Kuni Schultz
Memories of My Life: One Century of our Family
Acknowledgements
These “memories of my life” have been written with the encouragement of my son, Sven
Schultz, and grandson, Frank Schultz, for with I am very grateful. All of it was written
with the best of my recollection of the historic facts of our family.
Photographs are from Kuni Schultz family albums
Published 2007.
Copyright 2007 ©
Kuni Schultz
All rights reserved ®
No part of this book may be reprinted
without the expressed written permission
of the author.
One century of our family 2007
Eyk would be 100 years old, this year, 2007. It is time for me to talk about him, his life, and us as a family. Eyk was born on November 1907, in Riga, Latvia, to Mr. Erich
Schultz and Mrs. Elsa Schultz. His father was a merchant, and his mother ran the household. The family was well off. Eyk’s full name was Johan Alfred Erich Eyolf
Schultz. All these names gave us lots of trouble when Eyk and I got married, because we had no room to write my name on the marriage certificate. The family was born and raised in the Baltics, as Baltic Germans. Erich’s father was a banker and a Baltic German, and his mother was also a Baltic German. Eyk’s dad also had two brothers, Hans and
Fritz. Hans was also a merchant and worked at the same company with Eyk’s father. Fritz was the black sheep in the family, and never amounted to much. Ike’s dad was a merchant and worked in the forwarding business. Eyk’s mother’s name was Charolette
Elsa Ne Albert. Her family was also Baltic Germans. Mama’s father made his money buying special woods in Siberia and shipping the merchandise all over the world. He retired at 40 and lived with his family on a ranch near Riga, which he owned. Mama
Schultz had two brothers and two sisters, Edgar, Percy, Gretta and Hilda. Edgar was an engineer and was involved in building the Siberian railroad from Moscow to Murmansk.
He died in WWI in the Krimm. Percy moved later on to Germany. Gretta was married to a gentleman from Switzerland, and Hilda’s husband was also a Batlic German.
Ike had not many memories of Riga. He remembered spending the summers at the family summer home in the country. He had two dogs, one pointer and one Boxer. One Century of our family (continued)
During the time in Riga, Mama Shultz received some of the family’s jewels.
Some of it came out of the house of the Czar. Since the Czarina was a German princess, it was understandable that their physician was also German. He was one of the Schultz relatives, although I am not exactly sure where the connection is. It’s interesting that in those days, wealthy individuals kept a doctor on a monthly retainer, but when a person in that family became ill, the doctor would not be paid until they got well. The Czarina, or
Russian empress, worried much about her son, who was a chronic bleeder. Which made things difficult when he got hurt. As soon as the doctor stopped the bleeding, she was very happy. So happy, that she gave the doctor some of her precious jewelry. Mama
Schultz had some of them, and when I moved to the states, she actually gave me some of the jewelry. So a pair of very small earrings was passed on to me. Both mama and I didn’t have pierced ears, so she had them made into a brosh.
Dad was about 5 years old when the family moved to Odessa, on the Black Sea.
His father invested in a factory that produced rubber boots, mainly distributed to the
U.S.A. The family lived close to the port of Odessa, and there he taught himself how to swim, by pushing himself of the retention wall, then dog-paddled back to the wall. When he was school aged, his parents enrolled him in a German private Lutheran School. There he met on of the most powerful leaders from the Stahling area, he was Jewish, and his real name was Bienvenstein. He changed his name to fit the soviet mold, and called himself Trotzky.
In the beginning, they had a very good life in Odessa. Winters were spent in
Odessa, and summers were spent at the Black Sea. Then the revolution started. The city had six different governments in a very short time. First the Czar, then the white
Russians, then the Germans, then the Russian military, as well as the Kossacks, and finally the Communists took over. The Schutlz’s were actually kicked out of their house because they were very rich, and considered Bourgeois. Fortunately, the maid stayed, and was very close to the Schultz after they left, which was good because they had to leave all of their possessions and she stole things for them.
The family had a large split-level apartment, and wooden steps to get from one level to the other. This is where they did hide all of their valuables. The communists couldn’t find any of it, and they got so mad one time, that they put Mama Schultz against the wall and wanted to shoot her. One of the communists asked her why she was not begging for her life, and she responded, “I was born a bourgeois, and I’m going to die a bourgeois.” He spit in her face, but did not kill her. During all of the occupation, the family only spoke Russian, so they would not get in trouble.
Besides being a partner in the rubber boots factory, Papa Schultz was also in the forwarding business. Through that connection, he was able to find a way to get his family out of Russia and into Germany. In 1921, when Eyk was 14, the family got on one of the last ships leaving Odessa picking up German prisoners of war. They lost almost everything when leaving Odessa. They were able to save the jewelry, which Mama
Schultz had sewn into her clothing. Schultz Family in Germany after the War
After the war, the family fell on hard times. Mama Schultz became very ill, and there were no servants anymore. Many times the family was kicked out of the apartment; mostly finding refuge in the Lutheran church. At one time, they kept two chickens and one rooster in the dining room, so that they could have eggs and food.
At 12 years old, Eyk had to cook, and stand in line in the public kitchen for food and water. Papa Schultz’s office papers became heating material, and a tailor made pants for Eyk out of the office curtains. He had to take Piano lessons, or the Communists would have taken the piano as well. His playmate for many of these years was Zamboo, his boxer. Eyk’s family had no electricity, radio was just starting, and the only telephone was in papa’s office. When Eyk was 7 years old, he got a little sister, Leah Silvia, she was always sick and eventually passed away of pneumonia.
Eyk’s family eventually made it to Germany, because of Papa Schultz’s connections in the shipping business. They allowed only 3 families to get out, and Eyk’s family was one of them. Before heading to Germany, they docked in Constantinople, and then on to a refugee camp in southern Germany. They were allowed to leave from there, because of relatives living in northern Germany. 1921 was the family’s first Christmas in
Germany.
When the family arrived in Germany, Eyk spoke almost no German. Which led to many rough years of transition for him. As soon as papa Schultz knew how he fit into his old company, the family moved back to Berlin. When the family moved to Berlin, they stayed first at a hotel. Then later they moved into their own apartment. Eyk stayed behind, and started in a boarding school. Because of his lack of understanding the German language and no schooling for the previous few months in Odessa, the transition was very hard on him. He was able to make it with plenty of tutoring, and eventually became very good. It was actually suggested to him, to skip one school year to start keeping up with his own age group. This actually turned out to be a big mistake. His parents lived in an area of Berlin where the high schools were very good, and because of skipping ahead he had even more trouble. Soon it was obvious that he couldn’t keep up with the students in that school.
