[397]  Not only through resuming work in the laboratory, but especially at the test furnace, I got in touch with the feeling of old Freiberg again. Not only through the steadily incoming and analyzed minerals was the old time recalled, but I would return to 1905 on a personal level. Though there were Freibergers in Bolivia, most of them had studied much later than I had, they were engineers who had not come to Freiberg until after the world war, and who had nothing in common with the old international life. [398] However, I met one old Freiberger in Bolivia, Dr. Mauricio Hochschild, (253). After his Freiberg studies Moritz spent a short time in Frankfurt working at the metal company, and then was in inner Australia for three years, where he managed a mining company. It collapsed after a long drought. Not only was there not enough water for washing, even for drinking it had to be obtained hundreds of kilometers away. Moritz folded his tent and came to south America, where he started in Chile with an ore business. He did not earn much, but it went reasonably, then came the world war, the business faltered but survived. Moritz went back to Europe, moved his activity to Austria, where he worked  mines to obtain magnesite needed for the war . There he also married his first wife Mathilde, who bore him his only child, Gertie. After the end of the war Moritz returned to south America, with him a whole band of brothers and cousins and Austrian friends. The ore business however did not do so well.

I don't know who gave Moritz the idea to come to Bolivia.  But it was nearby for a Chilean ore dealer, since the Bolivian ores from the Altiplano could only be shipped via the Chilean ports of Antofogasta and Arica. There the ores lay on the wharves, and must have been noticed by professionals. So Moritz started to stretch his feelers towards Bolivia; in the year 1921 the office in Oruro was established, and ore dealing started. The people that Moritz sent up had no knowledge of the Bolivian ores; they did not know what was valuable, and how much it was worth. [400] They did not know how much was paid for what, and what was penalized (contaminants that interfere with processing are penalized ). But help was available. The content of wastebaskets of other ore firms were obtained, providing formulas, and soon a small chemical lab was set up. The existing ore firm Duncan Fox, Bottinger, and a few others, did not strain themselves, and earned awesome amounts. In the mines work was also light and wasteful. Only the richest ore was removed, and the rest was dumped as tailings. In the Araca mine, then owned by Trepp, ore with less than 15% tin was thrown out. Then two Americans took over the processing of the tailings. They were Easly and Inslee, who in a few years on these viloco tailings became dollar millionaires. These conditions in Bolivia were made to order for a man like Moritz. Tall and stately, with a winning friendliness, a real charmer who enchanted all those who dealt with him. [401]

His large cigar pocket was always open, his cigars were custom made in Havana, or at least custom labeled: "Made especially for Don Mauricio Hochschied." That the Cubans had printed an "e" instead of an "l" did not bother anyone. Better friends and customers had whole boxes pressed into their hands. Moritz, as the whole world called him (even today few Bolivians can pronounce or spell the name Hochschild correctly, our mason wrote our name Sempertegui instead of Herzenberg) found his El Dorado in Bolivia. There were poor tin ores that no-one here would touch, and mixed ores, that contained lots of lead, zinc, and copper that were also disdained by the established ore companies. And then there were the giant slag heaps from colonial times. The Spaniard had been interested only in precious metals. They searched only for silver and gold. They had brought quite capable smelters into the country. Tin, copper, and lead they extracted only for their own use. Gold is most often found only unalloyed, which was then washed out and smelted. Silver however is found mostly in ores, and occurs here combined with lead as in the rest of the world, and also with tin ores. Metallurgy since prehistoric times only had a process to win the silver. The ores are melted down in small blast furnaces [hochofen] into raw lead or raw tin. These raw metals enclose all the precious metal. These are then melted in a draft furnace where air flows over the red hot molten metal and burns the non-precious metals into ashes (oxides), which are removed from the metal surface with wooden shovels, skimmed off like fat floating in soup, to expose fresh metal to oxidation. These melted oxides are called "Abstriche" in german (skimmings), the Latin languages, as well as English, use the terms escorias, scories, slag. This process is continued until all the non-precious metal is burned off, and finally the pure precious meatal is left in the furnace and can be poured into ingots. About 300 years ago the Spaniard performed this process. One can imagine what tremendous slag-heaps were created I the land.

