Dutch School very much at that time, of

course, and I still admire the Dutch School but I also liked the
Florentine School. The Renaissance painters. . .that is hard to
say.
Q. Are you influenced at all by any of these artists?
A. No, I really wasn't. At least not in that time. Maybe later
on. But what influenced me were the events in the early 20's
which happened probably to all of us in Germany. My father was
very particular about mother and me having good meals, better
than in Berlin because Berlin had such shortage. His parents
lived in Salzburg and occupied a farmhouse in the summer near
Salzburg where there was plenty of food. I must say the Austrian
and German farmers were very skimpy in letting go of food and
therefore you either had to barter with them or become real good
friends with them and I think during one summer, maybe two
summers, my mother and I stayed at the Sternhof which was near
Salzburg and I was a rather heavy little child I think because
when we crossed back from Austria to Germany, the customs
official looked at me thought that my mother had put contraband
on me underneath my dress because in those days, for instance
there was a high duty on cigarettes, on cigars, on sugar, on
coffee, and when they saw me they thought this child was carrying
something on her body which she shouldn't, so over my mother's
protest, took me in a dressing room and undressed me. That was
only when I was four years old (chuckle) and of course I had
nothing on me, I just was a fat little girl and in protest, I
peed in my pants because I was so afraid. My mother wasn't
present so when my mother saw that I had wet my pants, she took
them off and throw them on the railroad tracks. That was at the
railroad station in Salzburg and said "here, go and wash them
yourself." So that was the experience I had as a child because
they thought I carried something over that I shouldn't. There
was high duty, there was a lot of bellicose feeling even between
Austria and Germany in those times. The other thing was the
inflation. I remember one summer my mother and I were again as
we usually were sent by my father, to be in the country and I was
already a school child then, and I don't remember. I may have
been six or seven years old. I can't remember exactly. The
inflation raged on and I do remember every night my mother had to
call my father to ask him for more money because by the time the
evening arrived, ten thousand marks, a hundred thousand marks was
absolutely valueless. We stayed in an Inn, and every night I
went with a cigar box from table to table and collected the money
which had become totally valueless and I'm sorry I did not keep
the money. I probably threw it away sometime or the box
disappeared, but I had millions of marks in my box. You can't
believe what the inflation did to us. The reparations, I know
now, the French and in England imposed these tremendous
reparations on Germany and the idea was lately spawned that
Germany developed the inflation in order to devalue the money
which was supposed to be given to those countries. You see, your

president Wilson was against the imposition of the reparations
and they did enormous harm to Germany and therefore after the
Second World War the Marshall Plan did so much good because it
helped the defeated country to get out of its doldrums. But you
cannot imagine, a loaf of bread or a roll was maybe one million
marks, two million marks. It is something which nobody here in
this country who hasn't lived through it will ever imagine. It
was an unbelievable spectacle, really. So I think I had to talk
about it because very seldom I think about the inflation as such
but I cannot forget my mother's frantic telephone calls to my
father because by the time he sent the money, it was probably
valueless.
Q. Why did you use the money from the cigar box then?
A. We couldn't use it anymore because by the evening, the value
of the money was gone. They kept on printing marks, you see. I
remember my father kept a diary and something which cost 750,000
marks was a dollar worth because my father had spent some time
during the turn of the century in the United States and he still
compared the dollar value to the mark value and besides, he had
two brothers who were living in the United States at that time.
They had been living in the United States since the early 1890's
or 1880's even, because he had this brother who was eleven years
older than he who had started a brewery in Seattle or in Everest,
I can't remember if it was Everest or Seattle. I believe it was
Seattle because the brewery was called the Mt. Rainier Brewery.
Q. Were people pawning their jewelry ?
A. In those days, no. But, I say in those days. For instance,
I can tell you that my grandfather, my mother's father who owned
the furniture factory, had been struggling because, during the
First World War, first of all, he lost workers to the Army and
people had other worries than buying furniture so he had pretty
tough going during the First World War. Then things started to
go a little better, then the inflation came and he called my
father, I remember not the conversation but what my mother told
me, that my grandfather called my father and said, "Imagine,
people are starting to buy furniture like mad. And my father
said to her father, "Do not sell. I'd rather give you the money
or lend you the money for the time being. Keep your furniture
because I am buying machinery right now and storing it somewhere
because the money will be valueless, but my grandfather did not
understand it, he sold his furniture at the end of the inflation.
He was really penniless because he had sold his furniture and the
money was totally valueless so my father had to support him to
the end of his life, anyhow. My grandfather was not a business
man and I must say, my father was not the best of business men
either but he did understand the inflation as it encroached on
people, therefore you had a lot'of poverty stricken middle class
after the inflation. My grandfather was a very proud man. It

was very hard for him to accept money and somehow he was able to
have some small jobs which kept him in his apartment and kept him
going but it was very very difficult.
Q. What happened to the servants and people in the lower
classes?
A. This is why you had so terribly much poverty. You had
poverty before because of the. . .after the armament industry
closed, there was very little to take its place in the beginning
and things, as I say, started to look up but not for many people.
This is why then later on that Hitler had such an easy time
persuading the population that he would lead them out of the
misery. Building roads and by rekindling the armament industry.
That was his main object. And, of course, he was leading up to
another war from the moment he came to power.
Q. He'd been working with this for fifteen years, hadn't he?
A. Fourteen years. (chuckle) Yes, he always talked about the
fourteen years. 1/11 never forget it because he came to Munich
and started to talk about the dishonor which had happened and of
course the international Jewry stabbed Germany in the back. He
never, never wanted to admit the sheer overwhelming power of the
United States, for instance, which came into the war in 1917
helped to dismember the German Army. There was no doubt about
it. Besides, Germany fought on two fronts in the First World
War. It fought on the eastern front and it fought on the western
front. It lost it's ally in Italy. The Italians spun off as
fast as they could when they saw that the war would be lost.
Q. What happened to land. How valuable was land at that point?
A. Germany was not worth very much for some reason and I think
that had something to do with the General impoverishment.
END SIDE TWO; FIRST TAPE
. . . The wayside as soon as they realized that the war was not
going well for the Germans, and therefore the Germans were
abandoned on that front in the First World War. But it didn't
matter as much because the war concentrated on the western and
eastern front and bloody battles were fought on the western front
and spectacular battles were fought on the eastern front. In one
part, the Germans were victorious at Tannenberg against the
Russians and that was Hindenburg's great stroke against the
Russians but today it isn't quite clear whether the Germans
fought so well or whether the Russians were not organized because
in the long run, Germany was also defeated on the eastern front
and it didn't matter because the western allies defeated Germany.

The overpowering American troops which were well equipped and
fresh. . .they had come into the war fresh while the Germans were
already exhausted by that time and of course the shortages in
Germany, the food shortages and other shortages became very
threatening to Germany itself and, I think this is where there is
unrest among the laboring classes because they could not buy from
any black market dealer and could not get to the sources of
supplies and they were willing pawns to a group of sailors who
were revolting on the Baltic Sea, and that was the beginning of
the revolt of 1919, 1918, 1919 where the Emperor or the Kaiser
had to abdicate and flee for his life to the Netherlands.
Q. What was the weather condition at that time. Didn't that
have a great deal of impact on the particular difficulties for
Germany?
A. It was during the fall and November was always visible and I
think I told you about my father taking me through the streets in
Berlin, or some part of Berlin, to show me what a revolution
looks like because windows were shattered and I do remember a
chandelier being thrown out of a window. I do remember those
impressions, but you know. As a child, you only grasp the visual
as a matter of fact.
Q. Was this part of Hitlerls fourteen year quest for power?
Germany leading up to this?
A. I think there was a group of strong Nationalists who did not
accept the fact that we had lost the war and Hitler, who was
still an Austrian, but was then discharged into Germany as a
Private First Class? Yes, he was discharged into Germany or into
Bavaria and lived in Munich from then on and he fell into line
with those who opposed any kind of acceptance of the defeat of
Germany in the First World War. He very early started to agitate
against the acceptance of the coming peace treaty in Versailles.
And very early, he started to blame the Jews for the defeat of
Germany. He called it the International Jewry. His hatred of
Jews dated back to the times when he lived in Vienna as a
penniless painter. Not a house painter but a painter. He did
some watercolors. I have seen some pictures, some picture post
cards of his work. It was very conservative, nothing special.
He was rejected by the academy of fine arts and most of the
teachers there apparently were Jews and he never forgave them. I
mean, he really carried this hatred of the Jews together with
some English philosopher whom he had read by the name of
Chamberlain who was a violent anti-semite and also a believer in
eugenics. You have heard of eugenics? (chuckle) Therefore, all
his speeches were laced with this violent diatribe against the
Jews and making them responsible for the defeat of Germany. It
also helped him that there was a Raete Republic called out in
Bavaria under the leadership of Kurt Eisner.

Q. What was the Raete Republic?
A. The Raete Republic means some kind of republic based on the
Soviet System because the Soviets are. . .spelled out Raete. . .
and they did want to form a Government which was very much like
the Russian Soviet which had just come into power two years
before, and they took hostages, among them, some very well known
German, Munich citizens. Kurt Eisner was executed because the
Nationalistic force in Germany, in Munich, excuse me, under a
Count Arco, won the upper hand and Eisner and his helpers were
executed. I don't remember how many but that did not satisfy
Hitler at all and I'm going to tell you a little bit about his
Aborted March against the Bavarian Government which had been
legally formed and he tried to overthrow that Government and
institute a totally Nationalistic Government but that March, of
course, failed and I don't remember how many, but about thirteen
of his fellow travellers who walked down into the main
thoroughfare of Munich were shot by the Bavarian Military and
Hitler was arrested and was put before a Judge and then was
incarcerated. He was supposed to have fortress for five years.
Q. Have fortress?
A. Fortress, ya. Imprisonment in Lansberg, which is a small
town in Bavaria, but there was so much sympathy for him in
Bavaria that he was able to live like a king in prison and he
wrote "Mein Kampf" (chuckle) while he was in prison with the help
of his friend, Rudolf Hess, who then became his right hand and,
of course, officially became Hitler's right hand man or Deputy
and during the war after he had flown to England, it became. .
.it was Martin Borman but Rudolf Hess was really his most trusted
friend from the fortress days because Rudolf Hess was also
incarcerated.
Q. He was founder of a National Socialist student organization
at the University of Munich?
A. Hess was? Well I don't remember that detail now. These are
things in detail now, written up by the historians. I'm telling
you what I remember from my youth, but I do remember that there
was shooting going on at the Ober Wiesenfeld which was the
airstrip in those days and that a lot of rumors were flying
around in Munich because, first of all because of the Revolution
and secondly, then when Hitler tried to grasp the power in
Bavaria. He also used a General Ludendorff who was the closest
to Hindenburg at the Battle of Tannenberg so this started the
close cooperation between the Wehrmacht, the regular army
officers and the NSDAP (Nationalist Socialist German Working
Man's Party) What are you laughing at? I'm translating this.
Q. 1/11 have to write this in German.