Eyk’s father wanted him to become an engineer, and was very disappointed when his grades did not make it to the level required for those studies. His mother was trying to convince her husband that Eyk should do something else. One of Eyk’s tutors had a brother who was a cadet on a sailing school ship. Eyk liked sailing, and thought it would be a position that he would like to try.
During this time, it was required, that if you wanted to be an officer in the merchant marine, to sail on a sailing ship for 4 years. 2 years of which had to be on a sailing ship without a motor. This is how Eyk ended up on the sailing ship,
“Grossherzogin Elizabeth”. She was built 1901, so she was an old-timer when Eyk sailed on her. There were 200 cadets on board. They would have to keep watch from: 4-8, 8-12,
12-4, 4-8, and then after that they could sleep the night, all the way through. The cadets had to sleep in hammocks, and it was not very hygienic, because there was not enough water on board. There was also no ice, and not enough food to go around; it was a miserable experience for Eyk and his shipmates.
He was on the “Grossherzogin Elizabeth” for almost one and a half years, then he was sent to a freighter with 20 other cadets. This new ship was named, “Oldenburg”. Bremen was the homeport of this ship. He sailed on this ship for more than a year. The ship was going around Cape Horne, and through a cluster of islands called
Pern, because they were islands were birds nested and produced good fertilizer. The cadets had nobody to load the ship because no one lived on these islands. So they had to take sacks and did the work themselves, and it took a toll on their bodies. There hands were bare and there feet were raw. Every once and a while, they would find a scorpion in the Guano. Food and water were scarce here, and when it was raining, they cadets would use buckets to get water to wash themselves and their clothing. The food was so bad that the meat on ship was hanging on deck and actually phosphorescing at night. As known, the weather around the cape was always unpredictable. One day the sea was so bad that you would be scared for your life, then the next day there would be no wind at all.
One of the trips took over 40 days, they had bad wind, and the ship was pushed further and further to the south. They actually ended up in iceberg water. The food situation got so bad that many times they would go fishing, but never would eat a shark regardless of how hungry they were at sea. The last year of Eyk’s training he was on two freighters; the first was named “Regina”, and the second was “Erica”. After the four years of basic training, Eyk was really worried if he had choosen the right career. He was always too stubborn to let his parents know this.
1928, after the 4 years of basic training, he left for the Mergen Marine, in Altona, close to Hamburg. It was a one year training with two exams, one halfway through, and then one final examination at the end. It made him a junior officer for ocean going ships.
After the training, he wanted to go back to sea again. He was hired by a ship company called Bernstein. They were very unusual, because they brought unpacked automobiles from the U.S.A to Europe. On the way back, only carried sand ballast. The ship mostly went from Hamburg, to New York. They packed the cars in special white sheets so that no harm would come to them. The ship held three decks, and each deck had many cars. Eyk spent about 2 years on this ship, it was the time of Prohibition in the U.S.
As seamen, they knew all the tricks of the trade, and they had their friends in the States, and smuggled lots of alcohol to the states. They were close to the U.S. Immigration as well, so they were able to get the contraband into the country.
Most of the customers were European girls who worked in rich American households for training. At night, they would have dances, and the girls would always come up to them and touch their back pockets to make sure they had alcohol on them. If they had no bottle, the girls wouldn’t dance with them. After Mergen marine Academy
During his time in Altona, he joined two Fraternities. The first was the “Hansea”, where future officers learned how to behave. He learned how to drink and not get drunk, and still have a good time at social events. He also learned how to make connections for later on. The second Fraternity was called “Albertross”. To belong to this organization, one had to have sailed around Cape Horn on a sailing ship. When Eyk died, there were only 13 members left. It was a very prestigious organization. Germany Post War (Continued)
Because the Bernstein shipping company was in Jewish hands, the Nazis shut it down. It was a tumultuous time, and Eyk could not find another ship. He spent some time in his parent’s house who, by now, had moved to Reval, Estonia. Papa Shultz was director for a German forwarding company Schenker & Company. The family befriended a gentleman who ran the largest German shipping company their, North German Lloyd, in the Baltic’s. This company owned a sailing yacht, but the man in charge didn’t like to sail, which was great for Eyk, because he was asked to run the boat when guests needed to be entertained. He was also given the privilege to use the boat for his private pleasure.
He sailed mostly with his friends in the Baltic between Reval and Helsinki. He had many friends who owned islands close to Helsinki. They sailed all day long, and partied all night. They would fish, cook crawfish, and finish it all off with some vodka, what a life.
During those three years in Reval, he also spent time doing his Navy duties, which were compulsory in Germany. Every person who wanted to continue on to sea would have to spend 6 months in the German Navy. He finished his duty there as a second officer, but he didn’t like it, and didn’t speak about it much.
I think Eyk also met, during his years in Reval, his first wife, Lolja. I don’t know much about it, and that is very obvious. I think after they got married, they moved to
Mecklenburg. I know that Eyk for some time, was a ferry captain on one of the North
German lakes. For the remaining time, he sold Electrolux vacuum cleaners, which were only sold household to household, and not in stores. He and his first wife did this job together. During the end of 1936, the shipping was getting better, and Eyk became a second officer on the Griebel line, which had passenger ships going from Stettin and Helsinki, to the Baltic cities, Riga and Reval.
In 1939, Georg was born on August 12th. They now had a good life, with good jobs, and now a little son. Eyk sailed with the Griebel line till he became first officer.
Then he took time off to go back to school and made his captain for ocean fairing vessels.
Soon after the Second World War started, the German Air Force found out that their pilots couldn’t fly at night, because they were never taught night navigation. Which was actually very important because they flew to London by night, to bomb the city.
They didn’t know how to fly by the stars, and sometimes when the anti-aircraft was too heavy, they couldn’t drop their bombs. The Airplane would eventually run out of gasoline, some because of poor navigating, and many of the planes would fall in the
English Channel. Most of the wives of these men were told that their husbands were shot down, so that the wives would believe that their husbands died more admirably.
When General Goering, head of the German Air Force, realized what happened, he drafted 250 sea captains to the air force, to teach his flyboys to navigate at night. This was how Eyk landed in the air force. He worked at several airports in Germany, but on one of the training flights, he crashed with his flyboys in Russia. When people found out that he spoke Russian, he was ordered to the headquarters in Kiel, to translate a Russian navigation book into German. There were many Russian flyers who flew over the lines, and joined the Germans, but also others who were shot down. To accommodate this situation the air fore built a new organization, which translates into English as:
Interrogation Unit For Eastern Flyers. It was actually a Russian speaking unit with Baltic Germans, who were interrogating the Russians who came over voluntarily and those that were shot down. Eyk, because of his ability to speak Russian, was assigned to this unit.
