Two Lives in Uncertain Times

Facing the Challenges of the 20th Century as Scholars and Citizens

Wilma Iggers, Georg Iggers

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781782387961
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

Published in Association with the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.

Wilma and Georg Iggers came from different backgrounds, Wilma from a Jewish farming family from the German-speaking border area of Czechoslovakia, Georg from a Jewish business family from Hamburg. They both escaped with their parents from Nazi persecution to North America where they met as students. As a newly married couple they went to the American South where they taught in two historic Black colleges and were involved in the civil rights movement. In 1961 they began going to West Germany regularly not only to do research but also to further reconciliation between Jews and Germans, while at the same time in their scholarly work contributing to a critical confrontation with the German past. After overcoming first apprehensions, they soon felt Göttingen to be their second home, while maintaining their close involvements in America. After 1966 they frequently visited East Germany and Czechslovakia in an attempt to build bridges in the midst of the Cold War.

The book relates their very different experiences of childhood and adolescence and then their lives together over almost six decades during which they endeavored to combine their roles as parents and scholars with their social and political engagements. In many ways this is not merely a dual biography but a history of changing conditions in America and Central Europe during turbulent times.

Chapter 1

FROM BOHEMIA TO CANADA (1921–1942)

WILMA

I was born on March 23, 1921, in the village of Miřkov/Mirschikau, in the Bohemian Forest. The house was built for my parents when they were married in 1919. It was on a farm rented from the formerly noble von Trauttmansdorff family. On the house facade were my parents’ initials. My sister Marianne was born there two years later.

My mother Elsa, née Ornstein, came from Waldmünchen in Bavaria, two miles beyond the border. Her parents were Bohemian Jews, her mother more German, her father more Czech. They had moved to Waldmünchen as a young couple, but returned to Bohemia in 1933 and then lived kitty-corner across from us in Horšovský Týn/Bischofteinitz until we all had to flee in 1938. My mother and her sisters attended the only girls’ school in Waldmünchen, a convent school. My mother was such a good student that the nuns urged my grandparents to let her join their order and become a teacher. My father Karl Abeles was descended from Jews who farmed in the West Bohemian countryside. The members of my family mostly spoke to each other in High German, and with the servants and villagers in the Egerland dialect.

I was born into the “Kompanie Abeles and Popper,” and it was only long after we had to emigrate that I came to realize how unusual our Kompanie was. It was as important to me as my family. The Kompanie came about long before I was born. In 1887 my grandfather Richard Abeles from Vysoká Libyna/Hochlibin near Královice, married Mina Popper from Rejkovice, a Chodish village near Domažlice. The Chodové were a Czech tribe who lived near the German border, spoke a distinct dialect, and had preserved many colorful folkloric traditions. This date is engraved on my grandmother’s wedding ring, which is now my wedding ring. My grandparents lived with my grandfather’s parents in the village square of Vysoká Libyna, in a house that is still standing. Soon after their marriage, my grandmother wrote her parents and siblings that she was lonesome for them, and so her brother Pepi (Josef) made a magnanimous offer. He offered his less well-off brother in-law a partnership: everything would be owned jointly by the two families. Richard and Mina agreed, and moved to the Hamr farm, not far from the Poppers, where their first child Olga was born.

While each partner was in charge of a separate farm, all major decisions were made jointly. The partners shared the same values, were thrifty and industrious and supported poor relatives, and wasted nothing. Fortunately the two families grew symmetrically: each had a daughter who had to get a dowry, and two sons to whom to pass on the farms.

Before my father’s birth in 1896 the Kompanie rented the farm Lazce/Hlas from the town of Horšovský Týn/Bischofteinitz. My father and uncle Leo were born at the farm, which was two miles from the town. The day my father was born, my grandfather gave his workers the rest of the day off and treated them to a barrel of beer. I remember a coffee mug with a German rhyming inscription celebrating my father’s first birthday.

My grandmother Mina was remembered in our extended family with affection and respect. Three of her granddaughters, I among them, and one grand niece were named after her. When she was diagnosed with tuberculosis in about 1903, she frequently went to spas such as Karlovy Vary and Merano, and as a result her children were sent to live with relatives. Aunt Olga was raised by relatives in Horaždŏvice, and at the age of ten my father and his brother Leo were sent to live with uncle Siegfried in Prague. Four years later my father entered an agricultural high school in Kadaň/Kaaden that was to prepare him for university. In 1919 Kadaň was the scene of deadly clashes between police and German nationalists.

