Carl Heumann’s art collection -- and those who keep it alive

Grandchildren dearest,

Let’s take a break from my father’s book, The Rim of the Volcano, and talk about something that has happened since he wrote that book.

I grew up with my grandfather’s art on our walls, but as a child I was oblivious about the history of those pieces and the journey they went through to find their way from war-torn Germany to our homes in Berkeley and Atherton, California – and some of them even on to our current home in Gig Harbor, Washington.

    

(“Sophia” in our Berkeley, CA house in 1957 and in our current Gig Harbor, WA home.)

Even with war raging all around him, Carl refused to remove his very favorite pieces from the walls of his home in Chemnitz, insisting that one cannot live in fear and that removing those beloved pieces was, in a way, giving up. As a Jew, he had already been relegated to his home and, even as those walls seemed to increasingly close in on him, he was determined to at least cover them with the art that gave him comfort and provided some hope for the future.

     

 

     

Here is just a small sample of art from my grandfather’s collection:

Eduard Bendemann (1811-1889): "Junger Mann, Trauernd" (Young Man in Mourning) Bequeathed by my father to the Kunnstsammlung Chemnitz.

Bonaventura Ginelli, 1814, Portrait of Hans Christiam Ginelli, uncle of the artist. Now at my brother, Stephan’s home.

Friedrich Salathe, Italian Landscape with Trees, 1815. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Unfortunately, Carl’s most beloved pieces were destroyed along with Carl’s house – and Carl himself – when Allied bombs destroyed much of Chemnitz on March 5, 1945.

Fortunately, Carl kept most of his art collection in safe boxes away from the city. And fortunately, when the Nurnberg Laws declared that Jews were no longer allowed to own property - and certainly not “good German art”! –Carl was able to transfer ownership of the collection to his non-Jewish wife. (I do not know how Carl’s art collection escaped Nazi seizure during the year between Irmgard’s death in January, 1944 and Carl’s death in March, 1945. Hmmmm – this is something I’ll need to research!)

Family lore tells the story that, amid the chaos of post-war Germany, Rainer went to retrieve his father’s art from the vault of a bank that was now occupied by Russian guards. Piled high on the concrete floor were stacks of valuables – jewelry over here, paintings over there, sculptures in that corner, everything else tossed carelessly into the far corner.

Rainer located paintings, drawings, and sketches that he recognized from his father’s collection and attempted to persuade the guard to let him take them.

“These paintings… my father…dead… I take?” Rainer spoke no Russian and the guard spoke no German. The guard didn’t understand Rainer and seemed annoyed by the inquiry.

Rainer tried again. “My father… paint… draw… dead… I take? Yes?”

The guard suddenly smiled. “Your father… he was arteeeest? He paint? Hmmmmm…” Yes, Rainer nodded. The guard looked at the paintings and drawings. He was unimpressed. He shrugged his shoulder and drew heavily from his coveted cigarette.

“You take.” So Rainer did.

That’s the story, anyway. As my grandfather’s collection was large, containing hundreds of pieces of art, from very large to very small, I have my doubts that this is exactly how it happened. But it makes a good story, and I know of no other explanation for how my grandfather’s art collection – at least what survived of it – made its way out of what had become Russian occupied East Germany to Munich, where all three Heumann kids lived after the war.

Most of Carl’s art collection was sold at auction in Stuttgart, coincidentaly on my first birthday – November 29, 1957.

     

But Rainer, Thomas, and Ulli kept some pieces for themselves. When Thomas finally emigrated to the US in April, 1953, he took with him a large suitcase filled with art from his father’s collection. He had very little else to his name.

Now – fast-forward 61 years, to January, 24, 2014, when I received this email.

Dear Carol,

My name is Julia. I am a provenance researcher at the Albertina Museum in Vienna on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture.

My job is to inspect all collective objects which became part of the collection from 1933 until present in regard to their provenance and previous owners. In questionable or disputable cases, dossiers are being compiled. The reports will be presented to the Art Restitution Advisory Board which gives recommendations to the Federal Minister of Education, Arts and Culture regarding a potential restitution.

During my research in 2013, I discovered  that Carl Heumann sold drawings via the Kunstantiquariat C.G. Boerner between 1936 and 1943. The Albertina bought some of the drawings that once belonged to Carl Heumann. So I tried to search out what happened to him and his family. I got much information from archives in Germany, and today I also got the hint from a colleague to your blog.