One of the people, interrogated by the organization, was actually the son of Stalin.
He told his interrogator that the German’s would lose the war. He said his father has treated the Russian people bad, but that the Germans were treating them worse. He continued to say that no one can live during Russian winters in tents, but that the
Germans made the Russian prisoners of war do this anyways. With little or nothing to eat, the people tried to escape, and would become enemies of the Germans and blew up the railroad lines, so that the German Army couldn’t use them either. He also said that you can not beat Russians on the doors of Moscow, and that they should have learned from Napoleon, who was defeated outside of Moscow. Shultz Family Germany Post War PART 3
I knew about the Russian interrogation organization since its existence in
Schlesien. Schlesien is now part of Poland. As the Russian army marched west, the unit knew it also had to move west. There new position was in the East Sudetenland, a
German speaking part of Czechoslovakia close to Carlsbad, a very well known spa. There they stayed until it was known that the Russians would move west to occupy all of
Czechoslovakia, and the Americans would stop on the German border. So it was time, once again, to move the unit.
Eyk was ordered to find quarters in the west. He set out on a motorcycle, which he first had to learn how to drive. He set out to find Gross Mayerhoefen, later the Czechs renamed it Velke Tworshe. The castle in the village became the new home for Eyk’s unit.
While trying to prepare the castle for its new occupants, he needed a place to stay. So
Eyk went to the village sheriff to ask for quarters. This man told Eyk that there were only two places large enough for him to stay, Baron Von Tucher’s ranch, or my father’s factory. Baron Von Tucher, at that time, was still working for the V-1 and V-2 rockets program, and was not at the ranch. So Eyk chose my parents house, and confiscated my room. I was bombed out in Vienna where I was teaching at the university, and all of my belonging were lost in the bombings. So I took a train over Prague, to Haid, the next train station to my parent’s home, just to find out that my room was being occupied by an air force officer. This is when I first met my future husband, Eyk. Kuni family history
I, Kuni, was born on October 9th, 1924, in a suburb named Honeck by Stollberg, in the foothills of the Erzebirge. I was named Kunigunde Gudrun Isolde, all these names came from the Ring of the Niebelungen, a Wagner opera. My mother was a Wagner and
Opera fan. My father was Erich Schall, a secretary of the justice department in the
German prison system. My mother was Fanny Schall Ne Hofmann; she had difficulties during my birth, and couldn’t have any more children.
My father was the only son of Wilhelm Schall, a health insurance executive. My father had five sisters. He opted to be raised away from home, because he couldn’t stand the girls. So he moved to his grandparents in Meisen, a city where the Meisen Porcelain was made. It was mostly made for the royals in Dresden. His grandfather was one of only
3 dentists in the country at the time. They called themselves not dentists, but tooth artists.
For my father, after high school, World War I came. My father served in the
German army, became a lieutenant, and was until 1921, a French prisoner of war. My mother was the third youngest of 16 siblings. Her mother died when she was only 12 years old. My mother’s father was raised in the woods of the Erzgebirgs Mountains. His father was a forester, and from early on he had to help. So there was not much time to go to school, he never learned how to read or write. Still, he became one of the richest men in that town. He bought lots of land and built apartment houses or villas for the rich. His wife Lina, did all the office work. She got killed when she was taking the payroll to one of the construction sites. She used horse and buggy for these trips, and one day there was a thunderstorm that frightened the horses, causing her to fall off in a ditch where she died. Kuni Schultz History (Continued-PART 2)
Mama Hofmann’s death was a big blow for the family. The hardest hit was my mother, because she was the closest to her mother. Anyone coming close, she would always say “Don’t touch my mommy!” Louisa, being the oldest daughter, now had to learn to become the mother, and took over all of her mother’s responsibilities. From the
16 children, there were two sets of twins, but all of those died before adulthood. All of the boys became soldiers during World War I, and three of them did not come back.
After the war, most of the boys studied architecture or engineering. They followed in their father’s footsteps. The girls, all but one, married and seemed very happy. Opa
Hofmann had the idea that he wanted a farm, and so he converted one of the houses he had built into one. He owned enough land around the city, which he converted into producing fields for the farm. I think farming was too much work for him, so he gave the farm to one of his sons. Three generations worked that farm, until it was shut down not very long ago.
One day, my grandfather brought home a new wife. She was younger than some of his own children, and it tore the family apart. She also used a lot of the family’s money, which no one liked.
I lived through my fist year of school in that little town, and liked it very much.
My parents lived in an apartment complex built for the employees of the prison. The complex had a lot of playing area for the children. I played sports there all the time. I also discovered my love for animals, mostly dogs. One lady had a terrier kennel, where I spent a lot of time. When my mom was looking for me, she could always find me with the dogs. My father belonged to the German National Party, which was very conservative.
When he was asked to join the Nazi Party, he declined. Soon thereafter, he was asked to resign his job. He had a work contract, and they offered to give him some money to buy him out. At that point, my parents moved to Annaberg, but I was to finish my first school year in Stollberg, so I lived for several months with an aunt.
Coming one more time back to my grandfather, after he retired, he often sat in his gazebo in his backyard. Whenever I could sneak away from my mother, I would find my grandfather. He would put me on his lap, and we would talk, mostly about animals. He loved horses, and I learned a lot about them through our talks. He also introduced me to plants and flowers, actually all of the generals about nature. I just loved those times with grandfather. Kuni Schultz History (Continued-PART3)
My family moved to Annaberg, and opened a very unusual grocery store. The store offered mostly imported goods, like: bananas, pineapples, figs, and so on. They offered things that you couldn’t get anywhere else. The shop did very well; customers came from far away to shop at the store.
All of this ended when Hitler started preparing for the Second World War. He did not allow foreign currency to be spent on luxury items, like foreign food. It was spent on steel and other items that he needed for the war machine. My father had no choice but to close the store. He was then hired by a friend, to become a sales representative for a cider and fruit juice factory. The friend also taught my father this trade. One day, he had the opportunity to buy his own factory in the German part of Czechoslovakia. This company also had fruit orchards, and he did good business there. He mostly supplied the German military with fruit juices.
The farmers in the area also had their fruit processed at my father’s factory. They rented parts of highways in the area, where apple trees were growing. They harvested the trees, took the fruit to my father’s factory, and got apple cider and other juices manufactured. Kuni Schultz Family History Part 4
After my first year of school in Stollberg, my parents brought me to Annaberg. I liked the town very much. Besides school, there were plenty of things to do. Sports and arts were two of my favorite activities in Annaberg. Four years of elementary school was fine, but high school was something else.
