Memoirs From Else

Memoirs from Else Teutsch Gottlieb

Number Two

Graciously Provided by Marian Price

Transcribed by Jerry Zeisler

[please see the overview for background]

August 1991

Dear Marian,

Thanks for sending the family tree back so fast. It looks so much better when it’s typed.

I hope you and your family are feeling fine, specially Reggie. If it’s too much work for Reggie to mail you back the copies from your mother, I can ask Gert to make some more copies and then I’ll send them to you. There is one copy I would like to have changed because it’s not fair to Leo. I include that page so you can read it. When Leo, Gert and I left Venningen, Germany we were allowed to pay our tickets in Germany. The Hitler regime allowed us only to take $10 along per person. So when our ship arrived in New York the $60 we received from your family was a fortune for us and I appreciate what your family did for us.

When Irma, Karl and Nora came 2 years later they were not allowed to pay their tickets anymore in Germany and they asked Leo for help. At that time we had no savings and we earned just enough money to support ourselves, so Leo who corresponded with Eleonore at that time asked her for help and Eleonore was very fast, first to find out where to send the tickets to. She was even telling us that this is some money her parents had left her and she is glad to save some relatives from hell in Europe. Your mother thought when Eleonore sent the tickets they were for us.

Leo felt bad at that time, but I am not sure if he wrote to your mother. I can not speak for Irma, but we were all brought up to pay our debts. Whenever we visited Irma in Windsor and before in New York City, she and Karl tried to make us feel at home and Irma prepared a good meal for us. She was a good cook, but I am not. As soon as we could, we paid the $60 back which your family had sent us at our arrival in New York. As long as I live I am always thankful to your family.

Now I guess from Nora I could find out if Isidore Levy and Fanny Gottlieb had been cousins. Leo’s aunt Fanny I met once in Bosen. I liked her. I guess Leo attended her funeral in Conz . Leo’s brother, who was married to Martha Levy, was not related to his wife Martha. She was from Saarlouis or Fraulautern. There are a lot of people by the name “Levy.”

Jewish people name their babies after someone who died and that is true. Leo’s father Ferdinand was alive when Gert was born, but my father had died so Gert was named after my father whose name was Eugene. People can add the mother’s maiden name if they want to. My grandson Bruce Frederic is named after Leo’s father, Ferdinand. My granddaughter Linda is named after my mother whose name was Pauline. So we have another Pauline and Miriam Pauline. None of them is called Pauline. This is their middle name.

Werner Teutsch was my cousin. I saw him growing up. He was a very happy boy and we all loved him. He was born in Venningen just like his father and our forefathers, Gert, I and the Teutsch family.

We have a family tree dating back to 1590. Another uncle of me had worked on the family tree until 1936. He always carried a little notebook in his pocket and then he marked down when he heard some news from a family member whoever was born or who died. Unfortunately he and his wife died also in a concentration camp, but his 2 sons made it to Israel and live there with their families.

I would love to show you our family tree, but the only way would be if you would come to see me. My cousin Ilse, Werner’s older sister had made a smaller family tree, a continuation from our big one when her father, who was my uncle celebrated his 90th birthday. There was a celebration in the synagogue at that time like a Bar Mitzvah. Yes, Werner was a genius. I had never heard from anyone that he died of suicide. We knew that he didn’t feel so good anymore, he was too heavy and didn’t watch his diet. When he passed away, it was a shock to all of us. Werner was a few years older than Gert. Whenever I went to Philadelphia I took Gert along and before we went to see my uncle and my aunt I wanted to do some shopping. All what Gert wanted was to be with Werner. Werner’s college tuition was paid from the Army. His parents had been well off in Germany, but since they could not take their money along they had been poor in America.

When Leo decided to live in Venningen after we got married I was very glad, because my mother had bought my uncle and aunt’s house from our relatives. My uncle and aunt had died in a car accident not seeing an approaching train. They lived 2 houses away from my mother and my sister Lotte, who was living with my mother. My uncle and aunt drove to visit another uncle to help him celebrate his birthday, but they never made it to their destination. Since they had no children, they were like parents to us and we felt very sad when we lost them.

Venningen was a little village, built like a city with straight even streets. Most people had been farmers, but the farms were not next to the houses. You had to walk or drive there. There was good land, vineyards and meadows. The potatoes grew much bigger than in Bosen and the prunes grew larger and tastier. On a Saturday people swept the streets and also their yards and if necessary they were cleaned with water. I never liked Bosen. The outside looked dirty. I liked Leo’s parents and Irma and the visit was nice. Leo’s mother, who was born in Hilbringen and also close by to Merzig told me also that she didn’t like Bosen. The people and their neighbors had been friendly.

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