A. No, no 1/11 give it to you.
Q. That's alright. Later.
A. . .As I say, it was a joke because Hitler was imprisoned in
the Lansberg fortress but after a year and a half or two, he was
discharged instead of sitting there for five years. In the mean
time, a lot of sympathy had built up for the poor man who meant
so well, and was such a good German even though he was still an
Austrian.
Q. How popular did his "Mein Kampf" become?
A. Well, I cannot tell you because most people we knew laughed
about it but then we should have all taken it very seriously
because he really came to grips with almost everything he wrote
about in "Mein Kampf" and when it first came out, none of our
friends bought it, I am sure, but we heard about what he had
written, but then when he came to power, that book had to be
given to almost everybody. For instance, all couples who got
married were handed the "Mein Kampf" because my best friend got
married in the Registrars office and she said as a gratuitous
gift, they all got "Mein Kampf" but she left it lying in the cab.
END SIDE TWO; TAPE ONE
Q. Considered a Bible?
A. Yes, considered a Bible or something like Mao's. All these
charismatic leaders had an influence and whatever they write is
taken very seriously by those who follow them. Hitler did a
great deal of talking in Germany and in Munich, particularly,
because he made Munich his home and he lived there with his
sister and the daughter of his sister and rumor had it that he
was in love with the daughter of his sister and did not allow her
any freedom at all and the daughter committed suicide because she
could not escape his attention or his restrictive behavior
towards her.
Q. He had complete control?
A. Yes, he had complete control.
Q. Well, he became a very controlling force entirely, didn't he?
A. Oh he was, he was. I mean people were either crazy about him
or they were taken in by him by his sheer willpower, and they
were afraid of him. He had a very demonic way of dealing with
people and I think part of it was fear and, as it turned out,
after he came to power, he ruled only by instilling fear and he

transmitted this also to all the ones who were in the government
and supple turns and the whole country was run by fear and
repression. I don't think you understand it possibly because
there is such a thing.
Q. Oh, we Americans don't understand that. That feeling. I
think Saddam Hussein has done this. Idi Amin did this in Africa.
A. Absolutely. Stalin ruled by instilling fear. You never knew
when the knock at the door meant that your father or brother was
taken away. In the Soviet Union. And Hitler was a perfect
example of that, really. Because I later learned that young men
who had been recruited into the Army during the Second World War
were taken away at night from their beds into the Army so that
there was absolutely no chance of trying to escape that sort of
thing.
Q. I think Asaad in Syria has done the same thing to his people.
A. They all learned from Hitler or maybe Hitler learned from
Stalin, I don't know.
Q. Stalin wasn't that bad though, was he?
A. Stalin was very bad apparently, but it never penetrated as
much into the public as Hitlerrs deeds after the Second World
War. It took a long time to penetrate into the consciousness of
the world, I think.
Q. They've analyzed him to be. . .
A. Oh yes, he's been analyzed by psychiatrists, psychologists.
I attended a class under one of the Sangamon State Professors who
left years ago and this was Chris Breiseth, but he had a
substitute, Strozier, Chuck Strozier. And Strozier gave us
material to read which was almost crazy. I mean trying to
explain Hitlerls coming to power and Hitler's personality. I
think that he was obsessed with himself and with the idea of
Germany being a glorious country and Germany not accepting
defeat, and of course, the fact that Germany was defeated by
machinations of the International Jewish Community and by the
Jews in Germany themselves.
Q. Yes, they wanted total power.
A. Who wanted total power?
Q. The Jews.
A. That's not true. How come you are thinking that way? No,
no, no, no. Unfortunately, I must say that. . . first of all, I
want you to know that there were only six hundred thousand Jews

in Germany among a population of sixty five million, so that is
one percent which is a small percentage. And it isn't true. The
Jews, except for Walter Rathenau, who was a very cultured man and
became foreign minister for awhile, there was not one Jew in the
German government in the Weimer Republic, absolutely none, and
that is a bad misunderstanding. Then, you have to look back
historically. The Jews could not exercise all the professions
they would have liked to be in so, in other words there were
certain professions open to them and that was law or medicine and
banking, but only private banking because the German Bank, the
official German Bank, the Bavarian Banks, the State Banks were
absolutely without Jews. We had some very private Jewish banks
and then the world of theatre was open to the Jews and therefore
there were quite a few Jews in the theatre business and then in
the newspaper business but in official business, in the state run
business, in the Government, the Jews were in the minority, if at
all, so they really did not run the country from the government
point of view.
Q. That's very good to know. Now, with the State and Society in
the hands of the National Socialists, did that make a difference
in your life?
A. Yes it did because my father was a Jew.
Q. I see. So your father's reaction to this. . .
A. My father's reaction before he was even touched by this, was
a very, very good German. You can imagine, you know. He was. .
. he believed in Germany and he believed in reconciliation and
there was one man who really believed in reconciliation and my
father adored him. He was Gustav Stresemann. He was the foreign
minister who died much too early and much too fast. Stresemann.
So now you know my point of view.
Q. Naturally.
A. Naturally. But really, it did not mean anything. My father
belonged to a fencing society. We belonged to a very good class
of German. . .we had only non Jewish friends. My father was a
non believer, you know, an agnostic and therefore the whole
thing, I mean, to him. . .
Q. He really wasn't threatened?
A. He was. Later on. You will hear the story. Yes, yes. Very
much so. So, our life changed completely after Hitler came to
power. My father was an Agnostic, almost from birth and I have
to tell you how funny. . .my grandmother had been married to a
man by the name of ~ochstadter in her first marriage and she was
only fifteen when she married him and she had a son by the name
of Bernard who very early in his life, emigrated to the United

States and became very successful. He founded a brewery. But my
grandmother married the brother of her deceased husband and that
was forbidden.
Q. HOW was he killed?
A. He was killed in a train accident. I understand he was
riding in a train compartment and next to him was a hunter who
had a gun. The gun discharged and her first husband was killed.
So, after a few years, she married his brother and that was
forbidden by the Jewish religion because in former years you
really strictly adhered to whatever code of ethics was imposed
upon you and my father was born in 1877 and just then Bismarck
had released a proclamation that no marriage could be a rightful
marriage without a civil ceremony so that you always had to go to
the Municipal court and be registered and declare that you were
going to marry this man or this woman and then you could be
married in whatever religion you wanted to be married. So due to
gratitude to Otto Von Bismarck, my grandparents named my father
Otto because he was legal, because of Otto Von Bismarck. Later
on, they had three more children. Therefore my father was always
against religion and he never wanted to be close to anything that
wreaked of religion. He was totally free of any kind of
prejudice except against religion and especially he thought the
Jewish religion had outlived itself and its usefulness a long
time, but on the other hand, of course, he was always close to
his family and honored them and he was very good to his mother
and father who were very nice and I liked them too, but I did
like my maternal grandparents much better. That's always true I
think in most instances.
Q. What was the logic of the Nazi power ideology? Was there any
logic to it at all?
A. Well, again, there would be logic if I would not have been
affected by it. I think there is a logic if you believe in a
pure race and if you believe that only a pure race should
dominate the world but this wasn't the logic for Germany which
wasn't even true then because the Germans were a mixed race for
years back. They had French influence, Italian, they had Slavic
influence and there was also intermarriage between Germans and
Jews so it really didn't make that much sense.
Q. What was the obsession with the Aryan philosophy. The Aryan
state? What was behind that?
A. I think what he learned from this English philosopher,
Chamberlain was that the Aryan race was a superior race in
contrast to the Slavic race.
Q. There must be an underlying reason for this feeling as a
dejection of some sort?

A. I really think that since Germany was always faced with this
other racial intrusion, so to speak, from the east and from the
west and through the Jewish infiltration which was naturally
evident in Europe, he thought that if Germany could purify itself
by completely eradicating the Jewish element and the Slavic
element. You know that he did say that the Slavic element is
under a subaltern element. An element of no good, in other
words.
Q. Hitlerls Weltanschauung?
A. Weltanschauung. View of the world, ya. Philosophy of the
world.
Q. Is anti-semitism and anti-slavic?
A. And anti-slavic, that's right. That's why he was so brutal
in his warfare against the Poles and against the Russians. He
wouldn't have dared to be as brutal in France and in Italy but it
was brutal enough because many many upright citizens fell victim
to his persecution also in the other countries but he was
absolutely brutal in Poland and in Russia.
Q. Did he marry?
A. No, he never married. Well he married the last day of his
life. That Eva Braun, but
Q. Do you think he is dead?
A. Oh yes. He's dead. There's no doubt about it.
Q. What happened to Eva?
A. She died with him. He killed her first. He gave her either
the potassium cyanide or shot her. I think he shot her and then
he shot himself while sitting on a sofa. They were in the
chancellery, in the underground chancellery.
Q. Where were you at the time?
A. I was in this country.
Q. What was the reaction from the people over there. Were they
relieved? Do you know?
A. I was living here. I'm sure they were glad when it was all
over because at that point, Germany was so totally defeated. You
ought to talk, for instance, to Hannelore Trautmann who remembers
many of the war years, and then what I saw when I came back to
Germany in 1947, it told me it was total war and total
destruction, and nobody could have expected that Germany could

ise within such short time to its former height and not only
former height but Germany has outdone itself.
Q. Recovered quickly?
A. A quick recovery, yes.
Q. Do you remember the highways being built? "Straight as the
crow flies type of highway"?
A. The first highway that was built in Munich to Salzburg and I
remember it because my father's best friend had a construction
firm and I think that he still asked my father to supply certain
ideas to it. This was right away 1933 and 1934, and the son of
my father's best friend who was also a very good construction
engineer took me out to dinner. This is another story too. Well
he took me to dinner and then we went to the Chiemsee which is a
very pretty lake which is between Munich and Salzburg and then he
said to me, let's go back on the Autobahn because it had just
been newly opened and it was a long straight stretch of road, and
he said to me, "You know, it is very dangerous to be on a long
stretch without any curves or change because the driver might
easily fall asleep, but he said, I can't fall asleep because
you're sitting next to me." (chuckle) But this was the first
one and I think the other Autobahns between Munich and Berlin, I
believe that was built early, I believe that was built with more
curves, you know. They came to realize that a stretch of a
hundred miles would be the death of many drivers.
Q. And they sped, went very fast?
A. But the idea had been to build the Autobahn was not for the
driver but to get the Armies fast into another country. That's
what he had in mind, you see.
Q. Were there clover leaves on these Autobahns?
A. Well I don't remember. The first clover leaf I saw was in
New York, but that was a different story.
Q. The Third Reich. What does that mean exactly?
A, Because you had the First Reich which was the Reich of
Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm. The Second Reich was the Weimar
Republic which was still a Reich, you know Germany was still
united. The Third Reich was supposed to be the Reich which was
extending into Austria, Czechoslovakia. That was supposed to be
Hitler's thousand year Reich. It only lasted twelve years.
Q. What happened after the twelve years?
A. The total defeat in 1945.

Q. And, you were here in the States?
A. I was here. I came here in 1937, but I'd like to tell you a
little bit about. . .
Q. You were married to Jack?
A. No, we married in '38. We've been married fifty five years.
I don't know how we stand it but we do.
Q. Fifty five years. A delightful couple. Where were you. . .?
A. Well, I'd like to tell you about the Nuremberg Laws which
effected me and our household. The Nuremberg Laws were
proclaimed in Nuremberg and we were the victims of Hitlerls antisemitic
philosophy. Jews were deprived. . .He made a difference
between full Jews and half Jews, quarter Jews. Unbelievable.
For instance, because my father was a Jew, you know, we had to
dismiss our maid and take on a maid which was over forty five or
fifty years old because Hitler and Julius Streicher, who also was
executed in Nuremburg, proclaimed that all Jews were lechers and
seduced their maids and produced children. I mean (sigh) it's. .
. you are laughing but it's not a laughing matter. A maid which
had been with us for a number of years, but she was still able to
bear children, had to be replaced by an old bag who came to us
because we could still have her. As a matter of fact, we
exchanged our maid with a maid of a well known Opera singer who
was married to a Jewish woman but because she was Jewish and she
couldn't produce any children with him, he took the younger maid
and we took his old maid.
Q. It was legal?
A. Yes, it was legal. It just so happened that we were able to
exchange, yes.
Q. Who gave the authority to make that right?
A. There was no authority. We had to dismiss our maid. Our
younger maid was registered by the Social Security office. My
father paid for her insurance and all this. This is the story of
a welfare state, you see. Every maid, every employee, you had to
take care of that they would be covered in case. It also covered
their health and their doctors and if they had to be
hospitalized, they were covered. So then my father lost all. . .
what can I say. All full blooded Jews could no longer stay in
official service, you know. They could no longer serve in any
capacity of literature, theatre, or film and the doctors could
only practice on Jewish patients or at least they were not
allowed to practice with others. They were dismissed from the
hospitals. It was the beginning of separating them legally from
the other population.