First, I was enrolled in a girls finishing high school. My best friend there was
Barbara Bodeck, she was half Jewish. Her father was a medical doctor, and ran one of the hot springs spas in the area. He soon found out what Hitler had in mind, to get rid of all the Jews, and so he moved to Switzerland.
When my school principal found out my connection to Barbara, my father and I were ordered to attend a meeting with him. He told us that the school belonged one hundred percent to the Hitler Youth. He also said that Barbara couldn’t join because of being Jewish, and that she would have to leave. I told him, “If she goes, then I go also.”
So Barbara moved with her family to Switzerland, and my father enrolled me in a high school geared towards business. My other close friend, Annerosa, moved with me into the new school. The unique thing about this new school was that all if the teachers spoke
German, English, and French. Each week we had to speak a different language when we addressed a teacher if we wanted to communicate with them or ask any questions. Kuni’s Childhood
My parents had moved at the beginning of the year. I followed them to Annaberg, after finishing my first school year in Stollberg. I moved during Easter vacation to this city. The move to Annaberg actually created rumors that I had just been adopted. I knew about it through my classmates, although my parents did not. Hearing this shocked me very much.
I had just seen Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel, and was convinced that all stepparents would be mean. So I monitored my parents for almost a year, and luckily,
I found that they were not mean to me. Then one day, I did something very bad. I took money from my father’s store, and was caught. I expected to be severely punished, but my parents just sat me down, and talked to me. All I was required to do, was to promise that I would never do it again. I was so surprised, that I started crying and hugging my mom. These tears showed me that they were indeed my parents, and not stepparents.
They were shocked about this, because they had no idea what had happened this whole time. I had many more happy years there in that town.
Our family was a very traditional one. Holidays were mostly celebrated with all of our other relatives. My favorite month out of the year was December. By this time, it had mostly snowed already, and the landscape was much like a winter wonderland. We made
Advent wreaths and lit one candle every Sunday until Christmas, till all were lit at the end of the Advent Sundays.
The last week before Christmas, we picked our tree in the woods, cut it, and brought it home. It smelled so good, like the holidays. My father invented, for every
Christmas, a different decoration to put on the tree. One time, he decorated it with silver tinsel. Another time, he would decorate it with edible things, like gilded apples, nuts, and chocolates. The edible tree decorations were made mostly for the kids. Sometimes, we had hand-blown glass ornaments, but there were always real candles on our trees.
The house was decorated with traditional figurines relating to the region, such as the smoked man, angels, pyramids, and of course nutcrackers. The nutcracker was invented in Seifen, the toy town of the Erzgebirge.
Only when we would spend our holidays with my grandparents or if there was not much snow, would we not go skiing higher up in the mountains. Our traditional
Christmas would be where we celebrate Christmas Eve, we would go to Christmas service in a little church, only two houses down from our house. So my mother would not have to cook, we would eat seven cold dishes mother or father prepared ahead of time.
Traditional seven days of Christmas equals seven different dishes. Gifts were not wrapped. Each family member had a small table, for his or her gifts.
Mostly everybody would receive one large gift, like a ski jacket or ice skates. The rest were small things, and most of it was self-made. Gifts never had been very important, it was more important to be a loving family together. We sang Christmas songs, talked about what we would like to become one day, or other wishes. We stayed up until all of the candles on the tree had finished burning.
The next morning, we would have to get up very early. Mother put bricks in the still hot oven the night before, so that we could use them as warm bottles to keep our feet warm, when my uncle picked us up. Because he had a forwarding company, he was able to pick us up with his horse-drawn sled. He would take us higher up in the mountains to a ski resort, where the family had a ski lodge. I loved those trips. Under fur blankets, and the bricks under our feet, we were quite warm. The village people celebrated Christmas in the mornings. Their one story houses, with the steep roofs, were great for us to watch, because we could see there celebration, and had Christmas all over again.
For one week, we would do nothing but ski and eat. Our Christmas feast was either goose or venison. The dessert was Christmas stollen and gingerbread cookies. This was what most of our Christmas’ looked like, unless we were at our grandparents or there was no snowfall that year. Traditionally, on New Years Eve all skiers of the resort would ski with torches down the mountain to a hotel. There, everybody would dance and party until early in the morning. At one of those parties, I met the best German diver, who was also a great skier. When it was time to go home, we all would go by train or bus. Jonny
Weiss, the divers name, lived in Dresden, and had a bus layover in Annaberg. My parents invited him over to our house. And we went swimming in the town’s small indoor pool.
He came more often to ski that winter, and would come to our house to see our family.
When he did, we would mostly go to the pool, and he would teach me some dives, and thought I had talent. He felt that with training, I could become pretty good.
Christmas 2005 and New Year 2006 in the Erzgebirgs Mountain in Germany
Being as old as I am, I thought it would be nice, before I am gone, to bring our young American family closer together with our young relatives in Germany und continue the friendship between us.
Last Easter some of them visit hear with us und extended the invitation to come to
Germany over the Christmas Holydays. To my surprise, Sven and family felt that was a good idea. He felt Lukas now was old enough to remember the trip. So 5 of us Americans spend the Holydays in Germany
Our relatives went out of their way to make us feel welcome. Christmas eve we all want to church in Hatdorf, a small village, were Ute, Peter and their 2 children live.
We had dinner together and Lukas found out how Christmas is celebrated on the other side of the ocean and Santa Claus brings the gifts to the house for all good children, after they reside a poem and sing a Christmas song.
Karin Ehlers and I stayed with Utes Parents, my second cousin and had some nice time in their house. Sven and Monika’s gift to all of us where tickets to the Ballet “Don
Quixote” at the Samper oper in Dresden. It was beautiful!
All in all, for the children English-German mix was not a big problem. I think the adults did get to know each other better and hopeful, stay in conduct. I would like that very much.
My second objective for that trip was to see one more time many of the familiar places I “ roamed” as a child. Time was too short to see all, but what I visited was still great for me The neighborhood of the little town I grew up in was still the same, after so many years. The hills where I learned how to ski as a 4 year old, after I got skies for Christmas, still existed. And I remember how cold I got, because I did not want to come home. And then there was Annaberg, a town of about 20 000 people, which seems to have not changed at all over so many years. It lies in the heart of the Mountains, about 18,000 feet above sea level. I lived there during the formative years of my live. The Opportunities that little town gave me, made me who I am today.
