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Only Trees Need Roots

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Eloquent Books An imprint of Writers Literary & Publishing Services, Inc. 845 Third Avenue, 6th Floor–6016 New York, NY 10022 http://www.eloquentbooks.com

ISBN: 978-1-60976-535-4

Book Design by Julius Kiskis

Printed in the United States of America 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5 Dedication

For our sons John Nick and Mark and dedicated to Hans Michael Jebsen without whose advice and encouragement this book would never have been written.

“Quels livres valent la peine d’etre écrits hormis les Mémoires?” Andre Malraux

Timeline by Date and Chapter

Prologue...... xi Acknowledgments...... xv 1. 1931 I Am Born Nov.24th. Hong Kong ...... 1 2. 1935/36 Japanese Holidays ...... 5 3.-5. 1937 Switzerland, Denmark, Hong Kong ...... 8 6. 1938 Denmark ...... 16 7. 1939 Outbreak of WW2-Clarens, Switzerland ...... 20 8. 1940/41 Clarens ...... 23 9.-10. 1941 Trans Siberian Express ...... 28 11.-13. 1941 Dairen–Tientsin Maru–Shanghai ...... 45 14.-15. 1941 Unzen, Japan–Shanghai (‘41/’46)...... 57 16.-17. 1942 Japanese Occupation...... 64 18.-19. 1943 Peking–Pei-ta-ho ...... 87 20.-21. 1944 My Father Dies...... 95 22.-27. 1944 Danish Consulate–U.S to the Rescue Dino-Boxing...... 111 28.-32. 1945 Concubines–Last Days of Japanese Occupation– Celestial Pleasures...... 128 33.-34. 1946 SS Strathmore–England ...... 154 35. 1946 Denmark...... 170 36.-37. 1947 Clarens–Lyceeum Alpinum...... 176 38. 1948 Institut auf dem Rosenberg ...... 186 39. 1950 Hamburg, Rabbow & Co. Mother to Dominican Republic...... 190 40-44. 1952 Dominican Holiday & Haiti ...... 197 45. 1953 Danish Navy (Jan) ...... 218 46. 1954 Copenhagen A.P. Moller (Dec) ...... 224 viii Contents

47. 1956 Hong Kong, Jebsen & Jessen (May) ...... 226 48. 1958 Dominican Republic ...... 233 49. 1958/59 Ciudad Trujillo, Grisolia ...... 236 50. 1960 A New Beginning—Jennifer ...... 245 51. 1961 Danfoss–John Born Sept.24th ...... 249 52.-53. 1962 Geneva IOS–Mexico–Argentina ...... 252 54. 1963 Buenos Aires, Nicholas Born Aug.2nd...... 259 55.-61. 1964 Peru (64/66) & Bolivia–Paraguay–Cajamarca–Ecuador–Chile...... 263 62. 1965 Guadeloupe ...... 285 63.-66. Geneva—New York—Brazil...... 287 67.-70. Escape—Geneva—Central and South America—Beirut ...... 305 71. 1968 Gex, France–Mark Born April 17th...... 324 72. 11969 Conches, Geneva ...... 331 73. 1970 The Fall of IOS...... 335 74. 1971 Spain ...... 341 75. 1981 Bavaria–Middle East–California ...... 347 76. 1985 Venezuela...... 349 77. 1987 Florida ...... 353 78. 1988 Boston, Liberty Financial ...... 355 79.-80. 1992 Brussels (Liberty to 1998) ...... 359

1995 Nick Married Silvana in London 1997 Nick Died 1999 John Married Karen in New York 2000 Sophie Born Oct. 20th 2002 Mark Married Gitte in Denmark 2002 Oliver Born Nov. 22nd. Contents ix

2003 Emma Born June 26th 2005 Sebastian Born June 7th 2005 Antonio Born Nov. 3rd 2006 Jennifer and I Moved to Spain 2008 Millie Born Jan. 23rd 2008 Epilogue & Jennifer´s Coda ...... 371

Prologue

Nov. 24, 1931, was another beautiful morning in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. A gentle easterly breeze from the South China Sea swept the last few clouds from the islands of Victoria, Lantau, and the Kowloon Peninsula, herding them over the green hills of the New Territories towards the high mountains of Mainland China.

High up on the peak, Hong Kong’s most prominent landmark, on the terrace of the villa Kik-Ud, stood a blond, blue-eyed man in a cotton kimono. He gazed down to the piers of Kowloon, where large, white liners were docked. In the harbour itself, freighters from all over the world were moored, British and American warships were anchored, and ferries criss-crossed the bay between Hong Kong island and Kowloon. A confusion of junks, motor boats and private yachts together with dozens of the noisy little walla-walla water taxis added colour to the scene.