Q. What year was this?
A. It was 1935. Well the expulsion of Jews from official
positions had already started in 1933. It started almost right
away. But the Nuremburg Laws made it a criminal act if you kept
your maid, if you kept your position. You were immediately put
into a concentration camp if you were discovered.
Q. Who wrote the Nuremburg Laws?
A. Julius Streicher and Hitler. He was a big Jew hater and he
published a paper called the STURMER which was posted on every
street corner and I always said that if the Germans would have
been so anti-semitic as Streicher pictured them, no Jew would
have been left alive anymore by '35. But the Germans weren't
that anti-semitic, but they were afraid. I could not marry a
German anymore. Let's say, I could have married a German, but he
would have lost his job, you know.
Q. So, what was the next step here. It lasted for how long?
A. It lasted until the end of the war. And it got worse.
Q. And after his death, things changed.
A. Yes, yes. The Jews were isolated and taken out of their
homes. Then my father was put in a concentration camp but he
came back. I tell you. He came back and visited Jack and me in
1938 and this is the time when the Herr Von Rath, the German
Ambassador was killed by a Jew, a Polish Jew by the name of
Greenspan and the Nazis took this as an excuse for the
Kristallnacht. You remember reading about it?
Q. So you met Jack in Germany?
A. Yes, I met Jack in Germany. He studied in Germany and he
smuggled money for Jews in Germany, from Germany to France and to
Italy because it made him some money. He was on very small
sustenance, you know. As an American, the German mark became,
almost overnight worthless.
Q. What was Jack studying?
A. He was studying medicine in Germany. He had been a
bacteriologist first and then he came to Germany in 1932 and
started to study at Bonn and then he transferred to Munich and
that's were I met him.
Q. What had he been doing before?
A. He was a Bacteriologist in State laboratories. He got that
job by sheer accident because I think he took the wrong test. He

wanted to take a test for something else. Chemistry, I think, or
bio-chemistry and they had a job opening in the Bacteriological
Department and first of all he placed thirteenth, there were
twelve before him then so many dropped out until he was one of
three and at the end they wrote to say he had the job. This was
during the depression, you see.
Q. Where?
A. In New York City.
Q. Where had he gone to school in New York?
A. I think it was City College and then New York University and
then he had just his Masters degree in Bacteriology. I'm not
quite sure but I think he did and he always wanted to study
medicine but his parents didn't have enough money to send him to
school in the United States so he decided to go to Germany. He
did his thesis in German and he passed it with Cum Laude, ya, in
German. So in those days, he was pretty bright. You know, when
you get old, you're not so bright anymore. (chuckle)
?A. 86. (Chuckle)
Q. And then you met. How did you meet?
A. We actually met. . .it was funny. We met because my parents
decided that I had to leave because they did not want me to stay
in Germany. I want to tell you before I say this that this
friend of mine with whom I travelled the road, the son of our
best friends, really loved me very much and he wanted me to stay
and move to Switzerland because he was a Swiss citizen, but he
could not have married me, but we wait this thing out and you and
I can be together. But, I couldn't do it, and I tell you why. I
had met Jack and we all went swimming to the same lake with whom
I was very fond of . . .
END OF SIDE ONE; TAPE TWO
. . .But for a different reason, I decided on Jack. We went
swimming on Lake Chiemsee. Fredl Kunz, that was his name and
Jack and Ursula Baursfeld. I had mentioned to you that I had
been in the home of the inventor of the Zeiss Planetarium and she
was the daughter of the inventor and she lived in Munich for a
short while, studying, I think or going to school, I can't
remember. The four of us had gone together in Fredl's car to
Lake Chiemsee and then we all went swimming (chuckle). Jack
looked so good in his trunks and jumped into the lake with a very
elegant jump. The women, we went into the water and my friend,
Fredl, stood at the rim and didn't want to go because it was too

cold. (chuckle) and somehow that decided me. It's just so
terribly silly to give him up. I mean, it was an absolutely
stupid reason.
Q. He's an exciting man. Very positive and exciting man.
A. Yes. But, I still was very fond of him and as I say he
wanted to stall me and he even came to the United States to get
me back in 1937, and he never forg$ve me although I did see him.
And he married a daughter of ~urtwaengler in 1948. So he didn't
marry for eleven years and I think he never forgave me for giving
him up. I really don't think so.
Q. So, what happened then?
A. Well, I met Jack because he taught me some American English
and we got along very well. My English was the Kings English in
those days because that's what I had learned in school but then I
had another, I had an American woman who read the New York Times
with me and she was quite nice but she was a typical American
socialite. I mean, she didn't dare to sink below her own class
system you know, and, Jack, of course, didn't have this
hindrance. He really did not, and I liked him much better and
although this woman was very nice, she told me all kinds of
things that in the evening, in Sunday evening, we all had to
dress up and we were reading the paper and had formal dinners.
She was just a typical socialite and therefore I was outfitted
with the most beautiful gowns. But, I never wore them on Sunday
night as I remember.
Q. So you moved to America.?
A. I moved to America. Then I had another love and this man
could not marry me because he was afraid he would lose his
position. I really loved him more than anybody else, I must
confess. He was also a very strict Catholic. I kept up with him
after the war and we remained friends and I even sent him food,
but he was too afraid to marry me. There were a lot of reasons.
But he had a very good position with an aluminum firm, also with
Swiss connection but he didn't want to go to Switzerland. I
think the reason was also Catholicism and he was a very strict
Catholic. I just couldn't see myself turning into a Catholic,
but it wouldn't have helped.
Q. But you weren't raised a strict Jew either?
A. No, I was raised a Lutheran all those years.
Q. You are a Presbyterian now?
A. Ya, because the Lutherans are too strict for me here. They
don't believe in dancing and drinking. (chuckle) I mean, I just

don't care for the Lutherans here. I like Presbyterians much
better.
Q. But you were married what year?
A. In 1938. In New York. And this is when my father came to
visit us and my cousin who was living here a number of, many
years and he came to see that it was all legal. And it was
legal. We got married by a Judge. I think we had the smallest
wedding of anybody I know. We were only six or seven people at
the wedding breakfast at a Swedish Restaurant in New York City.
Q. Do you remember the name of the restaurant?
A. No, I don't. Maybe Castelholm, ya it was Castelholm on 57th
Street near the Russian tea room.
Q. And then what did you do?
A. Well, we were married and very soon afterward, I got quite
ill. I had a pilonidal cyst, your husband will know what that
is, which had been treated in Germany but only medically and it
became very very bad and I had to be operated. I had a very slow
recovery because my coccyx was removed. Yes, mrn. That was after
my father came. I don't think I did anything in that time
because I was looking for a job but I did not get anything. I
was taken up with the newness of it all and I was not an active,
activist. I was sort of analyzed by somebody and they thought I
would be good in business, you know, as an executive, but I
thought this is ridiculous. Where would I be an executive. I
was so totally uprooted. You can't believe it.
Q. Overwhelmed?
A. Overwhelmed!
Q. You came to the United States in 19-- by yourself?
A. In 1937, yes, by myself.
Q. In 1937. And you lived in New ~ork City?
A. Well I lived in Brooklyn. I had a cousin who was in business
in Brooklyn, actually, and he was married, and his wife was
expecting a baby. The first child after a five or six year
marriage and I helped her some. In the meantime, I got
accustomed to life here and I also met some of the very wealthy
distant relatives. They were very nice to me but they could not
believe what I told them. They did not want to hear it. They
lived a life of total isolation and in splendor. They never used
the subway.

Q. Where did they live?
A. One lived at the Park Lane Hotel on Park Avenue and the other
lived at the Ritz Tower Hotel.
Q. Were they in business?
A. No, no. They were old ladies. I had to call them cousins.
They wanted to be called cousins. One was Mrs. Wimpfheimer and
one was Mrs. Steckler. I think she'd been married to a Judge if
I'm not mistaken. Mrs. Wimpfheimer had been married to a silk
merchant who was very wealthy, who had been very wealthy, and
when he died, P.G. Morgan came to his funeral. So I think they
were very well off. She had two sons and a daughter and Mrs.
Steckler had only nephews and nieces.
Q. No children?
A. No children. They were sisters, I think. Gussy and Anna.
Q. Had you grown up with them?
A. No, no. They lived here for many many years. They were born
in this country. They were distant relatives.
Q. But you maintained that relationship over the years?
A. Well actually my father's brother, my Uncle, came here in the
early '80,s. Bernard, the first born of my grandmother. I think
he lived with them before he struck out to the west. He
maintained the relationship and then one of my Aunts, my father's
sister maintained the relationship and when I came. . .and then
my cousin who was the son of this one sister who was very very
fond of these women, he saw to it that I made the contact and
that I would be seeing them from time to time. They were very
nice to me but were women who lived in total isolation from
anybody who less than those who lived in the style of Park
Avenue.
Q. They lived a protected life?
A. A very protected life, yes.
Q. Then you were here alone, basically?
A. I was with my cousin, yes, and then Jack came. I did not
live with him. I stayed with my cousin. And then in August. . .
I had some German friends whom I had met years ago through this
Kunz family, Through the family, you know, who were in the
construction business. They were also very nice and helpful to
me. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do because I just. .
.I had a little money to live on. Very little. But I did live

with my cousins then as I say, Jack came.
Q. You met some interesting people before Jack came back?
A. Oh yes, I met the grandson of Mrs. Alfred DuPont. I met him
on a blind date with a young man who also had to leave Munich.
He had been with the American Express. His name was Perry Lyon.
He had an American born father, I think, and his father was
Jewish, his mother was not so he had to leave and we were very
good friends and then there was a woman by the name of Brendel.
Miss Brendel. She was a singer and he knew her and I knew her
because she had been in our house for tea or for dinner with us
in Munich and she arranged for this blind date for me and I was
the date then of that DuPont. But his name was not DuPont, it
was Hiebler because his mother, a DuPont, had married. a German
engineer by the name of Hiebler. And he sort of fell in love
with me, and I liked him, but he was very stupid. I seldom felt
that a man was so stupid. He was good looking but he was stupid.
He invited me to spend a weekend at his grandmothers place at
Winterthur and I refused him (chuckle) because I couldn't think
of spending a weekend with him because he was stupid. Poor
fellow. He went back to Germany because he had a German father
and he enlisted and I heard he was killed very early in the war,
ya. Can you imagine. My cousins nearly killed me when they
found out I had turned him down for a weekend because he always
said his grandmother wanted him to get married and stay here.
Maybe if I had agreed. . .I just couldn't, just couldn't.
(chuckle)
Q. Have you ever seen Winterthur?
A. No, I've never been. Last year, a group went to Winterthur
and I couldn't go for some reason. It was the Junior League that
went, but I couldn't go. Well, I think they didn't even tell me
about it, but, it's so funny. I had a good chance at life at
it's highest.
Q. You must see Winterthur. I sang three summers down there with
the Savoy Opera Company.
A. I must see it sometime. Well I do get their catalogues and I
don't like them at all. I think it's a lot of trash, but that's
my opinion.
Q. So you stayed in New York?
A. I saw him from time to time. Then Jack came and I didn't see
him anymore. Then Jack and I decided to get married, of course.
Jack's story is that I begged him to marry me under tears, but I
don't think I did. But then, I started to work for a travel
agency and that travel agency, or the travel agent was also a
German. It was in Yorkville. On the east side of Manhattan in