The school system was excellent with 4 years of elementary Education and 19 years of higher Education. I went first to a “Lyceum”, or a girl’s finishing school, with
German, English and French the languages, which were spoken on a daily bases.
One day the Director of the school ordered my father and me to come into his office. He told us that the school was in control 100 percent by the Hitler Youth. My best friend, Barbara Bodeck, was Jewish and couldn’t join. I had to leave that school, because
I would not give up my friendship with my best friend at that time, a Jewish girl. She later moved with her parents to Switzerland and became a medical doctor.
Since I was to take my fathers business over one day, I was send to a high school with modern languages, like English and French. They also emphasized lots of math and business classes. I did not finish my schooling there, because I moved to my grandparents in Dresden, so I could start diving with at that time, one of the best diving programs in the country. During this time, I was also accepted to study at the University of
Goettingen. But back to Annaberg. The little house I grow up in was still there. When we lived there it was painted green, now it was pink and for sale. For a second only I thought
I should buy it.
Down the street from there was the place where we kids build a ski jump hill in the winter. We watered it down every night so that it would freeze. We could fly almost
20 meters off of that selfmade hill. The steep streets we negotiated with our scooters were also a familiar sight. The scooters were much better then in the old days. Wheels larger, steering wider and they had foot and hand brakes.
Down the steep hill was the Adam Riess House. He was the father of mathematics. My aunt lived in that house, till it became a Museum.
Around the corner was the indoor small indoor pool, where I learned to swim and dive. When I became successful in diving, our swim club put a photo on the wall of me in the lobby. The pool is not used any more and it was locked, when we tried to get in, but a friend of mine will try to get that photo for me. The city now has a new pool.
Around the corner from the pool were the stables, where I took horseback riding classes, but it was made into a split level garage recently. The marketplace now has an underground garage.
I was very happy that the citizen’s on Annaberg replaced a historic monument of
Barbara Uttmann, the lady who brought “Kloeppel Spitze” in Erzgebirge, which is now an important industry in the area. The Nazis had melted the monument during World War
II, because it was made of copper, which they needed to make ammunition.
We had lunch in a Hotel at which I had high school social and ballroom dancing lessons. Across from that, I had my Ballet and Modern dance classes in Hotel “Wilder Mann”. Our group also performed in the small City Theater, because the Theater had no money for dancers.
Time was too short during our visit, to drive up to the Poehlberg. There was an outdoor pool fed by natural springs. After hikes on the Mountain, that was our favorite
“Hangout”. During the winters, we would ski up there.
When we where older, we had a very good group leader in the HJ (Hitler Youth) who would lead us to build our own “Glider”, which was basically a plane with no motor. With this glider, we also learned to fly. We could stay up over the mountain for a long time, because there was so much termik over these flat top mountains.
I also was able to visit the two churches our family attended during these 10 years we lived in Annaberg. Christmas eve we always would go to the little church around the corner from our house. It has a live size Manger carved by artists of the area, but instead of the holly three Kings, 3 miners bring Gold, Copper and Coal to Jesus, which was mined in that area.
When we visited, the large Annen church was just restored and it was beautiful. I was confirmed there. It was a nice fuzzy feeling for me to walk with my American grandson down that beautiful hall and listen to the organ play.
It is almost unbelievable, but my best friend over all those years Annerose
Eberlein-Zeidler still lives in Annaberg, in the same house, the Communists did not take it away, and in the same apartment. As children, we played together, danced in the theater together, but than her brother was killed in World War II and her parents took this very hard so she had to take the business over. I went to Dresden to finish high school, took my required work year in Austria and then went on to the University of Goettingen. Not till I came to the States did we get back in touch again.
Each time we meet we always say:
“Do you remember?” Yes, I do remember well!!! Kuni’s young adulthood
My grandparents had moved to Dresden after grandfather retired. As a family, we decided that if it were ok with my grandparents, then I would move to Dresden, and finish my high school there. Mr. Wunderlich, the diving coach in Dresden, was also willing to work with me. So I finished my high school there.
My grandparent’s apartment was on the same side of the Elbe River as my school, which was great, but the pool was on the other side of the river. It took me 30 minutes to get there, and there was no public transportation, so everyday I had to walk. I didn’t mind walking though, because I liked the sport, and also because I got better and better every workout. Despite the war, we had competition.
My first year, I won my age group nationals in the 3 meter. I was put on the national youth team, and competed successfully in Hungary and Italy. I also was a finalist in the senior national competition that year. Because of my school grades, and my competitive success, I was accepted at the University of Gottingen, one of the best universities in the country. I was able to do my compulsory work year before college in
Austria. Our national coach, Hans Kefer moved from Berlin to Vienna, and invited me to stay with him. It was arranged for me to work with a family in Vienna. The lady of the house had worked in a hotel in Hungary. She was a very good cook, and despite of grocery shortages, she taught me to cook good Hungarian and Austrian dishes. So I worked with her during the day, mostly taking care of the children, and trained in the evening by diving with the Vienna team. We competed mostly in Prague, Budapest, and
Vienna. After a half a year, I was sent up to the Salzburg Mountains to work with a real backwoods kind of farmer. Our group of girls lived in barracks, and had to walk about three-quarters of an hour just to get to the farm we were assigned to. The scenery there was beautiful, we worked very hard and I missed diving. After three months of that, I developed a bad tooth infection, and was sent to Salzburg for x-rays. During the x-rays, someone dropped something on the floor, and I must have moved. Because I moved, the infection was made to look worse than it really was. They considered surgery when I told the dentist that I had come from a dentist family. I had five cousins, or second cousins, who could do the surgery. I was discharged immediately from the work unit. I went to my father’s cousin, who was a dentist, and the work was done in two weeks.
The university did not start until the fall semester, so I was invited to move into the home of my coach in Vienna. I helped his wife with the household, and dived with him in the evening. We competed with in all countries friendly to Germany. I learned a lot, and dived a lot.
In September, I became a student at the University of Goetingen. The curriculum was very hard, and life in general became tough. There was never much to eat, and we had air raids almost every day. Gottingen was in the path of one of the English and
American routes to bomb Berlin. Our lectures had been spread through the entire city. I had a bicycle, with bad tires, for transportation. It seemed like it had a flat every 5 minutes. I learned very quickly how to fix the flats.
Our professors were amazingly quite good. Most of them never had to serve in the military. Our physics professor was one of the first people after World War II to become a recipient of the famous Nobel Prize. He either worked on it with other professors, or actually invented how to split an atom. His name was professor Hahn. Kuni young adulthood (Part 2)
The semester vacations, I would spend with my parents in Grossmeirhoefen.