Johan H. Jessen reached for his ﬁ eld glasses and adjusted the sights. Far in the distance a plume of smoke rose from a black-and-white China coastal freighter followed, a few seconds later by the blast of the ship’s horn. It was the Gustav Diederichsen, one of his family’s company ships, carrying almost 3,000 tons of tea, silks, hogbellies, human hair, dried eggs, and spices from the ports of Shanghai and Foochow to be transhipped from Hong Kong to the insatiable markets of Europe.

Down below in the middle of the harbour lay the Grete Maersk of the Danish Maersk Line for which his company acted as general agents. She was discharging electrical goods, locomotives and pharmaceuticals from Denmark and other European ports. Later in the day she would load the Chinese produce from the Diederichsen and take it to Europe.

Jessen turned to focus on Lei Yu Mun, the northern entrance to the harbour, where he could see a bright green freighter steaming in. She was the Sophie Rickmers, then the biggest ship of the Rickmers Line, arriving heavily laden with industrial goods from Europe to be discharged ﬁ rst in Hong Kong and then Shanghai. The Sophie Rickmers was one of the many ships of his father-in-law, Paul Rickmers. Earlier in the day, a pilot had reported from Shek-O the arrival of the Peter Maersk from San Francisco. This was starting out to be an excellent day. xii Prologue

The day, however, was to bring him even greater joy. His wife Etha was in the Victoria Hospital waiting to give birth to their ﬁ rst child. He checked his watch, then called for his Boy, Ah Chan, to prepare a white linen suit, a beige silk shirt, a blue tie, and to run his bath. “Tell Man Fat to bring the car around in half an hour. Feidyah, feidyah, Missy waiting!” he said, urging haste.

On the drive up to the hospital, as he sat behind Man Fat’s broad back, his mind went back to his ﬁ rst meeting with Etha in the Cathay Hotel in Shanghai. She was travelling with her father, Paul Rickmers, on one of his ships, and Johan, stationed in Shanghai for his family’s company, was summoned to show Etha the sights. From this ﬁ rst encounter, a brief intercontinental courtship had followed, culminating in a grand wedding in Hamburg before the two planned to set up house in Hong Kong.

The voyage out was their honeymoon, with a planned stop in Singapore at the Rafﬂ es Hotel. There the newlyweds found a telegram waiting for them. Johan’s father, Heinrich Jessen, the co-founder of Jebsen & Jessen as well as Jebsen & Company, had died. After his customary morning ride, Jessen senior had dismounted, then suffered a massive heart attack—in a way a perfect death, but a disastrous shock to his family. To soothe her new husband’s sorrow, Etha suggested having a child as soon as possible. It was this child that he was impatient to see. He hoped for a son to whom he could pass on his love of the East and the sea.

The child certainly had sea-faring ancestors on both sides. The Rickmers family came originally from the wind-swept island of Heligoland in the North Sea. The island was Danish until seized by the British in 1807, and was formally ceded to Britain in 1814. The British swapped this island for Zanzibar in 1890, at that time a German possession. Thus Heligoland became part of the German Empire, and within seventy-six years the inhabitants of this small island changed from being Danish to British to German.

The Heligoland Rickmers came from a long line of mariners, sea captains, and shipbuilders. In 1834 they established themselves in Bremerhaven, and within a few years owned a sizeable shipping company. Their shipyard built some of the world’s fastest sailing ships and clippers. They built training ships for several major foreign navies and, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the Rickmers Line was one of the largest privately owned shipping companies in Europe, with services to most parts of the globe. They owned rice mills in Bremen and Hamburg, where hundreds Prologue xiii

of thousands of tons of rice arrived from Indonesia in Rickmers’ ships.

From 1848 until 1914, about eighty-nine Rickmers’ vessels had been launched, but during W.W.I the ﬂ eet was decimated. At the time Etha married Johan, the shipyard in Bremerhaven was expanding again as Paul Rickmers rebuilt his ﬂ eet.

On the Jessen side the new-born’s heritage was also maritime. From the small town of Aabenraa in southern Denmark, the destinies of two local families—the Jebsens and the Jessens—had merged. The men of both families had long been sea captains, ship owners, and traders to the Far East.

In 1895, Jacob Jebsen and Heinrich Jessen decided to form a partnership. They opened ofﬁ ces in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and acted as traders and agents for major global industries and shipping companies. This also included the agency for the Jebsen ﬂ eet of Jacob’s father, Michael Jebsen, which greatly advanced the growth of this budding company.

This commercial union was strengthened in 1899, when Johan’s father Heinrich married Johanne Jebsen, his partner’s sister. From this marriage two children were born: Christa, in 1900, and then Johan himself in 1903. Both children were born in Hong Kong and lived happily there in the villa Lysholt until the tragic death of their mother in 1907, when Christa was seven and Johan four. These idyllic early years in Hong Kong were what Johan hoped to recreate for children of his own.

Now, as Man Fat drew up in front of the Victoria Hospital, Johan jumped out of the car, then raced up the steps and through the corridors to Etha’s room. As he cautiously popped his head around the door he saw Etha proudly holding a baby out to him.