the 70's or 80's. I worked for ten dollars a week. I found out
he was a great swindler because he went to Germany every year
claiming that he was an official of the American Government
enticing people who had to leave Germany to pay him a large sum
and he would arrange for them to immigrate or bring their
families over. He was a real swindler and it took me awhile to
find out how he operated, but he had another woman working for
him. It was a small office, but he lived mostly on swindling,
you know. But I did work for him for awhile and then my father
came and I still worked for him and then I got operated on. That
was a very serious operation because the Coccyx had to be
removed. My father had visited us in October. I have a picture
of him when he arrived on the twelfth of October in the New York
Harbor. He stayed with us, no he didn't stay with us. He stayed
at the Weston Hotel or the New Weston Hotel on Madison Avenue and
he was doing very well still. Financially, he was very happy
that he was no longer in Germany because things are really
getting tough and I said, "Dad, why don't you immigrate." Oh,
they won't do anything to me, he still thought, because "I was an
officer in the German Army. What could they get out of me." He
went back on the seventh of November or the beginning of November
and he was arrested and taken to Dachau on the night of the
Kristallnacht.
Q. Kristallnacht?
A. Kristalnacht. You know the night where the Nazis smashed
Jewish businesses. My mother told me something which I'd like to
relate here that my father who had been thinking that he had been
insulated from this because he was so German in his thinking.
When they came to get him, he said, "I have looked time in it's
eye." He suddenly realized he was not immune to the tragedy
which would befall us. He was three weeks in Dachau and I found
out about it by accident. I found a letter which I think had
been written by my mother and I tell you it was like a cold hand
grasped my heart because I adored my father. I adored my mother
but I was so terribly afraid eventhough concentration camps had
been in existence since 1933 and I knew of one man who had been a
communist who came out of it again, but for some reason, I was
terribly, terribly afraid and especially since we had seen
pictures of the Kristalnacht. They had smashed windows and had
belittled and blasphemed Jews. Well anyway, my father came out
of it three weeks later and he had lost sixty or sixty five
pounds but I want to tell you about his reaction. He had always
thought that he would be immune because he felt he had done his
duty in the First World War and had been an officer and much
respected in the community and when they came at night, of
course, to pick him up. My mother told me that he said that I
have looked time in it's eye. He suddenly realized that he was
also not immune and had to face reality so my mother had to
institute divorce proceedings because that was demanded of her if
they wanted to keep their property otherwise it would have gone

immediately into the hands of the Nazis and she did this also to
safeguard me because afterall I was the only heir they had, and
three weeks later my father came out of the concentration camp
and he had to sign that he would not talk about it. Later on he
told me that when the Austrian Jews were brought in, there wasn't
enough room in the barracks and they had to line up and every
tenth man was executed in order to make room for the prisoners.
Q. Like Russian Roulette?
A. It is like Russian Roulette, yes. He did tell me that the
only reason he survived it was because he wore only a very light
suit which was handed out by the Dachau commanding officer, by
the men there, some stripped suit or something. They had to
stand for hours in the rain and snow outside their barracks.
They had nothing to do for them except stand there. This went on
for three weeks with very little to eat, so as I say, he lost
sixty or sixty five pounds and when he came home, we all urged
him to leave the country. Now the question was, where would he
go? Oh, I had forgotten to tell you. This was in 1938, yes.
After Jack and I got married, I really was supposed to leave the
country. I was here on a visitors visa and, in order to legalize
my standing in this country, I had to leave and come back as a
regular immigrant or I had to ask for another extension of my
visa, and because my father and relatives had good connections,
Mr. Steinhart who was a very wealthy man in Havana, Cuba, I was
able to go to Havana. I forgot to tell you. This was in between
the time we got married and my father's visit. So I did go to
Cuba and stayed there for three weeks and really had a very good
time. The first thing the German consul did, they knew that
would happen. When I handed them my German passport, he took it
away and the Cuban government gave me a Nansen passport which
means stateless. I was stateless at that point.
Q. What is Nansen pass?
A. Nansen pass. Spelled it out. I think it was a Swedish or
Norwegian man who introduced this Nansen pass so that you'd have
some kind of identification and you had only status as a
stateless person but at least you'd have something to show and I
was stateless at that moment, yes. When I came back to the
States, I had this job, and very soon afterwards. . .
Q. How did you get back to the States?
A. Oh, by boat. You see, I was married to Jack and he was an
American citizen and I got a different status. But I still had
to wait five years to become an American citizen but at least I
came under non-quota because in those years there was a quota
system and the German quota probably was almost exhausted at that
point. There were many Austrian quota, Czech quota, you know, all
kinds of quotas. The quota system was bad if you wanted to

immigrate fast from Europe because you couldn't get into this
country. So I came in under the non-quota because of that. I
had already been on my way to Germany. I was already on the
Pier. Before I went to Cuba, I was on the pier boarding Breman
and I got a telegram from my parents not to come because these
Czech crisis was in the making.
Q. Very providential?
A. Very providential. Well my parents were concerned about me,
more concerned about me than about themselves. This was before
my father realized he would be in a concentration camp.
Q. A real turning point in your life?
A. It was. It was. It's a turning point. . .I view life in an
entirely different way from most other people whom I know here,
ya. It's amazing.
Q. Maybe it's best you left when you did?
A. Yes, I think it was, but I really didn't see the urgency
either until I had a certain experience which really showed me
where I stood in Germany. I was able to get a very good position
at the German Academy which had been a brainchild of General
Haushofer and I was recommended to it because I had certain gifts
of expressing myself and I had certain gifts given by my family
background of comporting myself very well and they were looking
for this type of woman, or girl, in that German Academy and a Dr.
Thierfelder hired me and my main job was to transcribe letters
and also to edit letters and to edit, for instance, book reviews
which were written. The German Academy, I found out, gradually
was really an arm of the propaganda ministry and was sending a
lot of information to colleges and Universities in other
countries and I do remember, for instance, that I typed letters
to Springfield College in Springfield, Illinois because that had
just been founded, I think, in the late '20's. I enjoyed the job
because I was among very educated younger women and I think they
enjoyed me and we worked in a perfectly beautiful building in the
Maximilian in Munich above the Isar River which was then the home
of the German Government. Well, on the second of April, 1937, my
father celebrated his sixtieth birthday and because of the times,
he wanted to celebrate in a very small group and therefore he
invited an old friend of his, Mrs. Blank, who really was one of
his early loves in life and her husband, Dr. Oscar Blank and her
daughter, Elizabeth, and the husband of the daughter, a Dr. Baer,
and my mother and father and I were there and we had a nice
dinner at one of the nice restaurants in Munich, at the Luitpold.
Everything was very congenial and it so happens that we talked
about what I was doing and I told them I was working at the
German Academy. Dr. Baer, the husband of my father's friend
daughter was an Orthopaedic Surgeon and he didn't say anything

ut the next day, I found out he was the doctor of Dr.
Thierfelder who had hired me because when I appeared at the
German Academy on April the third, Dr. Thierfelder called me in
his office and he said to me, " I didn't know you were Jewish."
I said to him, "I am not Jewish. I am a Lutheran, but I have a
Jewish father and an Aryan, I think I said, Aryan mother. I'm
half Jewish, but not what you have just said." And he said, "Why
didn't you tell me." And I said to him, "You didn't ask me. I
was not asked so why should I tell you something I didn't think
you were interested in." But he really wasn't interested, he was
a German, a literal German, but he could not afford to keep me on
the staff and he sent me home immediately and said he would send
me severance pay for three months but how he found out was the
terrible story. He saw Dr. Baer that morning in the office of
Dr. Baer and Dr. Baer apparently said to him, "How come you
employ a Jewish girl in your office." And this was a man who we
had entertained the night before. So this was a terrible shock
to my parents and to me. I never liked Dr. Baer, I must confess,
because he was not the type of man we really cared much for, but
we didn't think he would be such a traitor to us. That's not the
word, I mean he was trying to do us harm in a very very
unpleasant way, but I think this was typical of many Germans in
that time. You got brownie points for turning people in, and of
course, after that I could not find a position and from then on I
was always asked about my Aryan or non-Aryan background,
therefore, my mother and my father said you must leave this
country. And I realized it then too, besides after this very sad
experience with the young man with whom I was in love to have
said he wanted to marry me and then also withdrew because he was
afraid he would lose his position. On the other hand, the young
man whom I have mentioned before who was the son of the big
contractor in ~unich who had a very well established firm, loved
me and wanted me to live in Switzerland and wait the thing out
until the Nazi regime would be over because he thought it could
not last but it did last twelve years and I certainly would have
been in danger, and he would have been in danger. And I did not
love him enough to undertake that. But it was an eye opener and
the strange thing was that my father's friend, the mother-in-law
of this Dr. Baer, very soon after we had been together was known
to have cancer of the colon and she died within two months and I
happened to meet somebody at the railroad station at the time
after she had died and ran into Dr. and Mrs. Baer and they came
to me and wanted to shake my hand but I did not give them my hand
any more. I just couldn't. I just turned my back on them even
though it hurt my father that his old friend had died but he also
was very much alienated from her. Her husband became a very good
friend of my parents and he took care of our property which
consisted mostly of real estate in the absence of my father and
my mother so he tried to make good what his so called son-in -law
had undone for us.
Q. What happened to the property?

A. The property. Well I told you after my father was in
concentration camp, he was forced to say he would divorce my
mother if he wanted her to keep the property. In other words,
the property was then written instead of being held communal
between the two of them, my mother became the official owner of
the property and they divorced and my father practically had to
be forced to emigrate in spite of his stay in Dachau and luckily
for him, a good friend of my mothers. . .he was a General in the
high command in Germany, had secured a place for my father on a
ship going to Cuba on the Orinoco, and that was the ship before
the St. Louis which you may have heard, it was the ship which was
not admitted anywhere, anymore, even Roosevelt turned it down
even though it carried six hundred passengers and the passengers
of the St. Louis, not the ship my father was on, were dispersed
through England, Belgium and France, but most of those who were
unloaded in Belgium and France were killed in Auschwitz anyhow.
Q. What was the name of the ship your father was on?
A. Orinoco. And the reason why he was able to go to Cuba was
that he had this old time friend there who had been a runaway who
had also hosted Batista in Cuba and was willing to host my father
and to make it possible for him to stay in Cuba until his
immigration to the United States was approved.
Q. Did he have a Nansen passport as well as you did?
Q. No, I don't think so. His passport was never taken away from
him even though it had the "J" in it, you know. And besides, ya.
. .my father's name was Otto ~Zchstadter. It had a "J" in it and
it said Otto Israel ~ochstsdter and the women had to have their
name and then "Sarah". (chuckle) I mean looking back, you could
laugh but it certainly wasn't laughable. They all had a "J"
stamped into their passport.
Q. When did this begin to change? Government, policies. etc?
A. That was in 1935.
Q. When did things go back to normal?
A. Well after Germany was defeated after 1945.
Q. But then, could you feel the change?
A. Oh yes, of course. I mean, for awhile, no German had been a
Nazi, naturally. They all wanted to be lily white and pure.
Q. And Aryan!
A. Well, no, no. After the Nazi period was over, they didn't
care whether they were Aryan or not. As a matter of fact, they

wanted to be Jewish to get their goods or whatever. No, no. I'm
making a joke now. I do, also, want to pay tribute to the very
decent Germans of whom there are many who suffered with us. For
instance, in September, 1933 I left Munich with my father. He
walked me to the ship. My mother couldn't bear to do it and we
stopped, the train stopped in Wurzburg and a childhood friend of
mine whose father had been a Democratic City Council man in
Nurernberg, was at the train station. I think he brought me a
bottle of wine because it is a wine region and some candy. And
he said to me, "I am ashamed to be a German." And he was ashamed
to be a German not only because he saw me and my father suffer in
a way that also his own father had to leave the city and settle
somewhere at the border of Switzerland in order to escape the SS,
the Gestapo because all his sin were that he had been a
Democratic City Councilman and this friend of mine, Norbert,
refused to become an officer in the German Army and immediately
after he refused this, because he was very intelligent and had a
doctorate in engineering, he was sent to the eastern front and
reported missing and he never came back after the war. I saw his
parents after the war still hoping but I think he was either
killed by the war effort or he was killed by the SA (brown
shirts) or the SS (black uniform) at the front because he was
known to be an anti Nazi.
Q. What happened to the Nazis. Did they have as many problems
after the war?
A. There was a sorting out but unfortunately the sorting out
wasn't done very cleverly by the Americans because the United
States was still more afraid of Communism than of Nazism
therefore many really vicious ~azis escaped, also, through the
help of the Catholic Church. There's been much written about the
role the catholic Church played. For instance, it probably
helped that Eichman and Martin Borman and hundreds of others
escaped to the South American countries and you know, for
instance, Eva Lynen and her husband Feodor, who, in 1964 got the
Nobel prize, they arrived in the United States in 1953. He was
invited to a meeting, a conference of Biochemists. I met them in
Chicago. They wrote and said to me, "stay in the same hotel".
They told me then how the immigration official or even the
consulate in Munich grilled them more in regard to whether they
had been Communists then whether they had been anti-Nazis. It
was not important to the American Consulate, neither was it
important to the customs officials. They were again grilled with
"were you ever a Communist"? This was the time of Joe McCarthy,
but still it proved to you and should prove to the world that
many many Nazis escaped because the American Government was
paranoid in regard to Communism as to Nazism. It was not as
paranoid about it.
Q. What did your father do in Cuba?