Since there were not many clothes to buy, I would use the vacations to sew clothes for me, and alter things for my mother. To go by train, in Germany, was very risky. You never knew if you would reach your destination. Kassel, a large transfer station, was bombed all the time. I remember two very bad area raids there. For the university, it became more and more difficult to cover our lectures with staff. So I was asked to teach all of the aquatic classes. It helped me to not have to pay for my university education. I received thanks through the Golden “G” award from the university, a very prestigious award. And it also helped me to get a teaching job at the University of Vienna. We knew war was almost over, but we tried to have a life that was as normal as possible. My coach and his wife, invited me to stay once again in their home. I shared a room with the Italian champion Nanda Bautasso, who also lived with the Kefers, and trained with us.
When the bombing of Vienna became too frequent, Nanda moved back home to
Rome. During a bomb raid in the spring, the Kefers lost everything, and so did I. I came home from work and saw my bed standing up in the fourth floor, but my closet with all of my clothes was gone. The Kefers moved their family to a village by Munich, and I took the next train home to my parents to Czechoslovakia. When I arrived in the middle of the night, my room was occupied by Eyk, my future husband. Eyk/Kuni World War II
Eyk stayed another two weeks in my parent’s home, and then moved with his unit into the castle; which, by that time, was ready for human occupancy. So I finally got my room back. The German government found out that I was no longer teaching in Vienna, and ordered me to work at a Hitler Youth Camp, in the East Sudetenland area of the
Czechoslovakian Republic. Neither my parents nor I liked the idea to move towards the
Russian area. My father talked to the commander of Eyk’s outfit, and I was drafted as a civilian employee in the unit. For several weeks, my job was to copy drawings of Russian fighter planes, and the positions of their guns. We had no other means to copy drawings.
Commander Holders did like the way Eyk was organizing and finding all the things that the unit needed, so he was mostly traveling. That November, he was assigned to find quarters in Germany for all relatives of the interrogating officers. Since the Baltic was occupied by Russia, all these people were allowed to come along, but it eventually became a burden for everybody. So the families moved to a ranch close to Nurnburg in
Germany, and the officers, Russians and some supporting staff stayed behind.
During the existence of the organization, Eyk had two special orders, go through the Russian lines and bring important people out. How this was done was never really discussed. The first time it was a Russian PR person in Kiev, I believe. She was a well- liked PR person by the name of Pivelenko. She was a Russian officer, had a beautiful voice, and was female. At first, she didn’t want to come, because she was told by the
Russians that the Germans killed her mother. But when Eyk was able to produce her mother, and allowed her to bring her mother along, she did a lot for Germany. Eyk delivered her to an army unit in Hamburg. The second person was a top Russian gymnast, but who also was an expert in climate and land conditions in the Russian tundra. He said he would only go with Eyk if he were allowed to bring his whole family along, which made things for Eyk very difficult, but it was eventually done. The Germans had the idea to build an airport in the
Russian tundra, and attack the Russians also from the east. That idea got scratched because it was too cold, and the planes would have to be constantly de-iced to be able to fly. Mr. Tananaka, the name of the gymnast, and his family later on settled in Canada. New Years 1945
The ranch in Grossmier hoefen was owned by Baron Von Tucher. He also worked on the V1 and V2 rocket developments, so he was not always in our little village. Von
Tucher was one-half Jewish. When Hitler began hunting down the Jews, his Jewish mother moved to the United States. Her birth name was Ulstein; that family owned the newspaper where Life Magazine was published. His father’s family owned the Tucher
Brewery in Nurnburg.
When he was in town, I flirted with him, but it was not him I was after. It was the beautiful Lipizzan horses he owned, and I wanted to ride, and eventually he let me. At one of his visits, he brought home a lot of papers pertaining to the rocket development he was working on. To keep these documents in a safe place, he and my father went in the woods and buried them. I assume he retrieved them later, when he moved to West
Germany.
New Years Eve 1945. Baron Von Tucher was at the ranch, and invited my family and the officers from the castle to a New Year’s party. He had an extensive library. One of his books was a cookbook from Mozart’s time. He also had a very good housekeeper.
This lady prepared a 14-course meal, using the cookbook. It was fantastic. The table setting was antique, and the food was out of this world. We were about 20 people at that party, including some of the Russian pilots, who were at the castle. We found some guitars for them, and with their electronic components from their pilot’s helmets in
Russia, they had made electric guitars. We sang our songs, and they sang their Russian folk songs and danced their traditional dances. We melted lead over the open fireplace and put it in ice water. With these newly formed creations, we started to read our futures. We had champagne at midnight, and we all came to the conclusion that we must enjoy the war, because the peace will be terrible.
It was at Baron Von Tucher’s party that Eyk and I realized that we had become more than just good friends. Lipizzan Horses
So the Russian came west to Czechoslovakia, Eyk’s unit was inquiring about the
Russian Air force. And they had Russian fliers, who either by choice or attack were prisoners of war in Germany. Eyk’s job was to interrogate these people. It became obvious that the Russians were advancing and pushing towards the west. Knowing this, the unit was trying to connect with the Americans. The radio operator was a young man, who was stuck in Germany, because he came on vacation in 1939, and was forced to stay and join the German Army, because of his ability to speak fluent English. One day, he became very exciting to Eyk, and said that he had the Americans on the line. Knowing that the war was coming to an end anyways, and the unit was going to prison with the
Americans rather than the Russians. Eyk asked them to come to the Hunting Castle. The lieutenant who was assigned to take the Germans to prison was Lieutenant Riid. As Riid arrived, he smelt good cooking and asked where the fumes were coming from. One of the officers than said we slaughtered all of our livestock, because we knew we would become prisoners of war. So he asked Riid if he and his men wanted to join the Germans for lunch. On April 26th 1945 the captured Germans, and the Capturer Americans dined together and actually developed a friendship. As they dined, Riid saw all of the horses pictures on the wall, and inquired about them. He asked where these horses were. He was told that all of the horses were kept in Haustau, Czechoslovakia.
Later that day, Riid contacted General Patton, asking to liberate the prisoners and horses found on the ranch near Haustau. An agreement was made with the Germans to let the Americans take the horses before the incoming Russians had a chance to destroy them. On April 28th, members of the 42nd squadron attacked the German lines and finally accepted and negotiated. It was all actually more of a festival then a military operation.
Eyk was appointed, by his superiors and by Riid, to cross the lines and make negotiations with the veterinarian, because he could speak Russian, German, and English.