“I knew it was you running like that,” she said. “Look—it’s a boy! The son you have been waiting for.”

This son was to be christened Johan Heinrich after his father and all ﬁ rst born Jessens for generations. This is his story.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv

Acknowledgments

First of all my sincerest thanks go to Michael Jebsen who read endless drafts with great patience. The very ﬁ rst idea for this memoir came from my cousin Bertram Rickmers as we sat together with my son Mark in the bar of the Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland. We had just attended a family reunion. It appeared that I was the last to have vivid memories of the grandfather he was never to meet.

As the book developed, many people read the ﬁ rst drafts and I thank them for their patience! My son John even had several copies of the ﬁ rst part bound with the express purpose of not allowing me to give up.

Ultimately, it has been the IT wizards who have brought the manuscript to a form I could send off to publishers. In Brussels my thanks go to Detlef Grosse; in Spain to René Martens and particularly to my daughter-in-law Silvana whose grasp of the intricacies of my computer never cease to amaze me, and last but not least to Cindi Pietrzyk, Robert Rufa, Helen Holzer, Kim Pascarelli, Julius Kiskis, Wendy Arakawa, and Mark Bredt of the AEG Publishing Group, New York, N.Y. To all of them heart felt thanks. Michael Jebsen, my great-grandfather

Jacob Jebsen & Family

My grandparents J.H. Jessen & Johanne, née Jebsen J.H.Jessen, Johanne, JHJjr.Christa at Villa Lysholt Villa Lysholt

Villa Lysholt Servants 1905 My Parents Wedding 1931

Villa Lysholt, Hong Kong, where my father and his sister were born Above: My Grandfather, Heinrich Jessen on his yacht Below: Sailing with father in HK Harbour

1 Hong Kong

ven as a boy they told me I had almost total recall, but I cannot remember Emy Chinese wet nurse. My ﬁ rst memories are of my amah, to whom I was devoted. She was called Baby Amah and wore black silk baggy trousers, little black silk slippers on her bound feet, and a long-sleeved white cotton jacket with frogged button holes. Her hair was always pulled back into a tight bun and she was an essential part of my life for my ﬁ rst six years.

Our house, called “Kik-Ud,” which means “Lookout” in Danish, was high up on the peak with wonderful views of Hong Kong Harbour. In one direction you could see the islands and the mountains of China, and on the other you looked down to Happy Valley with its famous race course. My father was a member of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the only non-British member at that time, and he owned a black stallion called Pumpernickel. I was about ﬁ ve when I saw Pumpernickel win ﬁ rst prize in a big race, to our great excitement. My mother, dressed as always in the height of fashion, wore a hat which my father and I thought looked quite silly, but still we were proud of her as she led Pumpernickel past the Tribune to receive a silver cup.

Kik-Ud had a sweeping lawn and manicured ﬂ ower beds but, at the back, behind the vegetable gardens and the servants’ quarters, it was jungle in those days. One afternoon a gardener, barefoot in black trousers and jacket, clutching his conical straw hat, came racing across the lawn to where my parents were taking tea.

“Masta, masta, big snake, come chop, chop!”

1 2 J.H & Jennifer M. Jessen

My father followed the gardener, and I tagged along behind. There was a path cut into the bushes, and under a tree we saw a ten-metre-long python, sleeping peacefully. It had an enormous swelling in the middle of its body. The gardener was terriﬁ ed, so my father grabbed the machete from him and with one tremendous, clear swing, slashed the python’s head off. The snake went into writhing convulsions, lashing out at the gardener’s bare ankles and bringing him to his knees. At his cries, Cook and other servants came running. Someone sliced open the python’s belly and, to my astonishment, extracted an entire pig; not very large but completely undigested. Father dragged me unwillingly back to the tea table, where Mother sat under a parasol, quietly reading her letters, undisturbed by the noise as well as by my excited chatter. I never did get to know what they did with the pig or the python.

The servants were my earliest companions. Most important was Ah Chan, our Number One Boy, with the company logo on his white, gold-buttoned jacket. The logo was three mackerel on a dark blue background, encircled with a laurel wreath. Two of the ﬁ sh swam west and the other east. This was an adaptation of the Aabenraa town shield, where all three mackerel swim in the same direction. I thought this was brilliantly clever. Next came Cook, dressed in a white jacket, black trousers, and black silk slippers. Number Two Boy, who served at table also, wore a white jacket and black pants. Coolie Boy wore black trousers with a dark blue jacket, whilst the lowest coolie, who did all the dirty work, was entirely in black. We had three amahs. Number One Amah, who did the laundry, wore the same uniform as my Baby Amah, whilst Number Two Amah, who helped clean, wore blue pants and jacket. Everyone knew who was who in the house by these uniforms, and as it was important to them it became important to me.

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