The Grandparents I never knew
By Naomi Johnson, daughter of Hans Johnson (Jottkowitz)
I grew up hearing the stories of my father’s life in Germany before the war and how he managed to flee Germany in 1938 as a 19-year-old to start again in New Zealand. But it wasn’t until I was in my early 40s that my father’s parents, Georg and Else Jottkowitz, were transformed in my mind from being his parents with little connection to me to becoming my grandparents, the grandparents whom I did not have the chance to meet.
This transformation came in a flash, all due to a single comment made by a German researcher in Berlin. She was referring to a photo that my father had sent over of his parents at their silver wedding celebration for inclusion in an exhibition the Schöneberg Local Government was putting together. She said that this photo of my grandparents was her favourite photo. No one had ever referred to my father’s parents as my grandparents. From that day on they became my grandparents as well as my father’s parents.
Perhaps the German researcher could sense the warmth and affection which I feel when I look at this and the few other photos which my father brought with him. I have seen the many letters sent to my father mainly from his mother, some, too, from his father, in the period following his departure from Berlin and prior to the end of communication out of Germany due to the war. They all begin with affectionate greetings such as, ‘Mein inniggeliebter, goldiger Junge’ meaning ‘My dearly loved, darling boy’. How it must have broken his mother’s heart to say goodbye to him in November 1938, not knowing if she would ever see him again. My father was an only child, his sister having died as a baby, so he was obviously extremely precious to his mother and father. And when I read these loving words, tears come to my eyes thinking how she must have felt. Then I feel sad for me that I missed out on such a loving grandmother and grandfather.
Image: Georg and Else Jottkowitz with son Hans Jottkowitz.
I know a little about my grandparents from my father. My grandmother, Else, was born near Berlin and my grandfather, Georg, came from Miechowitz and Beuthen, then in Upper Silesia but now part of Poland. My grandparents, who were direct cousins, were married in 1912. My father grew up with a very close relationship with his maternal grandparents, not knowing his paternal grandparents at all. Georg went into business with his father-in-law selling textiles. Wachsner and Co. initially represented a Swiss firm that manufactured fashionable cotton and linen fabrics and later other lines were added. The business boomed during the inflation years and the money earned was in foreign currency, but of course all that changed in the depression in the late 20s and 30s. This Swiss company was to play a good part in years to come in acting as a conduit for correspondence out of Berlin to my father in New Zealand and in providing financial evidence to assist restitution claims.
My grandmother worked in the business, too, carrying on the business by herself when my grandfather was in a nursing home for 6 weeks because of serious heart problems. Business became so bad that in 1931 the family moved in with my father’s grandparents but even they found themselves living beyond their means. My great-grandfather died in 1932 and the Swiss firm stopped making payments for non-existing sales ‘on account’. In 1934 the family converted the floor beneath the business premises in Berlin Mitte into living accommodation and in 1937, when things became even more difficult, the family further economised so as to free up some rooms which could be sub-let to another Jewish family. In 1938 my grandfather lost his agencies one by one and went selling tablecloths in staff cafeterias during the lunch break, but that came to an end, too. For a period my grandparents worked at home for a relative who had a business manufacturing electric motors. In the war years my grandfather was made to work clearing debris on the railway lines and later, through a doctor’s affidavit, was given much lighter work including street sweeping. My grandmother was luckier - she was put to work in an umbrella factory and although the Jewish workers were separated from the Aryan workers, she was treated quite well.
Dad’s grandmother was collected for deportation to Theresienstadt in 1941 on her 75th birthday. My father believed that she took her life by taking some sleeping tablets that she had sewn into her skirt, but we have since found a death certificate for her from Theresienstadt. My grandparents were deported to Theresienstadt in1943 and sent to Auschwitz in October 1944, at which point all records stop. The Theresienstadt files record their departure for Auschwitz but the Auschwitz records do not have an entry with their names so they were obviously herded into the gas chambers on arrival. The fact that they survived so long in Berlin prior to deportation was due to my grandfather’s war service and record having been awarded the iron cross second-class in World War I.
My father tried desperately hard to gain permission for his parents to come to New Zealand, but by that stage, due to the anti-Semitic attitudes of one Labour Department official in particular, New Zealand had all but shut its doors on allowing any more Jewish refugees into the country.
I have often wondered what my grandparents were like as people. I have impressions from the stories my father told me but was always looking for the objectivity that an outsider can bring. I have asked relatives who knew them but each time I thought I was going to make some progress, I came back with almost nothing. The most I have been told by others is that ‘They were nice people.’ Well, I could work that out for myself! I felt quite excited to receive a letter back from a relative in Israel, but her reply was more about how good it was that I had contacted her with no answer to my original question. In fairness, all these people were quite young themselves at the time they knew my grandparents and my questions were coming some 60+ years later.
But I do have some impressions based on what my father has told me and by piecing snippets of information together. Firstly, he had such loving doting parents. They ensured his safety by helping to organise his departure from Berlin, enlisting the financial support from others. They still didn’t believe at this time that the worst would happen so refused to leave Germany themselves. They believed they were German first, Jewish second. My grandfather was naturally proud of his army service. However, within a short space of time they realised that they had underestimated the gravity of the situation but by this stage New Zealand had closed its doors.
Secondly, I know that my grandmother was a courageous woman. When my grandfather was interned in Sachsenhausen, not long after my father had left Berlin, she went to the Gestapo and pleaded for his release on the grounds of his heart condition. A few weeks later he was released but this probably was not due to her efforts. No doubt she was hugely relieved to have him home once more.