A. He had to find an apartment and I think he found one. I have
to tell you that he was supported by his two brothers who lived
in the United States. I think I mentioned to you that he had two
brothers. One of them had come in the early 1880's and the other
one maybe in the late '80's and both of them were business men
and both of them were willing to send means of support to my
father because he couldn't take anything except ten marks.
Q. What did your Uncles do?
A. Well, the one Uncle who lived at that time already in Los
Angeles founded a Brewery and then the other. . .we talked about
them. Then my father was supported by them and I don't remember
whether I sent any money or whether Jack or I, we had very little
money in those days.
END SIDE TWO; TAPE TWO
He got along in Havana because life was extremely reasonable
there because I remember when I was there and I was entertained
by the Steinharts with seventeen domestic employees. And I asked
them how much it would be or wouldn't be an awful lot to support
these domestic employees and she said, "Oh no, three dollars a
month per person and a lot of rice or beans would support them.
Q. Were they any relation to the Steinharts who donated the
Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco?
A. I don't believe so. Mr. Steinhart, the patriarch, had been a
stowaway, runaway from Munich and had a very fascinating history
of rising up and up through the Spanish-American War and he was a
newspaper boy one time and then he settled in Havana and acquired
sugar plantations and the Havana Electric and he was just called
the uncrowned King of Cuba and naturally, he was a very good
friend of Batista who was then the only ruler of Cuba. And I
reaped the benefits and I think my father reaped the benefits
because Mr. Steinhart looked after him in a way but I don't think
that he supplied him with money, I just think he invited him to
dinner once in a while and. . .
Q. Gave him moral support?
A. Gave him moral support. That's right. Exactly. And my father
met, of course, other refugees in Havana and unfortunately he met
a single woman, a widow, with whom he became very befriended and
she almost turned my father against my mother, so my poor mother
had to bear the brunt of almost everything.
Q. Did they communicate?
A. Yes, they did communicate. They married later on but many
years later. They remarried each other but actually my father

was very sick. Well, I want to tell you that my mother arrived
in August, '39, just before the outbreak of the war in Europe
because as you might know from your history books, Germany
invaded Poland on the first of September and Jack and my mother
and I were in Vermont for a few days when that happened and
somebody had a radio in the cabin or the area where we were
staying and my mother was terribly excited about it because she
was practically forewarned by the same General who had secured
the passage for my father who had also told my mother to leave
Germany if she wanted to see me again because the war would break
out within weeks so that was good timing and a good friend. The
property, in the meantime, was managed by a Real Estate firm in
Munich and that seemed to be the only way but later on after the
war or during the last few years of the war this Dr. Blank and
another friend, a fraternity brother of my fathers, took over
because the Real Estate Agent didn't do the job as he should have
done. He didn't have any interest, only his own interest at
heart. Well anyway, my mother came in August of '39 and she
lived with Jack and me. I had become pregnant and for three or
four months I was quite sick with morning sickness and it was
wonderful to have my mother there. She was also there when I gave
birth to our older son, Andrew. I have to tell you that Andrew
was born ten minutes into April the twentieth which was Hitler's
birthday so I changed it back on the birth certificate to April
nineteenth because I said I'm not going to have one of my sons. .
.or my son. . .I put down another one, I didn't know, to
celebrate a birthday with Hitler. I didn't know I wouldn't have
to worry too long about it. At any rate, that wasn't good enough
for me and very soon after Andrew was born, my father's quota
came up and was able to immigrate into the United States. We
lived in a brownstone house. We rented the upper floor and there
was a room available in the attic, I think, or on the attic floor
and we rented it for my father so he moved into there too for
awhile but unfortunately his heart was with that woman he met and
he didn't stay too long. (chuckle) This was sort of tragic for
my mother but she didn't fight it. I think she worried too much
about other things and the war absorbed us all and not only the
war, you know, I never thought that even I would lead a life as I
was accustomed to in Germany because we certainly had an upper
class existence and suddenly everything seemed to be financially
strapped. Jack was not yet in his medical profession. He was a
Bacteriologist with the Department of Health in New York which
was lucky because things were still very tight in those days in
the United States. And then of course, we moved to an apartment
in Brooklyn and my father was still with us but my mother
accepted a position as a house. . . better than a housekeeper.
Q. What kind of family did she take a job with?
A. This was a lonely man who had been a business man, a widower,
who was very fond of my mother but my mother was the kind of a
woman who was really not interested much in male companionship.

Q. Was it from day to day, or did she move in?
A. She moved in. She had her own quarters. He was very nice,
very nice to us I must say and he also met my father and then I
think there came a situation when. . .We had a house in Larchmont
one summer in Westchester and I think my father would have liked
to take a trip with my mother. He was not quite sure of the
other situation, the other woman. My mother turned him down
because she had promised Mr. McCully, the one for whom she kept
house, that she would go with him somewhere to the Catskills or
somewhere. My father was very hurt and this was on the days of
the invasion of Germany into Russia, the Soviet Union. 1/11
never forget that either because we all felt, "Thank goodness
Hitler had made a fatal mistake." Because how would he be able
to maintain two fronts; as it turned out, he maintained three or
four fronts. Is he something brawling? (chuckle) Then my father
more and more was inclined towards this other woman and they
never lived together but they travelled together and she also had
a very tragic life because she lost her only son who was killed
in an exercise while he was training to be in Israel or Palestine
and her husband had already died before and she had been to
China, if I'm not mistaken, and then came to Cuba and then to the
United States. These were all dramatic and tragic lives.
Q. Was this woman also Jewish?
A. Yes, she was Jewish.
Q. So it made it easier on them, really?
A. It made it easier on my father and it was amazing because my
father never really liked Jewish women. He didn't practice it.
I showed you pictures of him. He was the most German looking man
you can imagine and really he was, if you could say, anti semitic
in some way more than my mother who had a much more generous
heart for the foibles of the Jewish people because they had
certain faults. It irritated my father greatly but irritated my
mother slightly but she had more compassion, I think, with them
than my father did.
Q. Wasn't it lucky you were married at this point?
A. But we were not far removed from it because they stayed in
New York. Then my father got one position after another as
engineer, you see my father had an engineering degree and
suddenly, life opened up again. Here he was sixty one or sixty
two but there was a need for engineers during the war, after the
United States had declared war, that he was never without a
position and he was self supporting.
Q. He did have a position in New York?

A. He had a position in Trenton, New Jersey, one in New York,
then he got one with International Harvester in Chicago and he
had one with an engineering firm from which I have a Christmas
plate which he got at a Christmas party. Then he worked for
Argonne National Laboratories (still in existence where they
began to build the atomic reactor) and at the end he was with the
Corps of Engineers. He had become an American citizen in the
meantime,of course. So my father was very lucky and my mother
became lucky because she also got a position in the German
language paper, the Staats Herold. And she became Frau Anna.
(chuckle) Which meant that she had to answer requests not only
for recipes but also for broken hearts and she always said to
how much easier it was to advise other people then to advise
yourself and the family. The questions were very often trite and
shallow just like you see in Ann Landers and Dear Abbey and she
did this for quite a number of years, and she was self
supporting.
Q. Also in her sixties by then?
A. She was fifty in. . .when we baptized Andy. I think, wait a
minute, he was born in forty. we baptized Andy in '40. Ya he
was born in '40, and we baptized him in June on my mother's
fiftieth. . .wait a minute, she was born in '8OI190. Ya, we
baptized him in 1940 so she was fifty on his date. We baptized
him in a Lutheran church in Brooklyn and the church does no
longer exist, I found that out not to terribly long ago when I
was looking for something for Andy, for our son. Well then, of
course, December the seventh happened. While my father was still
with us on December the seventh,l941, and that was an eventful
Sunday. I remember, we were all gathered around the radio and
actually we personally felt relief because we knew if the
Americans would go in, the Germans could never win and we were
only interested in the destruction of Hitlerism, you see. It was
natural. I also want to say, the first ten years of my existence
in the United States seemed to me as if they were very strange
and detached in regard to this country because I was always
directed in what was happening in Germany, and all this hoping
that maybe I could go back or Jack and I could go back, I mean,
Jack wouldn't have ended up going back, but that we could return
to Germany and rebuild what we had lost.
Q. So you were German first, American second for many years?
A. For many years. Even so I had become an American citizen in
'44, I was fingerprinted as an enemy alien (chuckle) right after
the war broke out because I was still a German or considered in
the Stateless but I was still considered to be an enemy alien
because I had come from Germany and they couldn't get any
fingerprints from me. That's the funniest thing because they
always said, "what's the matter with you, we can't get any
prints." It didn't show up, you know. And I do have very smooth

fingers, so I don't know, I was a bad subject for fingerprinting.
And of course, because of the war, Jack was commissioned and
became an officer and first he was stationed at Fort Benjamin
Harrison in a medical replacement pool, then we were stationed at
Texas and he was stationed at Camp Swift.
Q. So you went with him?
A. And Andy did too, of course. We had two very nice years, in
spite of the war. This was a war zone, really. When we arrived
with the train it was like being in a country which was occupied
by soldiers because we saw nothing but the khaki uniforms on
soldiers and officers. You know, you had to wear khaki.
Q. Did you adapt yourself well there? id you feel you were
integrating better?
A. Yes, as a matter of fact, Austin, Texas turned out to be a
really nice town. We were very well received there. Jack had to
go to Camp Swift, maybe stay there two or three nights a week,
and was on duty, and then I was alone with Andy and we had a very
nice air-conditioned apartment because the man in whose house we
lived was sort of a layman engineer and designed his own air
conditioning for his apartment and his wife's and for us, so we
were very lucky because the temperature in Austin rose to 112
degrees and stayed there for ten days or two weeks, so that was
very lucky. We had a very nice existence in Austin and met many
of the regular Army officers and they were very interested in me,
I think, because of my status, but they accepted me very well. I
remember one time, Andy and I went to New York and Jack would
come later and I had to apply for permission to travel because I
was still considered an enemy alien. I called him because I
couldn't drive, I didn't have a car. I called him in San
Antonio. He said to me, "Why do you call me?' I said, "Well, I
am an enemy alien, but I have to ask you whether I can travel."
He said, "Well, I would never have guessed you were an enemy
alien, then that you are a foreigner." I spoke English without
any accent in those days because I had very little contact to
German speaking people.
Q. Well you don't have any more contact today?
A. Yes, I have more to German speaking people, and I am reading
a lot more.
Q. So you're moving back?
A. I'm moving back and I think that's a sign of retracting to go
back in old age. (chuckle)
Q. Maybe you should visit again. You are planning a visit
aren't you?