My father was the first of the sons of the Kompanie to marry. In the chaotic immediate post-war period, he smuggled my mother across the Bavarian border. About a year later his cousin Hugo Popper married my mother’s sister Martha, and my father’s brother Leo married Ida Eckstein from the neighboring village of Blížejov/Blisowa. The last to marry were Alois Popper, Hugo’s brother and Hedda Eckstein, Aunt Ida’s sister. The marriages again resulted in symmetry. Each of the four couples was responsible for one farm, but everything was owned jointly. Generally this arrangement worked well, although sometimes one could detect a division between the Eckstein daughters and the Ornstein daughters. My father made all major decisions, but there was never the slightest suspicion of favoritism.

In 1925, when I was four years old, we moved to Horšovský Týn/Bischofteinitz. The Trauttmansdorffs, who also owned other large estates in Bohemia and in Austria, had lost Miřkov in the land reform of 1924–25. It was given to a coal dealer who during the First World War¹ had been a member of the Czech Legion and thus supposedly had contributed to liberation “from the Habsburg yoke.” In the land reform all of our machinery and cattle was taken without compensation. During that time my grandfather Richard died. Although we soon rented another Trauttmansdorff farm, Nový Dvůr/Neuhof, we could not live there, as it had no suitable house for us. Hence we moved to my grandfather’s house in Horšovský Týn, to Nádražní/Bahnhofstrasse 75, where we would live until we had to emigrate in 1938.

There were many expropriations during the mid-1920s, and tenant farmers and nobles alike turned to my father for advice. I do not know how much property he was able to salvage for those people, but they gladly paid for his advice. By 1931 he had a million Czech crowns, enough for a down payment to buy Nový Dvůr.

In the following years many new buildings went up at Nový Dvůr. First the Kompanie built a large barn with a vaulted roof, then three pigsties made of pressed straw and fitted with blue glass windows to deter flies. These buildings attracted a lot of attention. Next the Kompanie built a house with two apartments. Although my family did not move to Nový Dvůr, as there was no school nearby, my maternal grandparents Ornstein and other older relatives spent their summers there.

Most of the milk from Nový Dvůr was shipped to Plzeň/Pilsen, which was for us “the city.” My parents often went there to meet with friends. Our pediatrician Dr. Vogl also lived there. With him my father hit upon the idea of pasteurizing our milk, which was previously unknown in our area, and selling it in attractive glass bottles decorated with a picture of a mother and child. Yoghurt and apple juice were also bottled in the Nový Dvůr dairy.

On our premises in Bischofteinitz/Horšovský Týn big, round loaves of rye bread were baked once a week by Mrs. Wondrasch. She lived with her husband in a small apartment attached to our house. The Wondraschs took care of our large garden and slaughtered poultry for us. She helped with the laundry and Mr. Wondrasch also went on errands. In the thirties, when grain prices were low, my father decided to avoid the middleman. He converted one of the former farm buildings into a bakery and hired a baker, Mr. Kitzberger, a fun character who probably contributed to the popularity of our bread with the locals. I recall that an old man used to bring us a basket full of crawfish from a nearby brook and would receive a loaf of bread in return.

Fish was a regular part of our diet. We always looked forward to fishing in the ponds in Hlas, at the farm run by Uncle Hugo. Once a year the ponds were drained of water, and men with boots up to their hips waded in the mud and threw the fish into large tanks. The fish were then transferred to large wooden cages in the Radbusa river, which flows through Bischofteinitz.* We took fish from the cages whenever we wanted to eat them or give them away. The fish were mostly carp, but there was also pike and sometimes an eel. We ate fish every Friday evening, undoubtedly in part because of the servants who were Catholic.

Pork was also part of our diet. Every year a butcher slaughtered a pig in our farmyard in Bischofteinitz. It was not until much later, when I met Jews from outside Bohemia, that it occurred to me that there was anything unusual about our eating pork. I knew of course that pork was not kosher, but that did not concern us. After the pig was slaughtered, pieces of meat, blood sausages and liver sausages and headcheese were boiled in a large kettle over an open fire. Some of the sausages were given to people in town and the rest was smoked.

Our house in Bischofteinitz had a magnificent garden. On the left side of the garden were asparagus beds, on the right vegetables and strawberries. The fence was hidden under lilac bushes and beneath them violets bloomed. Most of the garden was taken up by an orchard. The gravel path that divided the left from the right was lined with currant and gooseberry bushes. Halfway up the path was a gazebo with a table and benches and walls made of wooden planks, through which the sun peeked. The path and the orchard ended in a small park filled with leafy and coniferous trees, with a four-seated swing under one tree. At the entrance to the park was a deep well, covered with stone slabs. As a young child, I was convinced that the well and the large vases that crowned the pillars on both sides of the gate to our property contained treasures from the Thirty Years’ War. At the end of the garden was a two story stone tower that my mother called the “Luftschloss” (castle in the air). The first floor was full of old garden furniture and tools. On the second floor we children played and tried to frighten people who passed on their way from the train station. Again and again we were offered much money for the garden, but we never considered selling it.