Maternal great-grandmother grandmother, mother and baby Hans Jottkowitz
Thirdly I know that my grandparents were social people. They belonged to B’nai Brith Lodge, as did my grandmother’s parents. My grandfather was on the roster for keeping law and order in the building and he was on duty mostly on Saturday nights when the building was used for big functions. Both my grandparents were on the social committees of the Lodge, organising outings, concerts and functions. My grandfather also belonged to the Jewish Returned Servicemen’s Association and was quite actively involved in fighting anti-Semitism. In the 1920s he took part in commandos going out into the streets. My grandmother was equally socially active. They jointly ran the skittle club for many years. After 1933 they had to deal with the Gestapo frequently. Even to run a regular skittles night, my grandmother would ring the Gestapo to gain the necessary permission. My father recalled that she took this in her stride and, due to the frequency of these phone calls, would exchange pleasantries with the Gestapo. Perhaps this was one of the ways that the family coped with the situation as it was developing, by going with the flow.
When I think about the social activity of my grandparents, I realise that I am much more like them than my own parents who were never particularly socially minded. My father, in particular, showed little interest in social activities. I share the extraverted personality of both my grandparents. So their legacy lives on in this special way.
My father had the ability to put the horrific past behind him and to forge a new life in New Zealand. He was always very mindful that he personally had been spared the worst by being able to escape from Germany before the height of the Nazi terror. He married my mother, Patricia, a New Zealander whom he met in 1948 in Invercargill. This marriage lasted 53 years until his death in March 2002.
I grew up in a house that was not a typically New Zealand house. Neither parent was interested in sport, other than watching swimming or sailing on TV, nor was my father like the typical kiwi ‘do-it-yourself man’. Instead, there was a strong interest in cultural pursuits – literature, music, theatre and art.
In 1995 I had the most memorable experience of visiting Berlin with my parents. I spent some very special hours with my father walking round the streets where he had grown up, seeing where his schools and his synagogues had been and even being shown where he used to play marbles. The apartment building where he grew up is still standing, despite the extensive bombing of Berlin that took place. We were lucky enough to gain entry to the front door and walked up to the third floor, standing right outside his old apartment. It was strange hearing voices inside. We didn’t feel confident to knock on the door but from the landing my father could see some of the changes for the better that had been made to the building. He showed me the window that as a very young child his mother had caught him leaning
out of, looking to the ground below. Having lost one child already, I am sure her heart would have been in her mouth when she found him so precariously perched.
There are now two stolpersteine on the footpath outside my grandparents’ apartment building
One day I asked my father if he had brought any of his mother’s favourite recipes with him when he fled Germany in November 1938. He responded somewhat impatiently ‘Don’t be so stupid, that was the last thing on my mind’.
My father wasn’t one to cook but he did enjoy eating. As a child it was not unusual for our fridge to stink with smelly cheeses. He would buy European food if it was available and enjoyed the types of breads that were rare in Auckland in the 60s but are not so rare now. He bought wine when the wine industry in New Zealand was still in its infancy and we tried the one or two restaurants that Auckland boasted in the sixties.
As my father became older he developed diabetes and heart trouble, with the result that his favourite German food became off limits for him because it was either too sweet or too fatty. So he used to eye the cakes in the cake shop and look forlornly at tempting menus in restaurants.
My mother didn’t try to cook the European way with the exception of cooking red cabbage on occasion, a dish which I particularly like as did my father. We think she was given the recipe from my father’s second cousin, Margot Hirsh, in the days when it was not a common dish here. Perhaps my grandparents, too, shared my enjoyment for this dish and may be Margot’s recipe is not too dissimilar from the recipe used by my grandmother. Here is Margot’s recipe:
Red Cabbage – Continental
4 tablespoons butter
1 onion, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 small red cabbage sliced
½ tablespoons vinegar
1 cup water
1 cooking apple
2 teaspoons flour
salt
Put butter in medium-sized saucepan and add finely sliced onion and garlic. Cook gently, then add the sliced cabbage and stir until it is glistening with butter.
Add vinegar and sufficient water to come a third of the way up the cabbage. Peel and dice apple and add to saucepan. Cover and cook until cabbage is tender – about 30 minutes. Add a pinch of salt. Peel and dice the apple and add it to the saucepan.
Blend the flour with water to make a smooth paste and pour itvinto the saucepan. Cook until sauce thickens. Serve with any type of meat and potatoes. Enough for 4 – 6 people. ENJOY!
Naomi Johnson was born in Invercargill in 1953, the only child of Patricia and Hans Johnson (Jottkowitz). Her late father came to New Zealand as a refugee from Berlin in 1938 joining his second cousin, Margot Hirsh, and her husband and family who were also refugees. He lost his parents, grandmother and many other relatives in the Holocaust. Naomi’s late mother was a New Zealander and a writer.
Naomi is an active member of Beth Shalom in Auckland, reflecting her strong interest in Judaism. She enjoys service leading and her work as Chair of the Ritual Committee for Beth Shalom.
Her strong sense of family led her to join at its inception the Auckland Second Generation Group of which she is now co-leader. One of the highlights of her life was to visit Berlin with her parents and to walk with her father around the area where he grew up, listening to his memories of his childhood and family.
After a successful career in Human Resource Management, Naomi is now retired leading a very active life including overseas travel when she can.
Cover Image: Stolpersteine outside the apartment building where the family lived in Berlin