A. Yes, yes. We're going on the tenth of March. Yes, I like to
read German and I like to read English. As a matter of fact, I'm
always fascinated by American and English literature. Well he did
say this to me and then Andy and I went by train to New York and
to visit my mother. I don't think my father was there anymore.
I think he was in Chicago. But I may be mistaken. Then Jack
came later on for a short leave and we had a very nice time
visiting New York. It still was a fascinating city in comparison
to us which was very pretty but it's still a provincial city.
Q. It's changed a great deal since you've been there?
A. Oh, it must have. I would love to see it. Especially in the
spring. I do remember the blue-bonnets. They were just
beautiful and all of Texas was very very pleasant but we've never
been back. I regret that but we didn't have a chance and we
never travelled that much.
Q. There are other places you probably prefer to go to?
A. Well, actually I have a longing to go back and see it one
more time but it would be a disappointment. I have heard that
Austin has grown tremendously. I also had some very interesting
connections there.
Q. Do you still keep in touch ?
A. No. I think the two favorite connections were much older
than I. These were two American women who had been born in
Austin, they came from a very good family by the name of
Scherding. Their family came early in the nineteenth century.
One of the women was the divorced wife of a fraternity brother of
my father. Isn't that funny? She was very nice to me. Mrs. Von
Kraemer. They had a beautiful home and invited us quite often.
Through them, we met people who were connected to the University
and also through the regular Army officer we met some very nice
people, one of them was the wife of a Colonel who was a sculptor
and I would have lunch with her and then go to the art gallery.
There was a very good sculptor in Austin by the name of Charles
Umlauf and then there were some beautiful concerts. We heard
Pitiagorsky, a cellist. Well, it was a very very nice life
there. Then in 1944, Jack was sent overseas and I went back to
New York, to my mother who lived then on Long Island and Andy and
I made our home with her and then I was offered a position at the
Newspaper too, and I worked there for three years until I left or
for four years, I don't remember. It may have been for four
years until 1948 when we came out here to follow Jack who, in the
meantime, had gotten a position in the Veterans Administration in
Springfield. They had a big office here at that time and then he
became independent. I mean he started his own practice which was
very much easier then it is now.

Q. So his practice became what?
A. Well, he had a general practice, and. . .
Q. General Surgeon, wasn't he?
A. No, no no no. Well he did both. He did minor surgeries and
deliveries.
Q. From Bacteriology what did he do?
A. Well you see, he has his degree from Munich. From the Munich
Medical School. I think I told you. He got his degree cum laude
from the Medical School at Munich and he just couldn't find a job
or position before the war because it was very difficult in those
days to get into the Medical field unless you had very good
connections. He did not have any and my relatives were very
nasty about it. I mean they didn't want to help us at all.
Q. He paid his time in the service. Was that two years?
A. No no, it was from '42 to '46. He was in the service four
years and he came out of the service as a major. He went in as a
second lieutenant and came out a major and served almost two
years in Texas at Camp Swift and then he was overseas connected
with the university of ~ennsylvania in Assam, you know, in India.
In the meantime, he had been in Oran, and then he was stationed
in Oran for awhile and then he went, he was sent to India.
Assan, which was at the Chinese border, really,
Q. And then, he came back, and you joined him?
A. Then he came back and took a refresher residency in Oak Park
and applied for a job and for the time being, he got the one with
the Veterans Administration which was very active in those days
of course. Then, we couldn't find a place to live in Springfield
because it was a very closely knit town and unless you had
wonderful connections, you couldn't get a place to live. We
didn't think of buying. We didn't know whether we would stay.
We didn't have the money for it and he heard about a house of a
Congressman or the widow of a Congressman in Pawnee, Illinois and
so that's where we went. (chuckle) I from New York City to
Pawnee. This is. . .I was expecting my second child, you see,
eight years after the first one. And it was a hot summer, I tell
you, and we lived in a small cottage, but
Q. You rented that?
A. We rented that. Then the next year, we bought the house
across the street from the former Mayor of Pawnee and everybody
in Pawnee said that he ripped us off because we paid eight
thousand dollars for it and he only had paid two thousand dollars

for it. (chuckle) And we lived there until '53. I started to
like Pawnee because I finally got roots. It was very important
to me to have a home of my own and Jack was very unhappy and he
said he wanted to move and get into Springfield.
Q. The commute was not too easy.
A. Well, he commuted to the hospitals. He had hospital
privileges in both hospitals and, as a matter of fact, Charles
Patton, the father of Bob and Chris sponsored Jack. Then, we
moved into Springfield in 1953. We had lived in Pawnee for five
years and started a library in Pawnee, I want you to know, and
that library has been tax supported since many many years and is
still in existence and also it was a nice thing to do because a
Mr. Bolt who was the mine superintendent of the Crown Mine and
lived only a few years in Pawnee and a Mrs. McWilliams who had
been a teacher, we were the ones who started to stock the library
and got the information from the State Library and we got loan
books and we were told how to arrange the books and how to
arrange our library cards and then we had fund raisers. It
really was quite nice. I enjoyed it. And then we moved, as I
say, to Springfield, and we lived on Fourth Street. South Fourth
Street for about, we moved into Fox Meadows, and by the time we
moved in here, Mrs. Masters got sort of interested in me and she
made me join the League of Women Voters and the Springfield Art
Association where I befriended Ted Kurahara who was a Nisei and
he had been in the Second World War and had trouble getting
accommodations here because he looked very Japanese, but he had
married a Caucasian young woman, very attractive. We met them a
few years ago in New York one more time but I cannot remember her
name now. But they had a child and it was a nice mixture of
Japanese and Caucasian and also the way they had dinners, they
had fish, very important in the Japanese culture. I think lox or
something. Well anyway, Kurahara and I had much in common
because he had experienced this feeling of discrimination and I
had it too although I don't think I ever told him why I felt so
sympathetic toward him but we were very good friends. Then I met
the Chataras in 1954 and those are really the long time friends
we have here.
Q. Is Ted still here?
A. No, Ted went to New York and has never really made a big name
for himself. I think he has never quite found his medium or what
he wanted to do with his art. He became quite abstract. I have
just one water color, no it's not a water color, it's a pastel.
It's hanging in the kitchen. From 1958, we started to acquire
more friends in Springfield and I became President of the Women's
Auxiliary and I was involved in the Art Association and I started
Q. President of the Medical Women's Auxiliary?

A. Ya ya, now the Medical Alliance, I think.
Q. And I was the President and my father was still alive when I
became President and he said to me, "How many women are in that
group." And I'd say, "Oh, maybe a hundred, a hundred and sixty,
that's all." and he said to me, "You mean to say, you're the best
of them?" (chuckle) He was always putting me down. Just like
Jack. It's funny. They both always had to put me down
(chuckle) in a loving way. Teasing. Then he said, "That must be
a poor organization if you're the best." (chuckle) As I say, I
was very involved in the Art Association and I started something
there, the Art in Springfield Homes. And I gave some copies of
newspaper clippings because when the Art in Springfield Homes
were held, we did two things. First of all, we had an opening
party. Mary Jane Masters and I decided we are doing it in a big
way because I had been to many events in New York while I worked
at the paper and saw that if you have a party it brings in the
people. And secondly, we showed pictures of paintings and
watercolors and etchings which were hung in Springfield Homes but
we had a selection, we made a selection and it was a very very
good show and very popular and the editor of the Journal Register
sent the story with photographs into this supplement. What's the
name of it?
Q. You mean the Parade? That's a National Supplement.
Q. Yes, and he said the most wonderful thing, and it gave a
boost to the art movement in Springfield, I'm quite sure. And
then we had another show two years later but it wasn't as
successful I think, but it still was a good thing because it told
people buy art and buy locally, you know, you don't have to go to
New York or to Chicago. You can buy art locally or start with an
etching or start with some kind of linoleum, or whatever, to
build up your interest in art. I feel a little bit responsible
for that. In 1953 or '54, we were immediately drawn into the
Symphony. Harry Farbman was the Conductor then and of course we
became very very good friends and to me, the Symphony always
sounded better even though it was not any better than now. With
Harry Farbman at the podium because he loved music more than
anything else in the world. He didn't care how little he got
paid or what they did to him as long as he could make music.
That was the important thing. I admired him for that. He stayed
many times with us and we were just very very good friends. It
was sad when he got sick in 1980 and he died in 1985.
Q. Where was he living in those five years? From 1980 to '85?
A. He lived first in St. Louis. He had lived in St. Louis for
many years when he was the Associate Conductor under Vladmir
Golshman then when Golshrnan retired, they did not ask Farbman to
become Conductor, they brought in somebody from outside and I
think that was a flop because this other Conductor did not last

ut Harry Farbman was offered a Professorship of Violin and
Conducting at Indiana University School of Music and he moved to
Bloomington, Indiana. Then, when that position was filled, when
he had served his time, he moved back to St. Louis because
originally, they had a great circle of friends in St. Louis and
you see, when he was in Bloomington, he still came to Springfield
to conduct. He came every week for one rehearsal.
Q. And stayed with you?
A. Very often, not always but he stayed with us many many times
and I heard all his complaints and all his frustration and we did
dearly love him and we did dearly love his wife and his daughter,
yes. Patty. Well anyway.. .
Q. Were you on the board?
A. Yes. I was on the Symphony Board from 1955 until I retired
last year in '93. And I had good results with money raising. I
never had any. . . I also was once President of the Guild for two
years but I tell you, I was very unhappy with many of the women
who were guild members because they didn't even buy tickets to
buy concerts. It was silly. And I tried to get it through that
you had to buy at least one ticket. No, I couldn't get it
through because I dealt with women who had no idea what an
audience would have meant with Farbman. I don't know whether you
went to the concerts when he was still here.
Q. We've only been here seven years.
A. Oh, only seven years because this is over ten years ago.
Q. What was the date that the Symphony began here?
A. They're always saying sixty-six years ago. It's nonsense.
The Symphony as a Community Concert existed before the Second
World War. It started maybe in the twenties. Then it was
totally dissolved and it started up again in 1948 and in 1950, I
think they hired the first Conductor, a man by the name of
Constantine Johns. Then Harry Farbman came next and was hired
actually by Bob Saner who was most responsible. He had heard
about him and persuaded him to come and be the conductor in
Springfield and since Farbman had this Associate Conductorship,
he was able to manage to come once a week but the concerts took
place on Tuesday because he could not come on Saturdays because
the weekends were taken up at the St. Louis Symphony and besides
for the supplemental players he had to rely on the University of
Illinois and they couldn't let go of their players either for the
weekend so it was a very difficult thing. But Harry Farbman was
able to bring wonderful soloists. I think we heard world renown
soloists, and they came for, what I call, chicken feed. They
came for two hundred dollars or two hundred fifty dollars and

they were put up in private homes rather than be put up in hotels
so that we save money again. We were constantly thinking of how
we could save money and Harry Farbman when he left here in 1980,
got nine thousand dollars a year. This man immediately. .
.Kiesler, I think, almost immediately got sixty thousand, or
something like that. It is just to me unbelievable how modest
Farbman was and as I said before, because he loved music, it
didn't matter to him. And I don't think he ever thought of
enumeration, he only thought of the fact that he could conduct
and he was proud of his artists, really he was, so we adored him
and he was a rare person in this world. You know, there aren't
too many who'll do anything for just the love of it.
Q. Can't afford to.
A. They can't afford to anymore.
Q. How long then has Kenneth Kiesler been here? Eleven years?
A. Oh no. He came in the fall of 1980. He's here now over
thirteen years. And I wonder about his future because he's really
sort of frozen here. Not that he is bad, I don't think he's bad
at all, but I think he had tremendous ambition and it was stifled
because he tried so many places to conduct and never got to first
base. Well, he's very talented but apparently not that talented
because there are some conductors who make big names for
themselves now, but it's also a matter of luck, you know. Whom
you encounter, where your're going to be called to. I think luck
plays a great role in that field.
END SIDE ONE: TAPE THREE
Q. Tell me why you finally decided to come up to Springfield?
A. Jack was very anxious to leave Pawnee, more anxious at that
point in 1953 than I was and he was able to take over the
practice of a doctor who was going into Ophthalmology. His name
was Dr. Weisbaum and he still is because he's still living, and
Jack was absolutely unhappy confined into Pawnee but I had been
more satisfied, not that I thought it was the greatest place to
live in but I had taken roots and I think women are much more
adaptable than men, in my opinion, even though men are very much
absorbed by their profession, but women can adapt even to a . .
. situation and I was one of them. In other words, we moved
into Springfield in 1953. We had our thirteen year old son
Andrew and we had Bob, who at that time was only five. Another
reason Jack was anxious to move, he thought we'd have much better
schooling in Springfield although the schools at Pawnee were not
that bad or not that inferior to the Springfield schools because
nobody was as education conscious in Sangamon County anyway. I
think the League of Women Voters gave the first impulses and
that had more or less just started after the Second World War.