In front of our kitchen and living room windows was the small flower garden. The most beautiful thing there was the little almond tree, when it was in bloom. On warm evenings we would sit with Mrs. Wondrasch on the little wall that enclosed this garden and listen to her stories about the childhood of people who lived long ago.

Our maids were with us for many years. Kaiser-Mari and Marchet had come with us from Mirschikau. Mari was obsessed with medical matters, memorized medical journals word for word and convinced herself that she had diseases; these all eventually healed of their own accord. When Marchet married after being with us for twelve years, Leni came. In our yard was also the “garage” where the machines from all of the Kompanie’s farms were repaired. In charge was Mr. Tichopad, a very talented and versatile Czech from Moravian Silesia who eventually followed us to Canada. With him worked a German mechanic and an apprentice, also German. Across the yard worked the baker Kitzberger, a Czech, Leni, a German, and the Wondraschs. She spoke only German, he mostly Czech. Mr. Zwetschkenbaum, a Polish Jew who performed the function of a rabbi, although he did not have the required formal education, also worked for us part time as a bookkeeper. Nobody addressed him as “Rabbi”, but he was highly respected nevertheless.

In one corner of our yard a small stable housed bulls that were owned by the town. Since cows were brought there regularly, my mother insisted that a fence be built to obstruct the view. A fenced-in area also held our doghouse; our last dog was an Irish setter called Troll. The rest of the yard held a milk cooler, an outhouse for the employees, a water pump, the Wondraschs’ apartment and two poplar trees.

Once an old man came to our house and told us that he came from America and that he had lived in our house before my grandfather had bought it. We let him go through the garden alone. Then he thanked us and left. After he left, I tried to imagine what reason there could be for leaving our house and garden. Later the Nazis made our house into an administration building, and where the large garden used to be, there is now the ruin of a dairy that was built by the Germans. There is nothing left that reminds us of what my home used to be.

The day when most people came into town was the feast of St. Anne, in July. The church of St. Anne was a mile from the town on a wooded hill, and was reached by a road marked by sandstone statues depicting “the way of the cross.” Under high leafy trees was a statue of a group of sleeping apostles. There was a bench where one could read undisturbed and where I also had French conversation lessons with a woman who had worked in Paris as a maid. On St. Anne’s Day, thousands of people came from the villages, many in regional costumes. There were stands and booths where anything from Turkish honey to salt pickles was sold. Most of the visitors had to pass our house. For days before St. Anne’s Day, the women had been baking the traditional koláče which were filled with poppy seed, cottage cheese and plum jam. The koláče lay in rows on boards in the pantry and in the cellar, and we would give them away whole or cut in wedges. We were not aware that the occasion was actually a pilgrimage; undoubtedly many German Catholics who were more religious than most of the Czechs were aware of the significance of the day.

My parents were a very important part of my life. My mother was an upright, intelligent woman, with more education than the average of her generation. She was very much concerned that my sister Marianne and I should receive a good education. My mother’s Czech was very good, although she was born and raised in Bavaria, and she spoke French with Aunt Martha when she did not want others to understand. She made sure that we had piano lessons, but she seldom played the grand piano, a wedding present from my grandfather Richard, out of concern that passersby might think that “this Jewess has nothing else to do than to play the piano in broad daylight.” She could imitate voices of people and of animals and knew by heart parodies of German classical poems and poems by the satirist Fritz Löhner about Jews who did not want to be known as Jews.

Mother had a great sense of humor, which unfortunately did not extend to situations when she was jealous of my father. It was clear that he was very much admired by men and women, but I of course do not know how far his relationships with other women went. My mother often felt neglected when my father engaged in lengthy, lively conversations with women. I understand better now than I did seventy years ago that she was hurt when she was left at home to take care of the accounts of Herr Ubl, who shipped the Kompanie’s milk to Plzeň, while my father amused himself with friends from his youth at the Thalermühle, the swimming area at the river, which even had cabins for swimmers to change. The fact that there was nothing secret about this arrangement did not make it any easier for my ambitious mother. Nevertheless, I think that my parents had a good marriage and appreciated each other very much.

How can I describe my father without giving the impression that here is an old woman who has a crush on her daddy? Someone who knew him could perhaps make plausible, why he meant so much to so many people. There is nobody with whom one could compare him. Meanwhile, I also see his faults, and that because of him my life has not been easy. His intelligence was remarkable, and he could immerse himself in other people’s problems like no one else, and he did that often. We felt safe with him, even when we had to emigrate. He enabled many people to emigrate and so saved their lives.

