When I was a small boy an aunt gave me a picture book of Hamburg that made a tremendous impression on me. At that time my fantasies did not extend far enough to imagine I would ever live there. For a Libau youth Riga was the greatest place to aspire to. Now I had come to Hamburg where the gates to the whole wide world opened, and from where the gate would also open for me.

Here was a marvelous city, great surroundings, woods, heather, lake, river. Berlin could be reached in three hours; Lubeck, Bremen, Kiel, Holstein Swiss area, Luneburger heather, Helgoland, etc. provide endless possibilities for nearby excursions. I was really happy. I lived with a teacher family, Ratzmann, Hoheluftschausee 125 at the border house, where Prussia began. [276] The mineralogical institute was at Lubeckerthor 22, almost at the Wandbecker, the other Prussia border.

I had made up my mind that I would travel the stretch by foot. I would go from the border house, over Hoeluftchausee, Grindelberg, Grindelallee, Siemers allee, Lombardsbrucke on the Alster, Lohmulenstrasse, to the institute. This took 60-70 minutes. I walked in any weather. Working hours were 9 to 4, then in good weather I would walk back, or take the streetcar.

I was received very amiably at the institute. The chief was professor Gurich, vice-director professor Jan Wysogorski, both actually geologists. They had been around in the world and could tell many stories. Then there was an old fellow worker, Frucht, a onetime pharmacist, who had already been assistant to the earlier director Gottsche. He was an excellent photographer, and made wonderful plaster casts, but understood little of mineralogy. His wife [msp 277] was a Goethe researcher, and looked for evidence that all of Faust consisted entirely of hidden freemason wisdom. She searched for evidence of signs of a buried major work of Goethe. With the permission of the Archduke of Saxony-Weimar she made excavations in the Goethe house park in Weimar, but found nothing.

So I was the pope in mineralogy and Petrography, and there was plenty of work. First I worked on the rock collection of the south sea expedition. Then I was permanently assigned to the Mineralogical institute as staff scientist.  I worked on a collection from an East Africa expedition, a collection of 700 rocks from the Vladivostok area for the Petersburg Academy of Science. Then came the institute's own collection, museum collections, collections for lectures and student exercises; Lectures on gemstones and ice age events, consultation with the Hamburg merchants who brought mineral and ore samples from the whole world. [278] It was a colorful and active life.

Among the Hamburg royal merchants there were many ore and gemstone importers, as well as a few collectors. They also needed constant advice. Collections of the deceased were bought for the museum and had to be organized. I worked with great happiness and pleasure. For the first time I needed no supplements from home, and could even put some savings aside every month. I installed a laboratory in the institute. I planned to do my own research, namely the production of synthetic diamonds. The train of thought originated with graphite crystals in calcium minerals [kalkspat].I assumed that carbon would dissolve in melted carbonates and then crystallizes out during cooling. So I had to find the conditions that determined whether the carbon would crystallize as graphite or as diamond, since I am convinced that diamonds [ 279] in the [blaugrund] of South Africa did not originate there but came in later. The equipment was ordered from Leipzig in July 1914. Then I was to travel with Edward Wormann to the German colonies of Africa to observe all the new ore and mineral discoveries. There were so many hopes and possibilities that dissipated like fog when the disaster of WW I broke out. But I am getting ahead of myself.

For now I enjoyed life in Hamburg. In the evenings there were the most beautiful concerts, theater and opera. On Sundays museum and church concerts, or in summer excursions. And then the great social life. Mainly I was with the families Lurie and Sakom, less often Leibovitz and the institute people. Dr. Max Lurie, (191) second oldest son of Isidor Lurie of Libau was raised by his grandmother in Stanislau-Galicia, then studied chemistry, and was director of the dye factory of Beit & Co. His wife Helene [280] (born Edle von Mises) came from Lemberg. She was a skilled painter who made the self portrait and the portrait of Dr. Sakom in our living room, and the chalk sketches of me in your play room. Both came from very wealthy families. his income as director was a comfortable supplement. I was welcomed into their house like a brother. It was a happy marriage, but childless. They had no idea what worries were. Then came the war. Both lost their wealth which had naturally been invested in Austrian state obligations. The salary from the factory was their only source of income. Then he lost the middle finger of the right hand from a minor infection. Then after the death of his father came a paralysis of the vocal chords; he got an artificial larynx [rachel] and could only speak in whispers, and was fired from the company. They suffered further and lived until death by selling their furnishings. [281] My dear Max died soon after Hitler's arrival in Hamburg; I arranged and entry visa to Bolivia for Helene, but she did not come. The war broke out, and in the last letter that reached me from hamburg, dated November 1941, Mrs. Eliasberg wrote me that Helene Lurie had been forced into the Polish Ghetto.

Jascha Sakom had graduated from the chemistry department in Kiev. Then he obtained a doctorate, although very few people obtained this title in Russia. When one graduated from university in Russia one became a candidate. After publication of scientific work one became a "Magister" which was already a rare title in old Russia, and very few professors made it to the doctorate. However the medical doctors were always called doctor, which was not a scientific title, but a trade name. Dr. Sakom, already during his student days, had studied more cello than cellulose, hung up his chemistry [282], went to the Leipzig conservatory, and then became first cellist with the Hamburg friends of music orchestra. He was married to Sofia Ljwowna Kahn from Schairlen, whose father had a confection factory there, and who had been a boarder with my father's cousin Rosalinde Goldinger (71). Sakoms had a little daughter, Vali, who started school at that time. At Sakoms I was received with even more friendliness than at Luries, if that were possible, especially when my brother Erich came to hamburg. Vali later married a Meyer-Udewald, and the last news from her was from Antwerp, before the war. I don't know what happened to her after the German conquest of Belgium. The Nazis had pushed Sakoms away to Lithuania before the war, their last news was from Kaunas. Sakoms had free tickets to all concerts, which they usually gave us, [283] so during my Hamburg years I had no lack of musical nutrition.

I saw Boris Leibowitz less often, and only after WW I was I ever in his house. He also came from Russia. His wife's maiden name was Bersch, from Petersburg, with whose brother I had studied in Riga. and with whose family I was acquainted from Libau. After the war and the inflation Leibovitz became a very rich man. He imported dried fruit, and sometimes fresh fruit from overseas. He was actually a quiet, shy man, the wife rather ambitious. He was the Zionism center of Hamburg, and in his house I met, and heard lectures by, the great Zionists, Ussischkin, Nahum Sokolov and Schemarjan Levin. After I went to Bolivia Leibovitz went bankrupt with over one million gold marks of debt. He emigrated to Palestine, his wife divorced him and opened a beauty parlor in Hamburg, then she emigrated to London, [msp 284] and I lost track of her.
 
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