Colonel Podhajsky was flown in to inspect his horses, and to prevent the horses from being captured by the Russians, they were taken to Germany for safety. Shortly thereafter in Linz, Austria, Podhajsky received the horses. They were returned to Lipitza, their native area, after the war was over. End of the War (Americans/ Eyk in Bremen)
Spring came, and the Russians got closer and closer. So for Eyk’s unit, it was time to move again. This time, they moved to a little hunting castle in the Bohemian woods. I stood behind in my parents’ home, and helped my father in the factory, and my mother at home. In Hostau the goal was to get the papers in order, and have them ready for when the Americans came to get them. Details about this last stop are in the information I wrote about the horses in Hostau.
After all, the horses were saved and all the German officers were taken to
England for interrogation. The supporting staff members were taken to a discharge camp and released after completing their paperwork. The Russians were given the opportunity to either stay in Germany or go back to their native country. After interrogation in
England, the officers were taken back to Germany, and each one was brought home to the city that they lived in.
The problem with bringing the Germans home was that the Americans couldn’t go to any German hotels, although most of them had closed anyways. The prisons at this time were under Allied control, so the Americans used them for their overnights as sleeping quarters, but forgot to tell the Germans. So many German soldiers thought they were being deceived into going to prison. They were later told what actually was happening. Eyk said that he was pacing the floor all night, not knowing what was going on.
Eyk stayed just a short while with us, and then hitchhiked to Bremen, hoping to find a job in the shipping business. His first concern though, was housing, as Bremen was completely destroyed from the war. Fortunately, one of the longshoremen offered Eyk to sleep on the couch in his living room. Slowly, housing got better, and he moved three times. Finally, he landed outside the city in a rebuilt ranch house. The house belonged to
Bremen’s city architect; he had it renovated for himself, but he died shortly afterward.
After his death, the family put it up for rent, and we got it because we knew the man’s daughter.
When Eyk arrived in Bremen, it didn’t take him very long to find a job in the Port of Bremen, as a Marine superintendent for the Americans. They couldn’t employ anyone to the position who was affiliated with the Nazi Party. Eyk had never joined, so he got the job.
In the meantime, to our surprise, the Americans came into Czechoslovakia. They must have liked the Pilsner beer. The first unit was infantry. Since the castle was empty, they used it for their headquarters. When they left, a motor crew unit came in, but their commander preferred my parents’ home. So we were evicted, and taken in by some of the villagers until this group left. When we came back to our house, we noticed they had taken some of my father’s valuable pictures, which were in our family for a long time.
First my father was angry and sad, but when he saw how carefully they were taken out of their frames, he felt the thief’s knew what they were doing, and just hoped that the pictures would be getting good care in America.
My parents became good friends with some of the Americans in the castle from the motor crew. The sergeant in charge of most of the big trucks, came to my father, and told him that they had their marching orders to go back to Germany. So they offered my father that they would take all of our furniture over the border to Germany. Sad to say though, he refused this offer. The Americans had left at the end of the summer. Some Czech people came after the Americans departed, and told my father that he was now under their jurisdiction. A man named Hutta introduced himself as the commissioner of the district. Kuni and Eyk
At the end of 1945, the Czechs came back to the factory, and told my father that he could keep the factory if he would become a Czech citizen. Like the previous time with the Americans, he declined. He said, “I am born a German, and I will die a
German.” The next day he was told that the family had 24 hours to take what they could carry, and then would be taken to a camp south of Pilsen.
During the war, children from cities that received most of the bombing raids were evacuated to much safer villages. My parents had taken in one little ten-year-old girl from
Berlin. Now they had to take this child with them to the camp. I did not hear from my parents for several months, and got worried. With the help of the International Red Cross,
I found the parents of the little girl in Berlin. Jointly, we found their daughter and my parents. The situation in the camp was not very good, and my father became very ill. ‘
The Czechs told the Germans in the camp, “We will let you go to Germany the following way.” First they let the people out, who were willing to go to East Germany, then to the French zone, the British sector, and lastly the American enclave. Since my father was so sick, and the little girl missed her parents, my parents opted for the East.
My mother had a sister living in Leipzig. The family had a large house with lots of property, and they gladly took my parents in. When my parents arrived in Leipzig, the little girl from Berlin had her family waiting for her. My father, after a while of being taken care of and eating good food, got better once again. He found a job in the cider factory in town. My mother helped her sister to harvest all of the fruit and vegetables they had on their property and they caned them. My mother’s sister had no children, so when my uncle, aunt, and later my father died, my mother inherited all of the houses and property. But she was very lonely, so she sold all of it and moved back to the little Erzgebirgs town, stollberg, where many of her relatives lived. First, one of her brothers took her in, and then she had a tiny little apartment of her own. When we were financially able, we offered my mother to live with us in America, but she promised my father not to move to the states, and she did not.
Mama Schultz by this time, was so fragile that she could no longer make such a long flight.
When Eyk was working for the Marshall Plan, he befriended many of the ship officers he was working with. He was invited to eat on board many times, which helped me with our food stamps. Since these officers could not go to German restaurants, and could only go to U.S. officer clubs, they were very bored. So we invited them to ours and our friend’s houses in Bremen. Or when a ship was in port over the weekend, we would drive to Hamburg, where they could go to any restaurant or party. We had friends from
Eyk’s time in Hamburg, and divers who helped us to show the Americans a good time.
The currency at this time was not money, but cigarettes. Our American friends could get those at the PX in Bremen. For ten cartons of cigarettes, we could all have a great weekend in Hamburg.
The parties mostly winded up leading to the Reberbahn, a cheaper version of Las
Vegas. Many foreign sailors lost all of their money there. Our American Friends liked to go and party there also.
By 1949, Eyk’s divorce became final, and that December, we married. Our wedding was very crazy. First, the car we were to use, had a flat tire, which made us late to our own wedding. Then, I broke the heel of my shoe. And last but not least, Eyk listed the order of his names wrong, so he had to scratch it out and correct the order. Because of that, there was no place for me to sign on the same line, so I had to sign on the second line. But the wedding party in our house in Bierden, was great, and the marriage turned out ok also.
Because of Eyk’s position, we got lots of expensive gifts. The most unusual one was two sets of minks, which a friend from Eyk’s time in the Baltics gave to us. We got six minks. Since each male has two females, one trio was two brown females, and one male Corinor, it was a white mink with a black line all the way down to its tail. The other set was two normal brown females, and one silver or gray male. When you pair them, you can make several mutations. They only mate once a year, and it is a lot of work, and I raised them until we had 72 of them. When a female is disturbed when she had her babies, she gets so upset that you have to worry that she will eat one or two of them.