I have already collected much information from different archives and literature, but nothing is so valuable than the memories and documents from contemporary witness.

I was so overwhelmed to read the letters your father wrote your sons....all the memories of this tragic time in his life and the documents he still has...

Carol, it would be a great pleasure and help for me if you and your family would be willing to support me in finalizing my report on the collection of Carl Heumann.

In hopes of hearing from you and best regards,

Julia

How exciting! I immediately forwarded Julia’s email to my father, who was… well, not excited.

Dad had already chastised me numerous times for “putting everything on the internet” (referring to my Northwestladybug blog) and he didn’t like the idea that his father’s name was now “out there” too, for “just anyone” to find.

Dad would later eat his words, but at that point in 2014, he was livid, saying in an email to me (with his sister Ulli cc’d), when I asked about posting more about Carl…

“Carol --

NO, NO, and NO again! The real reason is privacy, even if you don't want to understand what privacy is.  What I wrote was written to very specific people, not to the world, which your blog is. Yes, your friends on the blog may all be "good people," but what I wrote was not written to them, and is nobody's business. NOBODY'S!  In this day and age we are losing so much of our privacy.  I will not be part of it.  What I wrote there -- it even has names in it! ABSOLUTELY NOT TO BE PUT ON YOUR BLOG, even if what is there is public knowledge.  Our names are not.

If you want to write a novel, with all changed names, and not traceable to my family, that's your business. You can even make your novel very generally about "Privileged Mixed Marriages under the Nazis in Germany," but you have to have a lot of information about other such marriages.

Love, in spite of disagreements -

Dad” 

Just reading that again now makes me feel like a child being punished. Can you see why the prospect of writing a book about Carl and his family, even when my father asked me specifically to do so shortly before his death, was so difficult for me? 

Again, generational trauma…

Eventually I did write back to Julia (copying my father and aunt, to stay out of trouble):

“Dear Julia,

I will, coincidentally, be traveling in Europe this coming May and would like to briefly visit with you at the Albertina, if at all possible.  We are hoping to visit the museum anyway, so if there's anything that can be learned via an in-person meeting, I would be very happy and honored to do so. My husband and I will be in Vienna on May 9th.

Although my father and aunt are the keepers of the memories, I am very interested in my grandfather's life and experiences, so this would potentially be quite interesting for me.

Please let me know if an in-person meeting is a possibility for you.  If your schedule is too busy, I totally understand!

Thanks!

Carol”

Three months later, Julia and I did meet at the Albertina Museum in Vienna.

I will never forget the moment when Julia brought me into her office and there, on her bookshelf were three large binders with the words “Carl Heumann” running down the spine. Who on earth knew enough about my grandfather to fill three binders? Julia, it turns out, was that person! In my broken German, I asked Julia question after question, and in her broken (but much better) English, she answered me.

(On Julia’s bookshelf: My father’s book, The Rim of the Volcano, which he gave to her after they met in person - read on - along with four binders full of information about my grandfather and his art collection.)

That meeting with Julia changed my life.

I suddenly wanted to know everything about my grandfather and about his life as a German Jew married to a non-Jew, with Mischlinge children, during WWII. Ironically, my father had been writing about his family experiences for years, even completing two books, The Longest year in the Young Life of Peter Bauer and The Rim of the Volcano, both of which I devoured. But Dad made it clear that his books were only for the eyes of his own family. Was it more than just the desire for privacy that led my father to be so protective of his family’s information? Could it have also been fear? Once persecuted and violated, as the Nazis had done to my father’s family, I can only imagine that the terror doesn’t go away – even 60 years later.

Now someone from outside the family was interested and I was determined not to be silenced. This would be my experience and my story. Carl was my family, too, and I was determined to follow this new lead where ever it would take me. Putting my life “out there” on my blog had reaped only great things – new friendships, new knowledge, and new information and, unlike Dad, I welcomed it.

After out trip to Vienna, Julia and I stayed in touch and my father and Julia began corresponding. At first, Dad was dubious, but within a few weeks he and Julia were enthusiastically exchanging information via email. Could it be that Dad’s attitude about “our information being put out there” was changing?!  Within a few months of my trip to Vienna, I got this email from Julia:

“Carol, there is something I want to consult with you about. Since you wrote me that there are further documents, especially on the collection, I hit on an idea! What do you think if I'll come to your (your fathers) place, officially?

Provided that your father agrees and I can see the documents and use them for my report? In addition the director of the Bureau of the Commission for Provenance Research gives his consent.

