Great Uncle Abraham

GREAT-UNCLE ABRAHAM HERZENBERG, Mitau, and descendants.

[39] Uncle Abraham in Mitau was the youngest son of my great-grandfather Elias Lemchen Herzenberg. My grandfather Naftali was the second oldest, and I will write more about him later. The second youngest was Uncle Hosias, whom I did not know. When I went to the Russian front in 1916, while passing through Warsaw on the way to Minsk, I spent an hour in his house. But I no longer remember anything. Of his sons I knew Heinrich and Leopold very casually. Heinrich married Lilly Herzenberg, the window of Meisel and lived in Riga. Uncle Abraham I still knew, he died young in 1901, I don't know how old he was, but he was already then a multiple grandfather. But he was young in comparison with the usual age limit of that [40] generation, which was about 85 years. I was more friendly with his children than I was with my fathers's siblings. In part this was that they were closer to my age, especially the younger ones, partly because one could correspond with them, which was impossible with my fathers siblings.Uncle Abraham was married with aunt Therese Herzenberg. He was the brother of my grandfather, she the sister of my grandmother. He the uncle of my father, she the aunt of my mother, so we were doubly related.

As a thirteen year old boy my father once took me along to Mitau to the house of uncle Abraham; when I was 15 I was there a second time and he had died shortly before that, relatively young, perhaps fortunate for him since he did not have to experience the breakup of his home. It [41] was a typical Buddenbrook fate, but completed in one generation.

Uncle Abraham may have studied in Mitau. When I first saw him he was the head of the Abraham Herzenberg department store in Mitau. He was the representative of Finish textile factories. He must have been very well to do, probably the richest of all the brothers. The house was old, huge, with three stories. On the lower level was the store, storage rooms, dining room, kitchen, yard, and a giant garden. It was fall, and along with Harry, Clara, and Roberta we picked ripe pears from towering pear trees. The house was run by the old traditions. All unmarried employees down to the last apprentice lived and ate in the house. Imagine, Uncle Abraham, aunt Therese, 10 children, the various nannies and teachers [erzieher], among them the old limping french aristocrat Madame Dupin de Saint Andree,[ 41] the employees and the apprentices, thus having around 20 people at the table, and in addition always visitors, either family or commercial travelers. One finds such a thing in old books, and it made a very great impression on me. I was even more impressed by the sons who took photographs and gave me lots of copies of family pictures to take along. Unfortunately the copies were not fixed. They kept getting darker until all outlines disappeared; only too late did I discover why, and could no longer save the pictures. A single group picture had been fixed, and is in the album. Aunt Therese was a very energetic, able, and smart woman. Just like uncle Abraham she stood out from the circle of her siblings. One did not deal with the Balts, [43] but with the peaks of the Russian administrative aristocracy. Half joking, half mocking, aunt Therese was called the "Grand Duchess of Kurland." Even when she was older, when there was no trace of the earlier wealth, when she travelled around as a stranger in various pensions in Germany, Russia, and Sweden with more poor than good support from her children, she still carried herself regally. She was no longer pretty, squinted, and had some beard hair, but her speech, her posture, and her appearance, wearing the mourning clothes she had worn for 30 years after uncle Abraham's death, made a deep impression on everyone she met.

When Uncle Abraham died the eldest son, Leo, was married in Petersburg. Also the daughter Fanny. Laura and Alice were married in Moscow, and Sophie in Mitau. At home were Ludwig, [44] in the firm, Harry who was still in the gymnasium, and the two girls, Roberta, of my age, and Klara, a little older. Ludwig, whom the mother worshipped, took over running the business. Harry entered the business as an apprentice. Ludwig decided on moving the business to Riga, why I don't know. The beautiful old house in Mitau was sold. Everything in Mitau was liquidated. Instead of the princely living in Mitau, aunt Therese moved into an old dark rental house on the Schwimmstrasse in Riga. I believe she had no happy time there. I don't know how Ludwig ruined the business so quickly. It ended when I was on a vacation trip to Germany in the summer of 1904, when I received the news from my father that I should visit aunt Therese in Berlin. [45] I met her, with Klara and Roberta, in a shabby room of a pitiful pension near the Elsasser gate. They had just had lunch, which consisted of a can of sardines with bread. The firm Abraham Herzenberg in Riga had failed. They had lost everything, and had fled to Germany, and were totally dependent on the support of children and siblings.

LEO HERZENBERG, the eldest son of uncle Abraham, lived in Petersburg as a bank director. his wife Matja was a very fashionable woman, and it was not a good marriage. They had a son, Goga, who was a flyer in the first world war, and then went to the states. I met Leo in Berlin after the war in a fancy hotel, and he also visited me in Hamburg. He was marred for a second time, but I did not meet his wife. [46] They had a very pretty daughter who was raised from birth like a princess. Leo had lived in Paris and Switzerland before the second world war, and supposedly things went badly for him at the end.

