[78]  My grandparents Naftali and Nese had four sons and six daughters: Leonhard, Joseph, Ignatz, Leopold, Sarah, Ernestine, Sophie, Fanny, Dora, and Lina.

All four brothers lived in Libau. Uncle JOSEPH, who later became a business partner of my father's, married a Behrman, aunt Frieda. They had no children. He died of intestinal cancer shortly before the first world war. He did not get along well [79] with my father, but they were shackled together for many years by the Brothers Herzenberg firm. It did not help that the sisters in law got along even worse. In any case, to me he was more rude than friendly and my every try for a loan [pumpversuch] during my student time failed [schlug fehl]. Even once when he loaned me 10 mark for my return from Heidelberg to Libau, he insisted on my father paying him back immediately on his return.

Uncle IGNATZ died in Libau early in 1940. He worked at the Nachman firm in Libau from his apprenticeship until his death. He married late and remained childless. He had a small house on the Alleestrasse with a large orchard, was kind and deaf; we did not write each other, and relations with the parent's house were rare, [80] since the firms were in competition.

The youngest, uncle Leopold, married in Minsk,  while I was a student in Riga. Aunt Betty was less beautiful than able, German was difficult for her until the last. Uncle Leopold worked for the iron firm Samuel Michelson except for a short time when he was independent. He was always extremely able and diligent, he built up some wealth, had a nice house in the Thomasstrasse, with wonderful fruit and flower gardens. They had two children, Mascha and Kolja, the latter named after  grandfather Naphtali (Nikolaus). Only the first letter is the same, but I doubt that the name Naphtali can still be used in western Europe, since it sounds just like the [81] naphthalene of moth-balls. Uncle Leopold and aunt Betty are still (April 1941) living in Libau, as well as Kolja, who works in the firm with his father. I don't know what became of Mascha. She was a pretty, clever, typically eastern Jewish girl; she married an eastern Jewish engineer-chemist Feodor Leszinsky whom she learned to know and love during her student time in Paris and Brussels. They had a daughter Claude. So Mascha ended up with the name of the polish princess Maria Lezinska, wife of King Ludwig the XV of France. Every time that they passed through the polish corridor on trips to Libau and showed the passport to the Polish officers, the latter were quite confused, since one could never know - who knows everything so well - that the thing went back 200 years. Leszinskys lived in Paris where old jewelry was melted and pure gold, silver,and  platinum [msp 82] for jewelers were produced. I met him in 1930, at uncle Leopold and aunt Betty's silver wedding anniversary, when I was on vacation if Libau. He offered me a position which I did not accept. The things apparently went very wrong there, but I could not find out what was the matter. It seems that Leszinsky went out of the country, and Mascha with the child were to follow. I have heard nothing from them since. Aunt Betty and the other relatives in Libau sealed their lips air-tight, so I do not know how and when Mascha was surprised by the second world war.

{Note added 21 June 42: Mascha went to Paris from Libau via Stockholm and London in August 39, and after a week to the United States, where her husband, Fedja had gone earlier. She wrote me in March 1942, they were then living in new York, he is employed by Philip Brothers. They changed the name, and are now called Leston. Uncle Leopold and aunt Betty were in the Libau ghetto, and no trace of Kolja, who had married a Lett}.

The four brothers were all bald. They all had received a very poor cheder education. My father was the only one who could speak and write [83] german with no trouble, who had taught himself a remarkable education, who sometimes read a book or appreciated good music. Everything he knew of western and Jewish culture was entirely self-taught. The other three brothers remained at the point at which they had left the Cheder. They never left Libau and were very narrow-minded, and though they were my uncles, they and I did not have any contact areas. They never understood my student needs, and never helped me.