So, Carol, please be honest. Crazy idea!?!

Warm regards,

Julia”

It was Julia’s job to research as much as she could about my family in order to provide information to the Art Restitution Advisory Board which provides recommendations to the Federal Minister of Education, Arts and Culture regarding a potential restitution. In other words, the Albertina Museum was in possession of some pieces from Carl’s collection and they might be required to restitute those pieces back to us, his heirs.

If you’ve seen Woman in Gold, our story is similar – but with art worth nowhere near as much as the Altman family’s art.

In September, 2014, Julia did come to the US – first to Seattle, where she stayed with my family for a few days…

                  

… and then to Ashland, Oregon, where Julia and Dad GOT TO WORK!

     

That suitcase that Dad brought with him when he emigrated to America in 1953 has lived under the bed in all of my father’s homes since. Watching him share the contents with Julia was such an emotional experience!

   

Whereas just a few months previous, I was being admonished for putting pieces of our family’s information on the internet, the flood gates had now been opened and Dad was suddenly ready to share information with the others outside the family who were interested in his story. In fact, Dad had come to really enjoy meeting and working with Julia and he, too, had come to regard her as a new friend.

It was a turning point. After Julia’s visit, Dad’s attitude completely changed and, within a year, Dad was asking me to “tell my story when I’m gone.” Not just to tell his story to his descendants, but to tell his story to the world!

Thanks, Julia!

My father had hoped to see Julia again, but unfortunately he died before that could happen. I would see Julia again in Chemnitz in February, 2018 when the mayor invited heirs of Carl and Thomas to come to the opening of an art exhibit in their honor, and Julia traveled to Chemnitz to join us in the celebration.

(My daughter, Kat and son, Peter, and my cousin Claudia, with Julia to her left.)

(Julia with Jürgen Nitsche, expert on Jews in Chemnitz. My father wanted so much to meet Jürgen after years of corresponding with him, but unfortunately they’d never have a chance to meet.)

The Austrian Federal Minister of Education, Arts and Culture were unable to come to a unanimous decision about restitution of Carl’s art at The Albertina. Finally, in March 2018, after four years of deliberation, the board decided not to restitute the works to our family because “although Carl Heumann was undoubtedly persecuted, the sales in question were not motivated by the situation of persecution, but by his interest as a collector.” I was neither surprised nor disappointed. By that point, the most important result of our relationship with the Austrian board – a friendship with wonderful Julia – had already happened and for that, we continue to be so grateful.

In the years since, I have been contacted by museums in Berlin, Munich, and Dresden. Art from Carl’s collection with suspect provenance (in other words, the art that was ill-begotten by Nazis during the war) were discovered in their vaults. Unlike the Austrian board, ALL the German museum boards have decided to restitute art back to Carl’s heirs. Once this damn pandemic is over, my brothers and cousins and our families plan to travel to Germany to pick up these pieces:

Albert Kirchner, Fischerwiede, 1854.

Jacob Gensler, Maedchen mit Papagai

Jacob Schiller, Devil’s Bridge at Midnight, 1800

We’ve been told that more art from Carl’s collection will likely be found in other museums in Europe. Our biggest hope is to somehow create a book of high-resolution copies of all the art from Carl’s collection that we can find. This way, we can keep Carl’s love of art alive for future generations of his descendants.

Irmard’s Illness and Death… Now What?

Dearest grandchildren,

Originally  -- as in, after my father died -- I was going to write a book, per his request to “tell my story when I’m gone.” The central theme of that book was to be the daunting role of the non-Jew in a “privileged mixed marriage” in WWII Germany, and the horrifying reality of what happened to a family when the “guardian angel” (as my father called his Aryan mother ) died. My father was correct when he said, “I believe that the non-Jewish partners in Germany’s “privileged mixed marriages” have not, to this very day, been given enough credit for what they did. They had to be incredibly strong in a brave and quiet way.”

(The last known photo of Irmgard, 1943.)

After four years of wringing my hands, writing numerous outlines, agonizing over approach, and wondering constantly whether Dad would approve (see also: “generational trauma”), I decided to change my whole approach. Instead of writing a book, I decided to start a blog in which I would simply offer my father’s works as he wrote them (how wrong I was in that; they needed heavy editing), adding my own commentary, perspectives, and opinions. I feel comfortable with this approach, but it doesn’t allow Irmgard’s character and experiences the spotlight they deserve. This post, about her illness and death, and their impact on the family, come closest to the intended theme of the book I decided not to write. I hope that someone, someday does write about the excruciating role of the non-Jew in a “privileged mixed marriage” during WWII Germany. I wish that person could have been me. But alas…

Here are my father’s words:

It was in September of 1943 that Mother developed physical symptoms that neither she nor the doctors she consulted could explain.