JULIUS HERZENERG, the second son, studied at the Polytechnic in Riga and graduated as a chemical engineer shortly after Uncle Abraham's death. In the following summer he married the daughter of his cousin Louis, Mery Herzenberg from Riga. It was a love marriage. The wedding took place in Karlbad, on the Riga shore, where all Riga's and some of Mitau's families moved every summer, and most of them had established summer residences. That same night the house burned down, and only the naked lives were rescued.

The parents bought him a gas light mantle factory in Berlin.[47] There their daughter Hedwig was born. When I was in Berlin in the October 1902, she lay in the cradle. The mantle undertaking soon went bankrupt. Julius never again worked as a chemical engineer. He left Berlin and Germany for ever. For a time he was in Irkutsk (in Russia, near lake Baikal) with representation, then back to Russia. There a son, Alfred (Fredy) was born. I did not hear much from them for a long time, after the revolution they were able to return to Latvia. Fredy went to the United States to study. Hedy married the Latvian architect Sproghe. Julius Herzenberg died soon after in Riga. Fredy came to Schenectady as an engineer at General Electric, then, in 1936 as an exploration engineer for Shell Oil in Houston, Texas, where he still works today (1940). In 1937 he brought his brother in law over, in 1938 Hedwig and Mery also came to Houston. Hedwig has a son Erik. So, the great-grandchild of Uncle Abraham, [48] Eric Sproghe, is the first half Latvian in out family. Fredy Married in Houston, but I do not know his wife's name.

LUDWIG HERZENBERG, was the third son of uncle Abraham. I met him while visiting Mitau after the death of his father, (around 1900-1901), and got better acquainted with him. He was a slender man, with red-blond hair and the beginnings of baldness. He was very lively, and had endless charm, but only towards women; toward creditors of the firm it was denied. But mother an sisters were deeply attached and devoted to him. At that time he reminded me of Meyer's building with the dedication "Build yourself your own world from the universe." [Er schenkte mir damals zum Andenken Meyers Weltgebaude mit der Widnung "Bau dir aus dem "weltgebaude" deine eigene Welt."] He was the typical representative of the "jeunesse doree." To continue his father's business in the old style of Mitau did not suit him at all - [49] as already mentioned [see 44] he moved the firm to Riga. He lived with a very chic frenchwoman, and may have married her. He furnished an expensive home in Riga, but never asked me to visit. Then, very quickly, came the collapse in 1904. He moved to France, and stayed there, lastly living in Marseille. Some claimed he was the owner of a hotel, others a bordel[lo], I do not know - I was not in contact with him after he left Riga. I believe he never had children.

HARRY HERZENBERG, the youngest, and to me dearest of the brothers was not much older than I. he then entered the business. When I think back to Riga I see him in the bookstore on the Shwimmstrasse, only him and the old owner Bitterlich. After the collapse he got around a lot, lived in Germany as a representative of English textile firms, lastly in Vienna where he married an Arian [50] woman, and has a son and a daughter. I don't know what happened to them after the annexation of Austria in 1938.

The oldest daughter FANNY married the Bavarian piano manufacturer Offennbacher, who had a factory in Petersburg. The Offenbachers come from Nurmberg-Furth, a second brother had a mirror factory in Petersburg. The other brothers stayed in Nurmberg. At the outbreak of the world war they were in Germany. Wilhelm Offenbacher was a Bavarian reserve officer and serves as a captain in some garrison. Fanny had two children, Sonja and Erich. Sonja married in Nurmberg and had a little daughter, her husband fell in the world war. Erich entered the war as a volunteer. A coincidence brought us together in Lida in 1917, after which we did not see each other for about 16 years. [51] He married a cousin in Nuremberg, and Sonja married a second time, this time a very orthodox Jew. When Hitler came to power Sonja and her family emigrated to Palestine. Erich committed suicide, and the elders, Fanny and Wilhelm Offenbacher wandered to Palestine to join Sonja, where they now live. Wilhelm had ended his 80th year before the journey, they live in Tel Aviv, Sonia has become a grandmother, and so Fanny is a great-grandmother. When they looked up my father [Papachen] in Libau ten years earlier, and Aunt Therese was still alive, none of us could have suspected that the few who were saved from perishing in Petersburg would perish in Germany and that Fanny's family would return to the land of our ancestors as old people. (Footnote: Fanny Offenbacher died at the end of 1941 in Tel Aviv.)

A nephew of Wilhelm Offenbacher was driven to Bolivia by the Hitler storm, and now (1940) lives with wife and son in Tarija. [52] The two following sisters, Alice and Laura married two brothers Packscwer in Moscow, industrialists and bankers and each of the sisters has two sons. In all other respects the fate of the two sisters was fundamentally different. In those days the education of girls in the family was especially held back. From the older children of Abraham I know that they married without understanding the meaning of marriage. Even a word like "shirt" was taboo. It can be assumed that the brother that Alice married also did not know his condition, and brought syphilis into the marriage. In any case, he infected Alice, and as it was in those days, one did not speak of such things as long as possible. When Alice started showing brain disturbances she came to Riga to her mother into the sad home on the Schwimstrasse. [53] At that time I was living as a boarder with aunt Therese. Alice had gone into town on some errands, failed to return, and in the evening after a long search was found insane in the suburbs . She was very beautiful, and her mental decline was a pitiful sight. One could not keep her in the house. She came into a private insane sanatorium of Dr. Schonfeld near Riga, where she died some time later. I never knew what happened to the husband and the two pretty, but pale and sickly children.

