[60] Of the great uncles, the siblings of my grandmother on my mothers side, I can report very little. The oldest, Robert, after whom I was named, I could not know, because he died on my parents' wedding day, but I knew most of his children.

GREAT UNCLE ROBERT lived in Mitau, neighbor of his brother in law, great uncle Abraham. He was married to Emilie Cahn. The firm continued still long after the world war. I knew the children David, Alexander, Leo, Clara and Helene; Fanny, Seba, Sara died early from smallpox. of David I wrote already on p 54-55. Leo was a lawyer in Russia. I met him in Germany after the war. He was already quite white-haired when he married the piano virtuoso Jenja Rappaport. He then lived [61] as a lawyer in Riga and died there a few years ago. There the sisters Clara and Helene also lived and died before the second world war.

Clara was married to Isidor Brensohn, and had children Ruth, Ellen, Robert, and Theo. Theo has a pretty good calling as a painter and etcher, having exhibited in Paris and Rome.

Helene was married to Jeannot Taube, with children Harry, Alice and Erna. Harry Taube I still knew as a student.

Of great-uncle Roberts's children I knew Alex best, and came closer to him when the first world war brought him out of Russia. He was married to Milly Tockel and lived as a rich businessman and house owner in Moscow, where his three children Edith, Ernst, and Theo were born. During the Bolschevick revolution he lost his whole fortune, but as a Latvian was allowed to emigrate, and came to Leipzig where his mother in law and sister in law [62] lived. The children grew up in Leipzig. Alex worked with representation, and Milly helped by keeping a pension, and furnishing summer homes. But there was only enough to live on. Alex was a good-hearted, modest person. He was completely dedicated to the family. He was an outstanding Cello player, and at one time had his own quartet in Moscow. Only one son, Ernst, inherited the musical talent, but he does not practice. When I already was in Bolivia Alex expressed the wish that I would bring his children to me. But only after his death, as the Hitler times kept getting worse, did the children decide to emigrate. Ernst came at the beginning of 1937, and found a position with the firm Enrique Levy in La Paz. Edith came in April 1938, in the fall of 1938 Theo, and at the beginning of 1939 the mother, Milly. Edith was in Oruro for a year and opened a kindergarten where you, [63] Nardi, along with 6-8 other children, were taught. In March 1939 she moved to La Paz to join her mother and brothers, then at the end of 1939 to Buenos Aires where she still has a position (February 1941) . Theo is a trained graphic artist and is active in his profession in La Paz.

GREAT UNCLE JACOB I saw a few times in Goldingen. He had several sons, of whom I knew only the youngest - Robert. He was a pharmacist, but we lost touch still before the first world war. He also had 11 daughters, known as the "elves" (eleven and elf are the same word in german). From the time I was with him in Goldingen I only remember the dinner table with the many, many girls; oddly enough they all became dentists. One of them married a dentist Friedman from Tashkent, the son of a  [?] [Kantonisten] (Dubnow, Weltgeshichte odes Judishen Volks IX, p 191 ff.) I never heard anything more from the others.

GREAT-UNCLE LAZER I had met [64]  in Goldingen, also his wife Amalie Hirschman. They had a beautiful house in Goldingen with a huge orchard, and it was said of the aunt that she made the workers sing songs during the harvest so they would not snack on the fruit. That counted in those days as the peak of avarice. In those days, in the country, one "stos" (about a liter) of berries, whether blueberries, strawberries, or Johannberries sold for a kopeck, around a penny, and other fruit was similarly cheap. Their children were Leonhard, Isidor, Edward, Moritz, Robert, Johanna, Bertha, Rosa, Sara, and Dorothea. I knew only Moritz, who carried on the father's business in Goldingen. he was married to Rosa Steinberg and had a single daughter Lina.I also met one of the daughters, I no longer know which one; She was very pretty [65] and well educated, but even more conceited [sehr gebildet, aber noch mehr eingebildet], and when I was in her home still as a student she behaved very haughtily. That happened because the families of the great-uncle were mostly very wealthy, and looked down on the generation of my parents who already found the fight for existence much more difficult, as if they were poor relations.

GREAT UNCLES LEOPOLD AND EDWARD I did not know. They lived in Moscow, were very wealthy businessmen, and did not come back to the old homeland any more. My father knew them very well, since once in a while he went to Moscow on business. Their family is shown on the bottom of (5). I never got to Moscow. First it was far, second such a trip was expensive, and third, as a Jew one could go to the main places of Czarist Russia only with great difficulty. More of that later. [66]

Of the great aunts, the sisters of my grandfather Naftali I have no memory. Of the sisters of my grandmother on my mothers side I have already mentioned aunt Therese, the "Grand-duchess of Kurland," ( 42-43). Great aunt Fanny I believe to have still seen in Pilten, and great-aunt Ralchen alias Roche I saw often when I was a student in Riga in the years 1903-1905.