Well anyway, we moved in here and Springfield was a very charming
provincial town. Very compact and had a very nice inner city
with lots of movie houses, the biggest of which was the Orpheum
which was very elaborate in an oriental style and it lent itself
to all kinds of community activities so that all the concerts
which the outside of theatre performances would come to the
Orpheum. There were broadway productions. There was the socalled
amateur musical club which is now the Community Music
Organization, wait a minute, that's not right but similar. And
the amateur Musical Club brought excellent, excellent performers.
Not only symphonies but wonderful soloists and recitals and it
brought Segovia, it brought George London, it brought Irmgard
Seefried. You name it and you had it here with the Amateur
Musical Club. You see, the Orpheum could seat two or three
thousand people so they were able to sell a lot of tickets and we
were always full. I mean the whole society of Springfield
participated in these performances and you could see the most
wonderful looking people, even at that time. You know, this was
a time when women still dressed up, you didn't see any sloppiness
and you saw all the mink coats of Springfield there and
everything which had. . .and anybody who had a name was buying
tickets. Then , of course, the city itself was sort of cozy.
There were no gaping holes as there are now to open up parking
places. Parking, yes, was difficult, but on the other hand, you
had the reward of being in a sheltered city. In the winter, the
wind didn't just take you off the street and in the summer, the
heat didn't devastate you because you had buildings to shelter
you and there were all kinds of movie houses, as I said, which
showed foreign films. I remember seeing English productions in a
movie house called the Tivoli. There was a Chinese, the only
Chinese restaurant, on Monroe Street between Forth and Fifth, an
upstairs restaurant. The only Chinese at that time. There was a
coffee shop also on Monroe Street. It had wonderful things to
offer with open barrels, you know, where you could pick out
candy. It had wonderful coffee, cocoa, tea, brazil nuts at
Christmas time. It was nice. And then there were these
wonderful department stores. Bressners was an elegant department
store where it was a pleasure to walk into and shop. There was
Meyers Brothers, there was Herndon's, there was Westenberger's
and Westenberger's was very old fashioned. It still had these
rods hanging over the counters where you paid and most of the
time you usually paid cash and they'd stuff it into a little box
and they'd run the rod (chuckle) to the treasurer or cashier and
it had the oldest sales ladies. 1/11 never forget how old they
seemed at that time but I was only in my thirties. Well,
altogether I think that Springfield had a lot more to offer.
Then there were these Hotels. The Leland Hotel had a lovely
Flamingo Room and then it sort of an English Tavern and I can't
remember but maybe you do remember it, but you may not, I think
you came after it. Then the Abraham Lincoln Hotel which was
taken down. It was beautiful and built in the '20's. It was art
nouveau style. It was just beautiful. The St. Nick Hotel was

very popular with a Chinese Restaurant but we learned later that
the cook was a black chef from Chicago who cooked the most
wonderful Cantonese food. My husband and I have never forgotten
it, I mean you never ate better Cantonese food than you did at
the St. Nick Hotel. In the Glade, the Glade, that's what it was,
called The Glade. And what else was there then. . .they had such
good lunches. For a dollar twenty five (chuckle) they had the
best sliced chicken sandwich and then they made their own
sherbet. It was just out of this world. So, altogether,
Springfield was pleasant and I remember V.Y. Dallman who was then
the Editor of the Journal Register, as a matter of fact, he was
Editor of the Register. There were two newspapers. The Journal
was the morning paper and the Register was the Democratic
afternoon paper and V. Y. Dallman wrote for the Register because
he was an ardent Democrat and he wrote how much fun it was before
Christmas to be down town because everybody was pleasant, smiling
at each other, greeted each other with great enthusiasm. I think
so much of that has been lost. Not only in Springfield, but
everywhere because commercialism and rush, rush, rush has taken
over. If you see Christmas trees in July, how much fun can you
get out of Christmas, you know, it's ridiculous. So that was
part of the fun of living in Springfield which was very nice.
Then of course they had these social columns which were written
by various women. One of them was Pauline Telford, one was then
Niana Crane who just recently died and the social columns talked
about private parties. You looked, if you were invited whether
your name was in the paper. It was very important naturally so
some peoples names were in the paper all the time. I guess they
gave the impression they did nothing else but go to parties but
on the other hand it sort of kept you informed with what was
going on in Springfield and the Beaux Arts Ball of course played
a big role and then we, with the Symphony, started the Symphony
Ball. We started it in 1958 and it was called A Night in Vienna
and we held it at the Leland Hotel and I think we made all of two
thousand six hundred dollars. We were very proud. Then of
course the Symphony Ball was always held on the last Saturday
before Lent which was a good date to keep because for people who
were religious and wouldn't go dancing and wouldn't eat meat
during that time, they would feel free to come. And the balls
were sort of regimented. You had honors couples, you had honors
marches. You tried to compete actually with the Beaux Arts Ball
which was an established ball but we tried to bring in couples
which were good supporters who'd look good at the Symphony Ball.
(chuckle) We had these honors couples and the grand marshall. We
had wonderful times. We had the Golden Gate Ball and Carnival in
Venice and we had The Golden Dragon Ball. We just had very nice
themes and the women worked their hands off. Then we had a
Circus Ball one time and that was a winter when we had a lot of
ice and I remember going on all fours to somebody's house in
order to help with doing the animals for the Circus Ball because
we needed to have felt and leopard skins and all this sort thing
for the Circus Ball. We had fun. So this was all very nice.

Then, suddenly, when the hotels died our chance of having the
Balls at the hotels died and so we had to look for other places
and we looked for the Capitol Building which was a mess because
the sound was not good. Bad acoustics. You know, you didn't have
the unity of a Ball because you had all these hallways. It was
very difficult. Then we went out to the Transportation Building
which was maybe a little better but we couldn't decorate very
much. I no longer participated in the decorating. Then of
course when the Renaissance Hotel and the Hilton Hotel came up,
we tried to go back to those but the Bank buildings, for instance
the Bank of America, is it First of America which was then called
something else. They offered to us to have the Ball in the
Atrium but again it isn't the same because in the Hotels we had a
Ball room and we had little rooms for bars, we had special rooms
and it made it much more cozy to be just always in this one big
room but of course we're taking in more money because everything
is, the prices are much higher.
Q. It's all relative too.
A. Of course. We need more money and there is more money
around, I think, right now.
Q. Well, tell me, why were all these beautiful old hotels razed?
A. Well, actually the only Hotel razed was the Lincoln Hotel.
The other Hotels were no longer able to maintain their status
because the parking was impossible. See, even though the Leland
Hotel offered parking service, people did not want to wait for
their car to be brought back at all. It just wasn't that easy
and therefore, of course, the Francaise Hotels came up and they
were a terrible competition to the downtown. The Lincoln Hotel
had very bad management and it was sold to a shyster who then
sold it to somebody here in Springfield who didn't know what to
do with it and so it deteriorated inside totally and it had to be
demolished. The Lincoln Hotel was the only hotel which was
demolished. The St. Nick sort of revived as sort of an apartment
Hotel and they are now trying to bring back some of their
entertainment by having parties there. The Leland Hotel was then
converted into an office building and the Sangamon State
University rented quite a bit of space from them but that proved
to be too expensive and now it is an office building and I think,
it belongs to the State, if I'm not mistaken.
Q. What happened to the Orpheum?
A. That was also railroaded. The Orpheum was also demolished by
two men, and I don't want to mention their names, who were
connected with the INB Bank from a corporation. I think it was
called the Phoenix corporation, and they really laid the Orpheum
into ashes. They wanted their own parking for their bank, yes,
and for the expansion of the bank. That was absolutely terrible.

I would never put a penny into that bank, yes. It really was
railroaded in a very underhanded way. I can't forget it. On the
other hand, I must say that this was before the time when, for
instance, St. Louis or Pittsburgh opened their movie houses and
made them into concert halls. Powell Hall in St. Louis was a
movie house so was Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh. There were others
in other towns, I just can't think of it, but both of these
cities which, of course, had a much more wealthy clientele and
more hopes for bringing this hall back to life for having their
concerts did a very wise thing. And I think the Fox theater in
St. Louis which has recently been reopened was also a case in
point. I think it was a movie house. It is a theater which
brings Broadway shows and things like this, and maybe light
musicals. Powell Hall is strictly for the Symphony and maybe
some Pops Concerts, but this happened just before St. Louis and
Pittsburgh did this conversion of their movie houses.
Q. Well, the Symphony is about to move out of Sangamon State.
A. There's a good reason I think. Aside from the fact that
Chamber Music has never attracted a large crowd, it has become
too expensive for them to rent the big concert hall at Sangamon
State and actually the First Presbyterian Church has fairly good
acoustics and for a Chamber Orchestra, it will be very nice. We
brought the Russian Trio, you know, into the First Presbyterian
Church a few times. These are three immigrants which, by chance,
I got hold of through Kiesler although ~iesler rejected the
pianist among them. She's a pianist in Indianapolis. I don't
even know whether they are still there, but they were outstanding
musicians. She is the pianist, her husband is the principle
cellist with the Indianapolis Symphony, and the violinist is the
lead in the second section of the Chicago Symphony. They have
performed several times at the First Presbyterian Church as a
money making project either for the Symphony or for the choral
society so we tried our best. We had them for our fiftieth
anniversary party at the Springfield College in Illinois and they
performed there and of course they were our guests. They are
very nice people and they left Russia because of the antisemitism
which was prevailing but that was just a few years ago.
I mean, maybe ten years ago. Oh yes, there was also a lot of
anti-semitism also in Soviet Russia that's why so many Russian
Jews left and are still leaving. So the First Presbyterian
Church is a tested ground for that music. Are you unhappy about
it? Well your husband is no longer a member of the Symphony
Board just like I am. Really, no longer, but I do understand it
is a money saving. On the other hand, it may put some money into
our coffer besides our Choral Director at the First Presbyterian
Church is the Chorus Director of the Springfield Symphony. We
are sharing the salary. So there's a good reason to do this. I
am afraid we'll lose more patrons because there are those people
who do not like to go into anybody elses church. Ya, isn't that
true? For instance, Riverton, where the mother house is of the