Sorry – immediate interruption! I actually disagree with my father’s assertion here. In Letters from Chemnitz (in which Ulli translated over 600 pages of letters, mostly between Irmgard and her mother Adele), it is clear that Irmgard began to mention mysterious physical symptoms as early as 1942.

This letter from Irmgard to her mother, dated March 15, 1942, mentions both the terror and uncertainty of war (first paragraph) and symptoms she was experiencing (highlight) – which she attributed to the terror and uncertainty of war.

Just a month later, Irmgard refers to a strange headache, and again attributes it to something else – menopause and the coming of spring (?!).

And this letter, written in late May, 1942, tells of a probable fainting episode, which Irmgard chalk up to “hunger and constant anxiety.”

My father goes on to describe Irmgard’s symptoms:

A few times a day, she would get a strange taste in her mouth brought on, she assumed, by what she described as the “terrified and angry feeling of being a mouse caught in a trap, running into bars of the cage all around.” The taste in her mouth, which she described as “something unidentifiable from my past,” would come and go within seconds.

Irmgard doesn’t mention symptoms again until July, 1943:

And then again in August, 1943…

And then, in the fall, she began to mention symptoms quite frequently. In September, 1943…

In October, 1943…

In November, 1943…

And then, finally, on December 4, 1942…

My father continues:

Her doctor blamed it all on menopause - from dizziness to depression to attacks of anxiety. Before long, her entire right side became numb when the taste came on, ‘Oh my God! Epilepsy? What would happen if I died?’ she wondered. ‘The whole family depends on me, they need me to be here and alive, to keep the marriage privileged! What would happen to Carl? What would happen to the children? Oh my God, help me!’

To convey a feeling for Mother’s state of mind and her worries for the fate of others in December, 1943 -- only weeks before her death -- it is best to let her speak for herself. She wrote to her mother:

“A broken fountain pen is annoying, but I am embarrassed to even mention it. Thousands of people have lost everything, and I am distraught thinking about all of them. Every day brings hundreds more. I had a postcard from Miss Ball and Miss von Lüttwitz. Both of their houses burned to the ground. Another friend of ours has six (!) burned-out family members. Frau Grossmann‘s brother’s house is completely destroyed, the Bahners’ son is 100% wrecked. Just now another air raid alarm. It began at 7:45 with the all-clear at 10:00. How many more people have been torn from their families? I can’t handle it anymore. I’m going to bed now.”

The next morning, Irmgard continues.

“Poor Kätchen! Is it really an ulcer or neurosis? Nobody can help anyone else anymore. That poor woman is so terribly alone. Anything we try to say now is so ridiculous, just null-and-void in face of everything else that is so enormous. It is simply cataclysmic. Thousand of people are becoming homeless each day now and they need to be housed somewhere. The most amazing thing is that everyone seems to want to return to the spot on earth where he came from. Our K’s (?) haven’t returned, and that’s good because the attic is not habitable now because of the horrible anti-fire spraying that isn’t getting completed yet. A stove is supposed to be delivered on Monday, but who knows what will happen between now and Monday. And who knows whether all the anti-fire spraying would do any good (in a bombing), anyway??

“What I am so afraid of is what can happen after a horrible shock or accident or a terrible event: epilepsy. When I tried to find out more about the strange taste I get in my mouth, I read that “… attacks are often preceded by physical unrest or the sensation a strange taste or smell…” And the numbness, always on my more sensitive right side. The pills from Dr. E. help with my nervousness, but they don’t help with that obscure, indescribable sensation that happens to me two or three times a day. I can’t tell whether it’s a taste or a smell, but it scares me to death! The more I must do, especially if it includes something enjoyable, the less it happens. Well -- enough now!”

Irmgard continues her letter.

“Now I must write down emergency addresses and put them in the air raid suitcase. Ever more emergency preparations. How useless it all seems! We are hoping for a quiet night.

If we could only get some good news soon!” -- Irmgard.