She was married to Moses Herzberg, and their children were Rosa, Bernhard, Leonhard, Edward, and Bertha. Bernhard lived in Warsaw, and occasionally came to Libau in my parents home. Edward was a judge in Siberia, he had let himself be baptized. The other children I did not know, Rosa the baroness I met in Riga when I visited aunt Rahlchen, I had been very curious about her. Whether the Baron [67] also ever visited the mother in law, I do not know. Rosa must have been a very pretty, intelligent girl and went to school in Goldingen, which the young Baron Lowenstern also attended. The two fell in love, and the love held against the strongest counter-currents from the families. They married. They were spurned by both families and lived miserably on a small property in Lithuania. Then the older brothers of Baron Lowenstern died one after another; he acquired primogeniture and became owner of the princely castle Kokenhusen on the Danube, where in 1917 the Germans crossed the Danube to capture Riga. Baroness Rosa lived for many years on the heights of earthly fortune. She was accepted by the nobility, had four children, and none of them ever thought of possible change. Then came the world war, followed by the liberation [68] and autonomy of the Baltic states. The Latvians and Estonians expelled the barons and took over their property and estates without compensation. Baroness Rosa, with the children, went to Germany, where the children found miserable positions; the father had meanwhile died. I have not heard from then since then, and do not know how much they suffered from the Arian laws.

Aunt Ralchen had a tragic end. She was a shrivelled little woman with tear moistened eyes. She lived in Riga in an elegant part of town in a modest apartment. She lived from support form her children, and was very fearful and locked up everything. By this she made an impression of wealth on the servants, and one night there was a break-in. [69] When the burglars entered the bedroom she woke up and died immediately of a  heart attack caused by fright.

Of the sisters of my grandfather Naftali, Zippe, Hinde-Leye, Chaie Gutte, I remember nothing. When I was at the wedding of my uncle Edward in January 1895 in Talsen, I may have seen them, but I am not sure. I have no idea whether my grandfather on my mother's side, Gustav Gerson, had any siblings. My grandmother on father's side was born a Brenner. She had long been dead when I first became aware of the fact that she also had a name, and that her then youngest niece, the daughter of my cousin Julius, was named after her. She was named Agnes, but was called only Nese by the family. She was just "grandma" without a name. [70]. As far as I know the grandmother had two brothers, Julius who lived in Moscow, and of whom one spoke very little in the family, maybe he got baptized; and Nicholas who lived in Kharkov [Charkow]. I knew these brothers only from photos, but I met the wife of the Kharkovian in Kurland, and also the eldest daughter, highly educated, attractive people. I was very befriended with the only son of the Kharkover, Julius Brenner. He studied at the technical university in Dresden at the same time as I was studying in Freiberg. After the exam he went back to Russia, and had a position in Turkestan. He was the best, dearest, most unselfish friend, but writing-lazy like all Russians, so we lost contact and I have not heard anything from him since our separation in Saxony. [msp 71]

Whether grandma had any more brothers I don't know, I knew a sister rather well, the aunt Goldingen in Libau, any other sisters I again know nothing of. Aunt Goldingen (my great-aunt) lived in Libau as a widow. By my time of awareness [meiner bewussten zeit] she already had three grownup daughters, and a son, Julius, who attended the gymnasium in Libau. The daughters, Rosa, Lina, and Ida appeared mostly in a group, so "Rosalinda" was praised. All three were very pretty, intelligent and very cultured ladies. They earned a living by giving  private lessons in languages and music. All three played piano brilliantly, and nourished with this not only themselves and the old mother, but also the younger brother, a very good looking boy who graduated excellently from the gymnasium in Libau, who then boarded at his uncle Nicholas [msp 72] in Kharkov and studied medicine, which study he completed also with excellence.

Aunt Goldingen also took young girls from the provinces as boarders. A house with many pretty young girls was an independent social center for all the youth of Libau. But it was remarkable that in spite of it "Rosalinda" stayed unmarried. For the bachelors who could be considered they were first beggar-poor (who from that time would have married without a dowry?) and those who would have ignored it would be scared off by the high intellectual level that reigned in the house. in short, the poor, dear, pretty, "Rosalinda" became spinsters. When the first world war, or rather its first phase, broke out in 1914, and the cruel evacuation to Russia of [73] the Kurland Jewry began, they did not wait until it was Libau's turn - though Libau turned out to be the only city that did not have a turn - but moved to their Uncle and brother to Kharkov. Ida died soon after the war, I don't know whether Rosa and Lina are still alive. As long as my father was alive he regularly sent food packages to Kharkov.

Julius had obtained his MD in Kharkov, and had continued his education at various clinics in Germany and specialized in radiology. Every time that he stayed in Germany we would meet. In 1913 we were together in Hamburg for several months. We were closer than brothers often are. He went back to Kharkov where he opened his own radiology clinic which he led until the end of the war. He married the youngest daughter of his uncle Nicholas, his cousin. They had no children. As the war in Russia ended, and the Soviets [74] became rulers, his clinic was expropriated, and he was stuck into a hospital. He struggled with all his strength against work that was totally foreign to him, but it did not help. A few weeks later he died in the hospital as a victim of the spotted fever [fleck typhus] epidemic, which at that time snatched away thousands of doctors in Russia. A day after his death a daughter was born to him. He always remained a bright [lichte] memory for me. I never learned anything more about his family.
 
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