nuns, has a beautiful chapel and I always said, "Why don't they
perform one Christmas concert there?" But it's too much effort
to start breaking the ground with the nuns out there or with the
diocese, and it would be very very nice because it's a beautiful
church. It was a fairly large church. The Cathedral here on
Sixth Street. It's all stone interior. I think it may have very
good acoustics.
Q. Maybe they could try it?
A. They may try it, but I don't know how many people it would
seat. And then the Diocese would have to play along. I don't
know, it's very difficult. The Choral Society has performed at
the Baptist Church. I don't think. . .at the First Baptist
Church. I don't think the First Baptist Church has as good
acoustics as for instance the First Presbyterian. Another Church
which has wonderful acoustics and the Choral Society was out
there, is St. Aloysius. That's out there on Sangamon Avenue. We
attended a concert there and I think it sounded very very good
because I think it has an interior where you know where the walls
are throwing the sound back. It's quite nice.
Q. Let's get back to the Springfield Art Association. I know
you were very involved with that. When did the Beaux Arts Ball
begin?
A. The Beaux Arts Ball began before the Second World War. It
goes back possibly to the thirties. Either the late '20's or the
early '30's because Mary Pearson, the wife of Dr. Emmett Pearson,
Lois Schnepp, who was then Lois Catron and Julia, can't remember
and Niana Crane whom I mentioned before, as a society writer. .
.she was Niana Staley. (spelled it out) She was also one of the
early queens. I can't remember, there were others. Then it was
interesting that by the war, of course the Second World War, and
it was resumed, maybe shortly before we came back here. Maybe in
'47, I'm not sure, but I know there was this hiatus because of
the war and I think one of the early queens may have been Carolyn
Oxtoby. Really, they used to select girls from very well
established old families which has changed a great deal, in my
opinion, oh yes. It's now money. What the mothers put in time.
One at a time.
Q. And they begin preparation early!
A. They're preparing from nursery on for this roll, if they can
afford it, because it's becoming more and more expensive because
in addition to putting on the Ball and so on, they also have to
give a lot of money to the Art Association. That is expected,
naturally. So, in other words, I think some of the lustre has
worn off, although, I have known two daughters of former Queens;
for instance Mary Perkins who was the daughter of the Pearson's,

and Susan Schnepp who was the daughter of a Queen, although I do
remember the heartbreak of Niana Crane but whose daughter didn't
make it because Niana was unpopular among the board members.
That played a big roll. If you were unpopular, you didn't have a
chance. Although she was a Board member for awhile, but she sort
of breezed in, indifferent, but it was just her style. I was
very fond of her. She thought she didn't give a hoot until she
found that her daughter was bypassed. Then they moved away. She
couldn't take it. They moved to California. Ya, ya, ya, that's
too bad.
Q. After all those years here.
A. Ya. Well they had two sons in California. They decided that
maybe they wanted to be in California, but one of the compelling
reasons, just when the daughter would have been eligible, they
moved away. Now they asked for a contribution in her name. She
died of Alzeimers.
Q. Your involvement?
A. My involvement was not thinking of a Queen. As a matter of
fact Andrew preferred to go duck hunting when he was asked to be
a courtier. The other one was a courtier and hated every minute
of it. (chuckle) But I was involved as Exhibition Chairman and
Program Chairman and one time as Membership Chairman and at the
time when I was Membership Chairman there were twelve hundred
members but now they have a lot more and I started something
which was then written up in the Sunday Supplement of the
Newspaper. We get it every week. It was written up many years
ago when we did this. It was called Art in Springfield Homes.
That was my idea that people who had art would bring one
painting, one graphic piece or one water color to the Art
Association and it was somewhat risky but I think we took out
insurance and it was really the first art exhibit where everybody
came because everybody wanted to see the art of everybody else
and not only that, Mary Jane Masters and I started the receptions
in connection with the art openings. I had observed this in New
York when I worked for the Newspaper I was invited to quite a few
of the openings and of course I realize a lot of people come
because it's a social event and we had a wonderful opening and
two or three waiters at that time which made it look more elegant
and then when the men dish out the wine in the reception hall and
we had very nice appetizers. We didn't have a buffet table, we
just had them pass around appetizers and drinks. I think we had
wine but we didn't have any hard liquor but there was some
objection to it because the statute said that no alcohol could be
served on the premises but somehow the Board went along in waving
that statute, yes. It was really a true success and then from
then every opening has been in connection with a party. As a
matter of fact, they went so far to appoint some women to be
chairman that on Eastertime when they had a very interesting

exhibit that Ulfert Wilke who had just been in Japan they had an
easter bunny on the table. I couldn't get over it because Ulfert
Wilke was a very cosmopolitan and a very civic man and here they
had to have an easter bunny on the table because they had a woman
who had no sense, otherwise they would have put flowers on the
table. No, she had to have an easter bunny because it was just
before Easter.
Q. Change of times again?
A. Yes, yes. I do think the exhibits now are very good, because
that Rod. . .
Q. Buff ington?
A. Buffington is very good. Rod has fine connections and Rod
knows how to bring a good exhibit without spending too much
money. I think at the time when I was Exhibit Chairman or the
Program Chairman, I had maybe three hundred dollars to my
disposal. It was very difficult, believe me, to put on a good
exhibit and we couldn't. . .well we didn't leave them on as long
as they do now which was also a saving, of course. But he has
more important exhibits, I can't remember what else we did. We
had some nice exhibits, but you can't imagine, even for three
hundred dollars, even in the fifties, you couldn't get much. I
think we had once, I can't remember anymore.
Q. This idea is a good one. This original idea of yours and
Mary Jane Masters was the best idea of all of them.
A. This was the best idea because it really increased the
membership, you know, and people do enjoy it so it was my idea
and Mary Jane was very supportive of it and, as a matter of fact,
she also had this in mind but she allowed me to say this was my
idea and it nothing very unusual. I brought it from New York but
you saw very nice looking people there and I always thought it
had an elegance which sometimes now is missing because you notice
the art exhibits are so crowded you can hardly see the art. I
rather go afterwards.
Q. Why not go both times? Go two times? At the opening and
then quietly later?
A. But then of course after we opened the Art Association, we
opened the library which I think has added a great dimension to
the Art Association.
Q. Did you have something to do with that?
A. No I didn't. That was strictly Devera Victor's child and it
was due to the death of her son who committed suicide. He was
apparently very interested in modern art and so their home

eflects this. Have you ever been in her home? No. It's
actually like a mausoleum. It is very very stark with several
large, very abstract paintings, and it was in his memory
actually. But the Library is named after him. The Michael
Victor Library. I wanted to say something in connection with the
Art Association. When I became a Board Member, they had a
Japanese/American Art Director by the name of Ted Kurahara with
whom I had a really good relationship because he was undergoing
very strong feelings of rejection by the community at that time
because he was very Japanese looking and he fought in this
Japanese/American Regiment because he had been born here in this
country and his parents had also been displaced, you know. They
were taken to a camp in California, and therefore we could talk
about rejection, we could talk about what it feels like not to be
recognized as a full member of a community and things like this.
We were very very good friends at that time. Then he married a
caucasian young woman and I think I never got along with her too
well, for some reason, I don't know. She expected more, I really
don't know. They had a child very soon and the way they brought
up their child was very much in the Japanese tradition in spite
of the fact that she was Caucasian. She came from St. Louis
originally and then they moved to New York and we saw him and his
wife a number of years ago for cocktails in New York. I don't
hear from them anymore. I don't think he ever amounted to very
much as a painter because I have seldom heard his name although I
did see it once in a Munich publication. He exhibited in Munich
at one time.
Q. What's he doing in New York? Painting?
A. His wife is working in the film industry. I think she's
doing something, cutting or something. And now, of course, he's
a man in his sixties and I think he's soon going to become
retired and one of his sons is a plumber and then they had a
daughter and I don't know what the others are. They had three
children, yes. But at the time when he came and couldn't even
get a room because people rejected him because of his Japanese
background without finding out who he really was.
Q. Today would be different? Easier for him?
A. Oh, today would be very different. But you know, this was
1953 that he came. This is just a few years after the war. You
forget how condensed this was. Here was the war that just ended
in '45, and then there was the Nuremberg trials and then the War
in Japan ended in '46, yes, with the bomb. And the after effects
of the war and all this was still going on, so people still had
strong prejudices in those days. Absolutely.
Q. So, how do you think things have changed in Springfield?

A. Oh, very much to the better. I think in every instance, I
believe, the influx of Sangamon State personnel which is not
participating too much in the community and SIU, I think, had a
great deal of impact to the Community with all the foreigners,
which have been coming to this town.
Q. In Medicine, you mean?
A. Medicine. And you know, if you say Medicine. It's in the
picture of the city. When you go shopping, you see women in
their saris, you see two men with turbans, the sikhs. You see
people with different ethnic backgrounds also shopping for
different things. The city has changed tremendously, I think,
and also the influx of Chinese. Instead of the influx of one
Chinese restaurant, we have eighteen or nineteen. I mean there's
a constant influx of foreign influence.
Q. Why? Why do you suppose? The Capitol?
A. Because. . .oh no it has nothing to do with the Capitol. Much
of it is by chance. Much of it is where the settlements occur or
where the settlements are encouraged by Churches or by
organizations. For instance, we have quite a few Russian Jews
here which the Temple has brought in. We have quite a few Indian
and Pakistani doctors because one Pakistani tells the other. Or
South American. We have Peruvians, only no Italians. Giacobini
is always complaining (chuckle) and very few Germans, really.
There's a tremendous shift from the Orient into the Western
world. I could tell this in Munich as well. The opportunities
are here in contrast to the Orient. Although I think the
opportunities will shift back to the Orient because with regard
to trade, there will be big opportunities in the Pacific Rim, but
right now is to the rest of the world, and it makes the community
somewhat different, I think.
Q. Cosmopolitan?
A. Yes, it makes it much more cosmopolitan, yes. The only thing
is, in my opinion, unfortunately there is not enough integration
into the social life, of these faculty members into the social
life of the community, but there's also always that fear that
faculties will move on, ya. People hate to make friends with the
tremendous fear of losing these friends and that's what's
happening. Absolutely. There's no doubt about it because I can
see Gaicobini's again. You might leave. The Beckers are leaving
after a while, so there are all these unnamed whom I don't know
of, who are also going to leave.
Q, But why are they leaving? To retire or being given more
attractive opportunities somewhere else?
A. There's constant shifting. Somebody's not the Chairman of a

Department.
Q. We call it "Musical Chairs".
A. Musical Chairs. Right, right. And people are very mobile
these days. Look at my son. He's leaving Green Bay. He's
already left to go to Pokatello. Who wants to be in Pokatello?
I don't (chuckle) but I don't know.
Q. After all these years, Hella, do you have a feeling of
nostalgia for your homeland?
A. Yes I do, and I think it will be with me for the rest of my
life because one of my nieces said to me, "Tante Hella, you sit
between two chairs", because there is an inner life which
absolutely always relates to what I have gotten from Germany.
The Literature, the music, the beauty of the cities. The
friendships of my youth, my memories. And then there is my life
here which I also cherish because I have made many good friends
here and Jack has made many good friends here and I feel that
they are sustaining us far beyond what I ever expected because I
do talk about Germany and they are very tolerant of it, I think,
but you cannot erase the mother language with which you've grown
up. It's more than a language. It makes your soul and it
directs your thinking. I had wonderful parents and I have a
husband who is really very much going along with it even though
he makes jokes of my, let's say, not literary ambition but about
my dreams and longings, but I know that he feels very much with
me and so I think 1/11 probably end my days in Springfield but I
will be ending them with a longing in my heart which will not be
totally fulfilled. But on the other hand, I should not complain,
I've had a good life.

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