[149]  Libau, a fishing village in the 13th century, became a city in 1625. Libau lies on a 2 km wide tongue of land. West of the city the Baltic sea spreads out, on the east the Libau lake, which is 2 to 3 km wide, and 15 km long. In the north of the Libau lake there is a connection to the Baltic which is widened by dredging. That is the Libau harbor, about 80 m wide and 6 m deep, protected from the Baltic sea by breakwaters and seawalls with only narrow openings for ships. The outer harbor is 8 m deep. The harbor is ice-free almost the entire year, and before the world war [150] it was used by 1500 ships a year. Libau had 17 consulates, was the biggest emigration harbor of Russia, and had lively industry -- linoleum for all of Russia was made in Libau. The castor oil for all Russia was pressed in Libau, and the herrings for all Russia were imported, sorted, packed, and shipped to Russia. Wood, grain, oil-cake were exported.

Libau was called Libava in Russian, Liepaja in Lettish -- the Russian "Lipa" means linden, and the coat of arms of Libau has a linden on a blue field with a red Kurish lion leaning against it.

Libau was connected to inner Russia by the Libau-Romnyer railroad. A narrow gauge line connected with Hasenpoth via Grobin. After the world war this line was extended to Goldingen, and a line to Riga was also built, since the old connection [151] ran through Lithuania in places, which had become a foreign country. So the new line was built on Latvian ground.

The city was initially built up only south of the harbor, and spread west almost to the Baltic. In the east the shore of the Libau lake was swampy and unhealthy, and the burgers did not settle there. In the west the Kurhausalle ended at the Kurhaus, where concerts always took place on summer evenings. The Kurhaus stood at the end of a residential district. A wide outside staircase led to the beach. The Libau beach is the most beautiful beach I have seen in all my travels. The Baltic knows no tides, and except for storms when the waves came up to the Kurhaus, the beach was almost 200 m wide all year, the purest, white, flour-fine sand, no pebbles, no piece of wood. The wide white stripe ran from the seawall until Germany, a marvelous street for wandering. [152] Then the westerly storms would come and cover the beach with waves, which on their retreat would leave a foot-high  layer of dark brown seaweed. The latter did not lie long though; a large part was collected by peasants for fertilizer, and the sand would cover the rest without a trace. The seaweed also brought a lot of amber to the shore, and as children we would collect it eagerly; I had boxes of it, naturally mostly hazel-nut size pieces. To the north the beach ended at the seawall on which one could walk 500 m into the Baltic sea. 1500 meter south of the seawall was the men's bathhouse and another 500 m the women's bathhouse. Further south was an open air swimming pool where anyone could bathe as they liked. The bathing establishments had 3 classes in each. In the first class one stepped directly [153] into man-deep water, the second was built on the beach and one had to wade for 100 m through shallow water before one got neck deep, and the third one was built further back, so one had to walk through sand for 100 m before getting to the water. In summer one would bathe daily, from mid June until September, and we children would bathe 2-3 times a day and romp around in the water for hours. In spite of the fact that I spent a lot of time in the water every summer, I never learned to swim. My father was a good swimmer, but apparently he placed no value on having me learn also; actually I was fearfully [aengstlich] kept away from water sports; later, when I was 14 I was allowed to row, but not to sail. In contrast, your uncle George was an enthusiastic and very able sailor. One would bathe without any bathing suit; when someone wore bathing trunks, there would be whispers of a disorder of his sex parts.[154]

Libau is a marvelous sea-side resort, much better than those on the Riga beach. In summer bathing guests would come from Russia, especially when the Russian court visited the resort for a time. Libauers preferred to spend the summer months in the forested area inside Kurland, but most stayed in the city where they could mind their businesses, and enjoyed the resorts, water sport, and the rather good concerts at the Kurhaus. At my time the popularity of Libau as a resort had largely declined. The Baltic idyll was made into a fortress and military harbor. Alexander III had decreed that the main Russian military harbor would be built in Reval. In spite of the freedom from ice, and the good location, he did not want a war harbor in Libau due to the danger of the proximity of the German border. In spite of it the grand dukes persuadedNicholas II  that a war harbor [155] be built in Libau, along with a fortress to protect it. So the construction began feverishly. Directly north of the Kurhaus the large shore battery was erected, which continued until the seawall. There was barbed wire and trenches, which do not suit a modern resort. When my uncle Jacob gave me my first camera, a Pocket Kodak, I went to the shore to snap pictures. I photographed the lighthouse, the pilot tower, the seawall, and so on, and was promptly arrested, led through the whole town, and delivered to the gendarmerie. I was then a pupil in the 7th grade, 15 years old, and unaware that I had committed a state crime. At that time I was tutoring for the family of the fortress commander, general Petrovich, who spoke up for me and effected the return of the camera, but the roll of film was confiscated, who knows why, since one could buy all the pictures cheaper and better as post cards. [156]