Now, ordinary slag is very poor in metal, with no more value than field stones, but the Bolivian slags were skimmings, with over 60% lead, and fairly rich in silver. These fields of slag were not touched by anyone here. So Moritz got started - this material could be purchased for almost nothing, sometimes one could remove it for free. Ship after ship went to Europe and other smelters with the slag shipped by Moritz. The earnings were huge and in a few years Moritz was a dollar millionaire, and the other real ore business also was great. The business relied mostly on credit. Moritz gave the miners advances, who then would deliver ores. Naturally not all miners were honest people, so thousands of pounds were lost, but ten times that, if not more, was gained. Moritz would eventually have dominated all Bolivian ore trading, and become the uncrowned king of Bolivia, but our dear God does not allow trees to grow into heaven; I will continue later with the tale of the development of the firm.

Moritz came to Bolivia once a year for a few months, but spent most of the year in Europe or the states. His wife Matilde had died of tuberculosis in St. Moritz, and the raising of little Gertie was left to governesses, since the father was almost always under way In the world, and rarely spent two nights in a row in the same bed.

The Hochschild office in La Paz had its own laboratory, but the customers left their sample packets with Barrande-Hesse, that is with me, for analysis, and so we came into close relations. When Moritz came to La Paz at the end of 1925 I had  to visit him; his pleasure was great and genuine, and he offered me a position with him, but I was tied to Barrande at the time. When Moritz was back in Europe I got free, that is, Barrande would have been glad to get rid of me, but nothing was open at the firm. Only in September 1926 the chemist in La Paz quit to return to Chile, and the firm started to negotiate with me. At that time Pablo Biggeman was the chief in Oruro, Ehrmann in La Paz, Mandl in Tupiza. I decided to accept the offer, and to go to Oruro in October. Two chemists were working there, Burose and Nagler. I was to take over the direction, and Nagler was to lead the smaller lab in La Paz. I got 60 pounds salary. On 5 October I moved to Oruro, where I am now (1943) in my 17th year of residence. [406]

At the same time Enrique (Henke) Kavlin travelled to Oruro to take over the local branch of his brother Alexander's La Paz Photography business. His niece Debora, widow of his brother ran the shop with Cesario Soilan, who was bought out and acquired a badly going lead mine near Aguas Calientes on the stretch to Cochabamba.

Alexander Kavlin came from west Russia, where his oldest brother ran a match factory. They came from Hassidic circles, and they were child-rich families. This match-manager [zundholtz-director] had many children. Among them I knew Anna, Debora, Rosa, Lina, Gertz, and David, but there were many more. The match-manager married his daughter Debora with a younger brother  who had a pharmacy in Wilna. Alexander emigrated to south America before the world war. He had become a photographer, and went to Bolivia via Uruguay, where, as a monopoly of photography and general distributor for Kodak and Agfa, [407] he became quite wealthy. In addition, he became a freemason and reached a high degree in this circle of worthy activity and infantile rites. The youngest brother Henke (Enrique) was about to finish his three year service in the Russian army when world-war broke out; he was immediately sent into the war; during the first battles at the Masurian lakes (in Poland) he was captured. After the war he came to his brother Albert at Planien  in Saxony and learned the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes.

A few years after the war Alexander brought a large part of his family to Bolivia. His brother the match manufacturer had lost his wife, married a second time and raised another row of children; there was no peace in the family, and he emigrated to Palestine where he died. Alexander next brought out his nieces Anna and Lina and his nephew Gertz. In the next year his niece Debora, who had been widowed in the meantime, with her children Ljuba and Motke (now Marcos), his niece Rosa, and his nephew David. His brother Heinrich had married in Planien and had a son. He came over Brazil, where a sister had previously gone, also to Bolivia. He tried at first in mines, but eventually landed with his brother Alexander in La Paz. When I came to Bolivia, the photo shop was across the street from Takken's shop, the smooth dutch swindler. I went there and met Gertz, whom I did not pay more attention to, since, in his thick blondness, I saw a Latvian youth. Only after a few weeks did I meet Alexander and his niece Anna, who had married in the meantime. The pleasure of meeting [Landsleute] and speaking Russian was very great and mutual. I was in their house often, and if I was tight on cash at the end of the month, and Barrande had nothing in the bank, Alexander would help me out. The family was now divided, Alexander, Anna, Lina, Rosa, Gertz and David lived in La Paz; Debora, with the two children in Oruro - I had met them during the "Fiestas Patrias" (Independence day) in August 1926, when I went to Oruro to visit Grinja Falk. On the day before my departure from La Paz Henke had just gotten cable news of the death of his child in [Planien ?], so we traveled to Oruro together where, along with Falk, we lived in a tight knit community for many years. There was no room in the Rancho Hochschild (a boarding house for bachelor employees), and I was housed in the old Hotel Eden, (next to the Prefecture) but had my meals at Harmsens, Falk's boss. [409]
 
Back to Top        Back to content         Next page: Oruro