No one knows exactly what happened after December 4th, the last time Irmgard wrote to her mother. The next letter in Letters from Chemnitz is written from a hospital in Halle, by Margaret Wendt to her sister, Adele, Irmgard’s mother. (I find this confusing; why was Margaret at the hospital instead of Adele?) Irmgard was still alive, but obviously unconscious.

This, from my dad, breaks me heart. I can’t even imagine.

I remember nothing, absolutely nothing about the Christmas, 1943. I have probably completely blocked it out. The next thing I remember is the 7th of January 1944, when Father went to the University Hospital in Halle, near Leipzig, for Mothers operation. I remember keeping myself busy all day, building small naval models. It did not help. When Father came home, I knew. He called me into his office and told me that Mother had died.

I was standing in the same place where I had gotten the only slap in the face of my life. This time it hurt more.

Irmgard died on January 7, 1944 the day after Ulli’s 12th birthday. Thomas was 15. Rainer was 20.

I could not cry.

I, however, cried like a baby when I read in Letters from Chemnitz that Irmgard had died. It’s not like I didn’t expect it. I’d known all along how and when my grandmother died. But I had been immersed in Ulli’s translations for days, and when I read the letter from Margaret and saw the death announcement, I was completely overcome with grief – almost as if I had known and had a relationship with my grandmother and loved her unconditionally, like (I now realize) grandchildren love their grandparents.

Once again, dear ones… generational trauma rears its ugly hear, right?

My father didn’t have the luxury of indulging his emotions. He continues:

After all, I was a teenager who gangs up with his older brother to rebel against parents. For years, Rainer and I had made fun of our parents. We thought their behavior was just an expression of their personalities: “Er ist rund und sie ist eckig” (he is round and she is jagged).

”He” was round -- a perfect sphere, closed up, inscrutable, rolling with the tide. “She” was jagged -- nervous, distracted, unpredictable. They shielded us in every way they could from the realities of the outside world, making sure we had a happy, carefree childhood, which they regarded as the foundation for a happy life. They managed to do that very well.

I only knew of a limited number of maltreatments and hostilities. How many more there must have been! The hardest part for Father must have been the constant uncertainty of what the next day may bring. For years, my parents had been at the complete mercy of a government that meant to treat them as well as possible. They had very limited rights.

What stress their marriage must have suffered!

This is the last known family photo, taken around sometime in 1940, about two years before Irmgard’s death and three years before Carl’s.

Father’s inclination was to accept what he could not change, whereas Mother wanted to change what she could not accept. Where Father would say, “Let’s wait and see what action is necessary,” Mother would insist, “How can you accept all this with so much equanimity?!” To which Father would reply, “Bad times are filled with opportunities to evolve as a person,” emulating his life-long hero, Goethe, who said “I treasure the commotions of bad times because they make you stand on your own feet.”

Father insisted that everything bad is good for something. But Mother, who never gave up hope, but was extremely frustrated by her inability to change anything. “Everything is good for something? No -- there are some things that are absolutely not good for anything or anyone!” she’d protest. “New and bigger boulders are being placed in front of us at every step and no one is willing (or dares) to help us roll those boulders out of our way!”

Mother had a lot of contempt for Father’s patience and willingness to comply where needed. His constant drive to be accepted by everyone drove her crazy, but it served him well. He, of course, was afraid of the opposite -- that her impulsiveness might cause her to act dangerously.

And yet, Mother stood by Father through good and bad. Vati must have suffered extreme guilt from preventing Irmgard’s happiness due to the fact that he was Jewish. Having been raised Jewish, guilt came natural to him. He had married her to protect her, to give her a good life, and here he was, depending on her as the guardian angel who, by her sheer existence, would protect the entire family.

I believe that the non-Jewish partners in Germany’s “privileged mixed marriages” have not, to this very day, been given enough credit for what they did. They had to be incredibly strong in a brave and quiet way.

Mothers death changed life for me and for everyone around us. Rainer was already in München. Ulli, having only turned twelve the day before Mother died, was taken in by Uncle Heinz and Aunt Gert in Adelsberg -- a fortunate and generous gesture that was appreciated by all – especially by Ulli and her cousin Gaby, who were delighted to be together.

Father was in deep mourning for his wife, and busy with all the technicalities connected with her death - executing her will, writing to her friends, and most troubling of all, dealing with the terror of losing the “privileged” status of being in a mixed marriage. Therefore, many of the every-day tasks of living fell on me.

---

Who was Irmgard Heumann (nee Buddecke)?