The resort declined, but the city blossomed. In addition to the harbor and commerce activity came the construction of the war harbor and fortress. Officers and engineers with families streamed into Libau. There was an boom in every respect. And that went on till the outbreak of the world war. At that time Libau had a population of 100,000. A strange city, but not an exception in the Russian rim countries. The population consisted of German Balts, Russians, Letts, Jews, and Poles. Added to that the many foreigners, Reichs Germans, Danes, Swedes, English, French, etc. Each of these national groups led its own life, had its own associations, festivals, amusements. These circles did not intersect, either socially or culturally, even though they were all loyal subjects of the Czar. The Russians consisted of the government employees, military, police, and navy. [157]  Then there were all the lower employees, priests, a few businessmen, entrepreneurs, etc. They clustered around the Russian church in the Waisenhausstrassse, then the garrison church was added. In the war harbor a pompous cathedral was erected, another one was started near the Kurhaus, but was never finished. The Russian "society" was exclusive to uniformed employees, both civil and military. They never learned german, and for them the others did not exist. The german burger, merchants, craftsmen, factory workers had the trinity church on the main  street as a center. It was beautiful, large church, with what at that time may have been the largest organ in the world, having over 10,000 pipes. I was never in a church in Libau, not even for a church concert. The german Balts enclosed themselves culturally with the equally Lutheran Swedes, Danes and naturally also the nobility, though few of the "Barons" lived in the town: Vietinghoffs, [158] Behrs, Ostensacken, Borners, who though Lutheran, held themselves apart form the german Balts.

The Jewish community, of about 20,000, were also divided into several groups. The main group was the Baltic Jews, with german spoken at home and in the community. Yiddish was understood, but they could not speak it. Hebrew was hardly known. Culturally we belonged to the german middle class, and were closer to the german burger group than to any other national group, and read the old "Libausche Zeitung". This Jewish group would not have survived, however, without the rich Jews from white Russia and Lithuania having automatically joined it. These not only gave the group great capital strength, but they were people with immense Jewish and other knowledge and education. These were the Minsk-Pinskers: [159] Halpern, Luries, Eliasberg, Katsenelsohn, Weisbrehm and so on. The Kurhausstrasse was an avenue of Jewish villas. One lived well, ate well, but also had an open heart and purse for every artistic activity. No musical or literary greatness, or dramatic troop would miss visiting Libau, and at all such occasions the Jews were present in greater numbers than their proportion of the population would have indicated. This Jewish group had the large synagogue across from the local court [bezirksgericht], the "Choir-schul."  Since this synagogue was already so westernized, that he prayer leader, the Chasen of my childhood, Rabinovitsch was accompanied by a boy's and men's choir of 10-20 voices in four parts. The services were very beautiful, but usually Rabinovitsch sang himself hoarse during rehearsal for the festivals; since the choir could not accompany any other prayer leader, the Choir-schul stayed without Chasen and without Choir. In spite of the choir the synagogue did make an impression [160] of a purely eastern Jewish congregation. Later though, after I had already emigrated, and my father had become the leader, he made a great effort to introduce the Prussian custom and tradition that the synagogues in Germany had adapted him to. The other Jewish congregation jokingly called itself the "Velvet Schul" [Sammeter Schul] (though it has nothing to do with velvet [sammet] -- this northerly part of Latvia was called [Russian word = samogitien] and the inhabitants were "sammeter"); it was located near the east harbor and the Weissenhofstrasse. Its members were the poorest circles of the freshly immigrated, as well as established Latvian Jews, with Yiddish as a mother tongue, real [Golus Juden] who tolerated no western affinity. They had their own [Rom?] and the two groups came together rarely. The Jewish community was quite self-sufficient [autark]. One could go through ones whole life, and except for the government, never have to deal with a non-Jew. There were Jewish servants, carriage drivers, hand workers of every kind, and naturally innumerable businesses, schools (without rights), etc. [161]