LAURA came to Paris with her husband and the two children after the Soviet revolution. They apparently rescued everyone from the Russian collapse. When I last saw Laura in Kissingen in 1922 she was still very pretty, tall and slender. Her husband Pakschwer made an impression like a diplomat before 1914. The elder son was affected by social-tolstoyan ideas . He is an engineer, naturalized [54] french, but has been unemployed for along time. Laura and Max tried to arrange emigration to Bolivia for him, but when the visa had been obtained he had gone to Saigon, Indochina. The second son lived in London. Lastly Laura and Max moved from Paris to Vichy. I don't know what happened to them after the collapse of France and the anti-Semitic laws of the Petain government.

SOPHIE HERZENBERG was very beautiful and cultured . She played the piano very well, and painted, but only by copying; she also accomplished spottily in burn painting . She married her cousin David Herzenberg in Mitau. It was a very unharmonious marriage, even though there were three children, Robert, Genja, and Flora. [55]

David had very little understanding for Sophie, who was a very modern woman. They lived in Mitau in the nice old paternal house. David led the firm of his late father. When Uncle Abraham died and the firm Abraham Herzenberg was moved to Riga, Sophie and the children moved there also. David usually came to visit in Riga on Sundays - it did not come to a divorce, but in practice they lived separated. David worked and earned in Mitau, and Sophie lived and dissipated [lebte und verlebte] in Riga, always surrounded by a swarm of admirers. I don't know exactly when David died, Robert had finally become a businessman and lived and married in Reval, and lastly lived in Stockholm. Sophie and the girls led a wandering life, alternately in Riga and Germany. Always from the earnings of the business in Mitau and from the sale of the house. Finally they settled down in Riga, where Genja and Flora [56] had married a few years earlier.

The two youngest girls, Klara and Roberta were about my age, Roberta almost the same age, Klara a bit older. In the family they were only called Kunkel und Runkel (women and beets?). When I was a student in the last classes I was very much in love with Runkel, especially during the summer when visiting Aunt Therese on the Riga shore [strande], but Runkel preferred the courting of a Russian Captain. There was no way I could compete with him. Then I lived with both of them in Riga in the Schwimmstrasse pension with aunt Therese. My crush dissipated very quickly, and the courting of the Riga students did not make me jealous. But of all of the students who appeared in aunt Therese's home, none made an impression . [57] Perhaps they felt the crackling of the baking [kninskern im geback] of the Herzenberg firm. So they remained unmarried when the firm collapsed. Both were already very handicapped [gehandikapt] by the death of their father, so as with the elder sisters, a dowry was impossible [so war eine standgemassemitgift und Aussteuer wie bei den altern Schwestern ein ding der unmoglichkeit]. They were both dear, brave, hardworking girls, but they had no figure and were no beauties [keinen wuchses und keine schonheiten] although Runkel was rather pretty. They totally lacked the ladylike bearing of the elder sisters, then too, the times had changed, it was no longer the quiet burgerlike life of the 19th century. Russia was involved with the defeats of the Japanese war, the foreboding of the first Russian revolution of 1905 were appearing everywhere, and both girls were almost caught and arrested at student meetings. But before the 1905 revolution broke out came the collapse and the flight [58] to Germany. The girls with the mother lived in Berlin, Wiesbaden, Koln, and then resettled in Warsaw, and married small business people. Klara -Mischa Kahn, and Roberta - Abramovicz. Through the world war I lost largely contact with all relatives on that side of the eastern front, and even more so after my emigration to Bolivia. In the year 1930, during my European vacation, I wanted to visit the relatives in Poland, but I had only two days including travel, so I could only stay in Warsaw for a few hours. Since then Runkel died of a heart weakness caused by smallpox, Then Klara's husband died, and she moved to Paris and Marseille with the only son, Lenka who nourished his mother as a radio mechanic. In 1940 they wanted to come here, but it was already quite impossible to get a visa. So they stayed in [59] Marseille and also surely became victims of the anti-Jewish Petain government.

From the Mitau germ cell [keimzelle] Abraham's children first spread to the triangle of Mitau, Petersburg, and Moscow. Due to the world war they wandered to Germany and France. Of the 15 grandchildren I mentioned, I know the locations of a very few. Julius' children in Houston, Fanny's daughter in Palestine, Laura's son in Saigon. I have no idea of the whereabouts of the children of Leo, and Alice. Harry's were last in Vienna, Sophie's daughter in Riga, Runkel's children in Warsaw, Robert in Stockholm, and Lenka in Marseille. Scattered over half the globe, with almost no relationship, and the parents were such a close bunch of siblings.