As long as we lived in Teinitz, he drove every day the eight miles to the farm. During the summer we often went along to swim in the Suchana pond. (Many names of bodies of water in Bohemia had Celtic origins. Surely that was also the case with Radbusa and Suchana.) Often our friends or friends of my parents came along. Near the pond my father had a cabin built in which we could change. Half a century later it was still there.

I learned from my father that we were well off and we should be grateful. He wanted us to observe the people who were working hard in the fields. During the last two years we were there he wanted Marianne and me to work for a week in the fields tying sheaves of grain, from six in the morning until six at night, for the same wages as the laborers. During the two-hour lunch break, the women who worked alongside us went home, cooked a meal and took care of their families. My father had no sympathy for the women from our circles who suffered from depressions which for some reason were quite common. “Look at the workers,” he would say, “they have no time for such nonsense”.

Many people came to my father for advice or help. On Sundays our kitchen was like a waiting room. Some wanted to know what to do when the insurance company did not pay, others wanted to borrow a team of horses, such as when a daughter was about to be married and needed to transport her possessions. I remember young women considering marriage and asking my father to look at the young man and his small farm, and give his opinion. One of the women, Olgerl Oesterreicher, was a Jewish orphan who lived in the village of Muttersdorf, where all women contributed to the family income by making bobbin lace. We sat around a table with Olgerl and her relatives, my father had a conversation with her intended and soon the wedding was celebrated.

All of the family, except for uncle Alois and aunt Hedda, who lived in the hops growing area of Žatec/Saaz belonged to the Bischofteinitz/Horšovský Týn Jewish community, which consisted of about twelve families. Except on the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, most of the families went to services only on the anniversary of the death of a close relative. The “temple,” as it was called, was the second floor of a house in Bräuhausgasse. On the ground floor lived the Klaubers, the only poor Jewish family in town, and Rabbi Zwetschkenbaum during his bachelor days.

More than to the Jewish community, we belonged to the German bourgeoisie. Most of the Czechs living in town were officials who had come relatively recently, and kept to themselves. I doubt that even they knew that until the seventeenth century this had been a Czech town. There were also many German officials in our time, from the head of the district down. Until the thirties there seemed to be no problems between the nationalities.

Our standard of living was very much like that of the German doctors, officials and merchants. Perhaps we ate somewhat better as farmers and because the Abeles’ thought they knew a lot about good food.

My father sometimes met friends at a bar in town, and my mother saw ladies at Jung’s, the best pastry shop in town. During carnival everybody, including my relatives who lived in villages, went to the masquerade ball and the firemen’s ball. Relatives came to visit frequently, often for days or weeks. My parents’ sisters who lived some distance away, came with their families for the whole summer, and after 1933 some Jews came from Germany. Aunts, uncles and cousins came. My father often invited people and forgot to tell my mother who found out when they appeared with their luggage. On Sunday other Jewish farmers much like ourselves came to visit from some distance away, as did the Salzs, owners of a brick factory. Their uncle Artur, my grandfather’s card playing partner during his cures in Karlsbad, was a professor in Heidelberg, and was the only professor any of us knew.

My father’s best friend was Friedl Rudofsky, the manager of one of the two local banks. He was a member of the most respected family in town, which had lived there since at least the seventeenth century. He proved to be a real friend. When we had to leave in 1938, he advanced us enough money for all of us—four families—to live on in the following weeks. For this generosity he was persecuted by the Gestapo. My father and Friedl remained friends, and my father sent the Rudofskys care packages from Canada.

In September of 1927 I started school. The day before school started I sat on the swing in the garden feeling sorry for myself because I saw school as the end of my freedom. I went to the German girls’ grade school where the first three grades were taught together by the somewhat old-maidish Fräulein Quitterer. While she concentrated on one grade, another class read and the third did calculations on the blackboard, all in one classroom. Being impatient, I read ahead in the reader. Fräulein Quitterer solved the problem by having me read to the class from a reader about Emperor Joseph II, an idealised portrayal that must have been published in the days of Emperor Francis Joseph, or from another book about the history of our town since the Middle Ages.

All of my friends were Gentiles; the few Jewish children in the school were either a little older or younger than I. The Jews of my parents’ generation were mostly either unmarried or had moved away. Only much later in gymnasium did I briefly have a Jewish classmate. On Thursdays, which the Catholic children had off we had religious instruction. Mr. Zwetschkenbaum taught all the Jewish children from town and from the villages in one group, which meant that we had to listen to the same stories year a...