The letts were a group wholly to themselves, with the gothic [Annenkirche] at the hay market. In school there were fewer Letts than Jews, we were good schoolmates [kameraden] but there was no closer contact. Yet another isolated group consisted of catholic Poles and Lithuanian, who flocked to the catholic church and the parsonage. But each group lived by themselves, married among themselves, had their own cemetery. However there was no Lettish cemetery, because they were considered Lutherans, and only the faith counted in the Russia of that time. There was no civic registry [standesamt]. Marriage, divorce, birth and death registration was performed by the registrars of the various cultural communities, and only in them. One lived quiet and secure. The special distinguishing feature [characteristicum] was the stability [bestandigkeit] of the world. Who could doubt the permanence of the Romanows, the Hohenzollern and the Habsburger. One was patriotically minded, there were no revolutionary ideas, socialism [162] was considered a devil's concoction [teuflisches machwerk], and one had very little sympathy with the politically active students who wanted to introduce a different world view and then were banished to Siberia. The Ruble was worth two mark and 16 pfennig. The frank was 40 kopecs, the crowns 55 kopecs, and the dollar two rubles. There was much gold coinage (10 and 5 ruble), silver coinage (1 ruble, a rather large coin, 50k, 25k, 20k, 15k, 10k, and 5k), copper coinage (3k, 2k, 1k, ½k, ¼k). Naturally one preferred paper money for larger sums, such as travel, since gold was very heavy. And what madman would have doubted the security of paper money. One learned of "drafts" [assignaten] and their collapse, but that had been long ago and could not happen again. One lived in friendship with all neighbors, no-one thought of war, or revolution; and yet my generation was to experience so much more war, revolution, [163] state destruction, than hardly any other. But in my youth nobody thought of that, and there were no prophets to predict the uncanny [unheimlich] future. Life was beautiful [shoen] and one had everything. Foods were especially cheap; a full grown goose cost one ruble, pork was 10 kopecs per pound. We had to eat the expensive kosher beef and lamb, which cost 18-20 kopecs per pound; part of the expense was the "Korobka" tax. Fish was available in great quantity; every day one could buy live carp, tench [schleie], pike. The ocean shipping brought salmon, flounder [butten], [stromlinge] (which, thanks to the low salt content in the Baltic sea are a pathetic kind of herring), smelt [stinten], and [dorsche] (a miserable north sea cod-fish). Then there were smoked sprats, herring, flounder, and salmon. In winter only the latter were available, but in summer the market was flooded [164] with the best and cheapest berries and fruit. [Johannes], [stachel], and straw-berries from the garden; blue-berries, [preissel (Krons) ] berries, and strawberries from the forest, mushrooms, predominantly chanterells [pfifferlinge] but also stone yellow boletus [stein-pilze] and champignions. Apples, pears, nuts, cherries, etc. The time for making preserves came in the fall, and for weeks there was cooking of juices, and preserves for the winter, since until early summer there would be nothing fresh except potatoes and beets. Foodstuffs were plentiful and cheap; there also were delicacies from the entire Russian empire, from the white sea to the black sea, from the east sea to Vladivostok. Never again have I experienced such marvelous fruit, confections, and preserves. Unfortunately we were not allowed to eat caviar, since it came from a non-kosher fish without scales, but in the shops [165] the following kinds were available: [malosol], [payusnaya in fusschen].

Clothing was expensive, since there were no ready-to-wear items. The tailor measured for everything, one bought the cloth and accessories, and so the clothing was made. As long as I was in the parent's home no ready made shoes were bought either; the shoemaker came to the house, took measures, then all supplies needed would be bought from the leather dealer. I knew only rubber boots at that time, no laced ones.

The winters were quite cold; already in the fall one would buy several cords [faden (ca 2 meter)] of birch wood. Then one would rent inmates of the prison, who would come into the yard with an overseer, and saw, chop and stack the wood. The large tile-stoves [kachelofen] would be fired with this in the morning in winter and stay warm for 24 hours. Before the beginning of winter all windows were fitted with storm windows, the cracks sealed with paper strips, [166] and a padding layer in which colorful corn-flowers and paper rosettes were placed would cover the window-bench. Only in the spring would the storm windows [winter rahmen] be put away again. Regarding lighting, I experienced the whole development. First we had quite miserable petroleum lamps, then came the lightning burners [?][blitz brenner]. When we moved from Seestrasse 32 to the Tieletz house Badestrasse 32 we got gas lighting, already with glow-mantles. Only shortly before I left home did we get electric lighting.

Libau is not on any river, the water in the Libau lake is not fit for drinking. Two water tables [grundwasserspiegel] supplied the city. The first one is only about 10m deep, but the water is infected [verseucht]. Each house has a pump in the yard [167]. The second water table is about 100m deep, wonderful, pure drinking water, only a little hard. But only richer house owners could afford such a well [bohrung]. The water rose so high artesially that one could obtain it with a hand pump; later every house had either a wind motor or electric pumps that pumped the water into a tank on the ground floor [hausboden].

The waste water arrangements were worse however. There was a sewer system that led waste water into the harbor, but only the fewest modern houses had water toilets. Every house had a waste pit that the toilets emptied into, where all the waste collected. Occasionally a steam pump came by with stink-vessels [stinkfassern] and pumped it all out and dumped it somewhere far out of town. When this work happened the whole house and neighborhood would be filled with a horrible stench.[167]

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