My dear grandchildren,

This entry is primarily about your great-great grandmother, Irmgard. Actually, in many ways, this entire BLOG is about her because her existence as a non-Jew so heavily impacted her husband’s existence as a Jew and their children’s existences as Mischlinge.

Without a doubt, I would have loved Irmgard. From everything I’ve heard, my favorite cousin Claudia (Ulli’s daughter) is much like Irmgard, both in looks and in personality – and I adore Claudia (that’s Claudia, to my left)!

    

Irmgard was, from all we can tell, practical, organized and, as Thomas writes below, “romantic and sensitive.” From the 600 pages of letters written to her mother, Adele and to others, one can tell that Irmgard was also resourceful, creative, extremely loving, and efficient – all qualities that also make Claudia so wonderful. Oh, how I wish we could have known her!

Here are my father’s words for today:

Many of my parents’ friends and families were from the Rhineland and lived there when the air war (the Nazis called it “terror bombing”) devastated the west portion of Germany -- Aachen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen, and practically every city along the Rhine. The misery of the people living in those areas was total and never-ending. My parents took in as many friends and as much family as they could, which only added to the stress for my mother, a hostess with a soft heart full of compassion. With the extra guests, everything was stretched thinner. At one point, Mutti realized that in just one of the hundreds of hotels and pensions destroyed, thousands of beds and blankets, must have gone up in smoke. Just a single set of blankets, sheets, and pillows would have made things so much better for the homeless people Mother had taken in!

(Both Carl’s and Irmgard’s families originally came from the area around Köln, which was heavily bombed.)

And yet, in spite of (or perhaps because of?) so much misery, it was still possible to fall in love. Much to our amusement, and with the teasing it called for (at least for us kids!), our mother was hopelessly in love with Edwin Fischer, the pianist whose romantic and heartfelt interpretations she endlessly admired. She was probably one of many women who felt the same way about the famous man who was adored as one of the most sensitive interpreters of the music she loved so much. But Irmgard was different; she actually met him, spent evenings with him at friends’ houses, exchanged books and thoughts with him, both in letters and in person. She went to every rehearsal she could, and once, at a famous performance of the Brahms B-flat piano concert with Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting, she actually felt him looking at her at the beginning of the third movement, when he wasn’t playing. Apparently, they talked about it afterwards. “We were both suppressing tears at that point,” Irmgard wrote to her mother about the incident.

I found an actual recording of Edwin Fischer playing Brahms, with Wilhelm Furtwängler  conducting! Wow, what if Irmgard were actually here?!

Those were the thoughts that kept Irmgard able to face life. Carl, as even a “privileged” Jew, could not accompany her to concerts, so he encouraged her frequent trips to performances and rehearsals in Dresden, Leipzig, and München. She maintained a frequent correspondence with Fischer’s secretary, but much to her chagrin, Edwin himself rarely answered the letters she wrote to him. He had his secretary do it, which made her only more anxious to get a personal reply from him.

Did Carl consciously encourage her to have this distraction from her weary life with him? Did he feel guilty for her being tied to him by the fate of politics? Did it occur to either of them that she could - maybe - have a glamorous and most satisfying life with a famous and most compatible artist? Had she made the wrong decision for herself when her brother had tried to talk her into divorce?

Both Irmgard and Carl strongly denied any of it. In fact, she even entangled Rainer to secretly deliver her letters to Edwin when he was in München, just so Carl would not find out. And then Irmgard had to convince her mother, Adele, that she was loyal - “treu” - to Carl forever.

(Carl and Irmgard in the early 1920s, shortly after their wedding.)

And yet, and yet ….

My mother was an extremely romantic and sensitive woman. Although Carl transferred the ownership of his art collection to her for practical political reasons since, as a Jew, he wasn’t allowed to keep it in his name, I don’t believe that she could ever really relate to any of the art in Father’s collection. The works in Father’s collection were precise and tightly executed and, although it was called “romanticist” art, it was far from being “romantic” as we think of the word. It relates to an ideal of life, more than to its artistry. It is like Carl’s handwriting - precise and never quite “free,” correct and proper, uniformly slanted, and predictable.

(Carl’s handwriting)

Mother’s “romanticism” was much more impulsive, leaning to music and poetry. As much as Mother needed Father’s reasonable and reserved decision-making, what made her angrier than anything was someone being “pedantic like a school master,” as she called it. In this regard, Rainer and Ulli were Mother’s children, while I was my father’s.