Of the aunts I know even less, except for Fanny, of whom I write later. AUNT SARAH was married to Michael Friedmann in Sackenhausen. They had many children of whom I had only superficial knowledge. I only saw them two or three times, lastly when she was already a widow living in Riga and I visited her in 1930 [84]. She was a strong woman, a master at brewing Easter mead [ostermet]. That was brewed by every family and drunk on Easter. Where the Jews picked up this old german, or old Slavic home industry is not clear to me, but the mead was clear and golden. In Mitau there was a large mead brewery, Friedlander, and their mead at Easter was an unforgettable pleasure.

AUNT ERNESTINE's first husband was Michael Bernitz, who was a widower with many children. From this marriage came my cousins Julius, Hermann (Hemske), and Frieda. Uncle Bernitz, also a brewer, died young. Aunt Ernestine stayed with the younger children at Grandmother's in Goldingen, cousin Julius came to my father and was raised with me. He was a little [85] older than I, attended Blumenau's cheder, and then in 1895, when my father and uncle Joseph founded the firm Gebruder Herzenberg, he became an apprentice in the business. He stayed there a few more years after the death of my father with my brother George. He lived in our home, sharing my room until I left home in 1902. Soon after that my brother George drove him out of the business [herausgeekelt]. He had a small factory [industrie] making coconut mats [kokoslaufern] in Libau, which the Soviets left him in 1940 [die ihm die Soviets in 1940 belassen haben]. He had two children in his marriage, Mischa and Nancy. Mischa supposedly plays cello, of Nancy I know nothing. When cousin Hermann became older, he also came to Libau as an apprentice at Gebr. Herzenberg, and uncle Joseph took him into his house. Times there were not good for him. But he was so cheerful and imperturbable that he tolerated it very well. He emigrated to South Africa still before the first world war, [86] where he became fat and wealthy. His sister Frieda also followed him there, where, as far as I know, she is married and happy. Aunt Ernestine, in a second marriage, married a widower, Salmanssohn, with whom she had a son, whom I hardly knew. He worked in my father's business, and he was also driven out by my brother George after father died. I don't know what became of him.

AUNT SOPHIE, in Paulshafen, was married with uncle Haase (whose first name I can't think of). I think I may have seen her once; we did not visit them although Paulshafen is close to Libau, on the coast, halfway to Windau, it is not on the main road to Goldingen. Uncle Haase was in Libau more often though, an attractive, tall [87], black-bearded man. Of their many children I somewhat knew only Elias, who married Cila Gerson, my cousin on mother's side. They live in South Africa ad have a smart son, Robert, but they are not doing well, since Elias has been suffering from a foot ailment that makes him unable to work.

AUNT FANNY, who took over my care after the deaths of my mother and aunt Sophie Gerson (of whom I will say more), married Nathan Lowenstein, who died in 1940. They had a bargain shop [kramladen] and a cartage business [fuhrbetrieb]. They were well off. They had three sons. Since my parents did not get along with her, we rarely came together with the children, especially since they suffered from outspoken inferiority complexes [besonders da diese an ausgeschprochenen minderwertigkeitskomplexen litten]. The oldest son, Marie, lived in Riga; the second, Mischa in Libau [88]; the youngest, Adolph is a doctor who last lived in Paulshafen. Aunt Fanny still lives in Libau, but did not stay in touch with the children.

AUNT DORA married Ezekiel Judelowitz in Mitau. He had a bargain shop there. That did not fit at all well with the nimbus of kingly business people of uncle Abraham and the Grand Duchess of Kurland, aunt Therese, so relations were tense or none. Uncle Keuchel, as cousins Runkel and Kunkel (see above under uncle Abraham) called him, seems to have been dead a long time, and aunt Dora still lives in Mitau.

AUNT LINA married Hermann  Weinberg in Riga. I still knew her as a very pretty girl. She had the best life of all the sisters. She has two sons and a daughter. She lived in rather good circumstances in Riga; how it goes now [89] under the Soviets, I don't know. My brother Erich in Riga does not worry [kumert sich nicht] about the family, so till now I was unable to find out anything.
 
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