Which means you’ve had a mink for a whole year, for nothing. A full-length mink coat requires 100 to 120 furs, and they all have to be the same hue of color, so they’ll match.
Georg, or Gogo that’s how we called him, Eyk’s son, and his mother, lived in
Nurnburg, although he did spend many of his school vacations with us. Bierden, the village where our house was, was a great place for kids to play. For me, it was my favorite location to live after the war in Germany.
In North Germany, animals and humans on a ranch, lived under one roof, which was made of straw, brick, and wood masonry. At night, you could hear the cow’s moo, and all of the other animals talk to each other. The farmer who leased the fields lived in the old bunkhouse. Fresh milk, eggs, cheese, and bread from the farm was great. There was a park that was owned by the estate, which was always kept up and groomed beautifully. It had a sandy floor with mostly pine trees. And when it was fall, and I didn’t know what to cook for dinner, I would go for 20 or 30 minutes in the park, and would have mushrooms fresh for my meal.
Slowly, times in Germany got better. No more food stamps, and merchants had goods to sell in their stores again. Border material for skirts for ladies became very fashionable. I made some of those as gifts for my friends, and they liked them so much that they asked me to make them also for their friends. So each time I would drive into the city of Bremen, to get meat from the slaughterhouse for my minks, I would go also to a store named Karstadt, almost like a Sears, and bought a lot of material to make the skirts.
One time when I bought a lot of material, the sales lady asked me what I was doing with it all. I told her that I was making skirts as gifts for my friends. I had one skirt in my bag, so I showed her. She asked me she could show it to the buyer of women’s clothes for the company. She left, and came back with him, and he asked if I would make some for the store, if he would provide the material. I told him that I would try. I walked out of that store with an order of 100 skirts. I worked day and night to make the deadline.
Our farmer’s wife helped me, and also suggested that I ask other farmer’s wives in the area to help me. So my little clothing factory was born. We later on, made cheap dresses.
I would deliver the clothes every week to the store, on my little 250 BMW Motorcycle.
Sometimes, I would walk through the streets of Bremen, and I would see all of my dresses either on one side or the other side, also walking on the street. It was a very funny feeling for me. Bremen After The War
It was not easy to settle in Bremen, there was a lot of red tape. The country was still living on food stamps, and we had to stay in line for things like bread and milk.
Sometimes in vain, because when it was our time to be served, the shop already had no more to sell. Through Eyk’s American connections, I got a job as a basketball coach for a
WAC women’s team. I was no longer under U.S. curfew at night, because of our evening practices. Through this connection, I also met an American lieutenant who used to be a diver in college. Our recreation facilities in Germany, after the war, were off limits to
Germans. But this lieutenant helped me get access to a swimming pool, so that I could train.
In the British sector, the Germans had access to all of the facilities. So diving practice in the British and French sectors were offered again, but not in the American sector. This lieutenant made available some facilities, so that we could have our first big diving meet in Bremen.
The Germans were so starved for entertainment that the tickets to this event were sold on the black market.
Eyk’s job in the harbor was sometimes quite funny. The German longshoremen found all kinds of ways to steal things, like food and cigarettes. The American guards were mostly bored and didn’t check very much. Ideas like taking the seat off of a bicycle, and filling the entire frame with coffee till it was full. They found out that pipes that connected the outside and inside of the port, and they were then used to smuggle larger items. One man put a suitcase behind his bike. It wobbled along the street through the gate, more than a hundred yards down. The guy had it tied to the bike, and could have let it go if he got caught. But the soldiers thought this was a very smart idea, so they laughed about it, and then let it go.
After Eyk proved himself to his superiors, he had a U.S. car with a German driver to take him to work. This man had lost his house during one of the bomb raids during the war. Knowing Eyk’s car was not checked, he smuggled enough cigarettes out of the port to rebuild his house. Eyk had no idea, that many times, he was sitting on cartons of cigarettes, and that the doors were used to stack cigarettes in.
Later on, when his house was rebuilt, the man told Eyk about it. He was flabbergasted. During these first years after the war, cigarettes became more valuable than money.
When the Marshall Plan was started, Eyk was offered a job as a liaison between the Americans and the German government. He got a fancy office in the middle of town, another car, and lots of money, which required staff. His job helped him meet the emerging businessmen in the city. Some of them became very good friends of ours.
To stabilize the economy in Germany, there was a day where every German had the same amount of money, 37 Marks and 50 cents. It didn’t matter if you were very rich or very poor. If you were working, at your next paycheck, you would be paid your salary in the new currency. All bank accounts were only half the worth of what they were before they closed them up. I think there were two more times that the German bank accounts were upgraded, so that you wouldn’t lose as much money. Mama Schultz and Us
Going back several years, in 1943 in Riga. Papa Schultz was a representative for
Schenker & Co. for the Baltic States. He was only 62 years old when he died there. His friend Mr. Dressler, who was the boss of Haback Lloyd, in Riga, had moved back to
Bremen, and also died shortly thereafter.
Ike moved his mother to Stettin, where she lived until after the war. When the
Russians moved into the city, there came a lot of problems with them. Mama Schultz, because of her knowledge of the Russian language, was able to save a lot of young girls from being raped. She told the soldiers, that there are many women who would go with them for cigarettes and vodka, or she would ask them, “What would you do if that girl was your sister or mother?” They mostly only cussed, but left the girls alone.
Over the years, Mama Schultz and Mrs. Dressler became good friends. When
Mrs. Dressler was 65 years old, she could travel to East Germany, and she offered that she could bring Mama Schultz from there to us. These two ladies crossed the border with very little problems, and we were happy when we could take Mama Schultz in our arms.
Shortly after, Mrs. Dressler moved to Sweden to remarry. Mama stayed in our house until we immigrated to the states.
She was a wonderful person, and she and I became very fond of each other. She taught me how to run an efficient household, how to cook many Russian dishes, and most of all she taught me how to be a lady. After the War (Leaving with Eyk)
By the end of the summer the mail was functioning again, and I received a letter from Eyk telling me about his life in Bremen. He told me about his goal to come to my family and take me to Bremen. This all happened on my birthday in October. My mother was really sad, but my father never really forgave Eyk for taking me away.
There was only one way for us to get out of Czechoslovakia that was to hitchhike.
So we stood for about an hour on the highway, with all of my belongings, until a big
American truck stopped and asked where we wanted to go. They agreed to take us to the border. Eyk had to ride in the back of the truck, and I was asked to sit between two big black soldiers. I was pretty afraid of what was going to happen at the border. By that time, the Czechs had started to patrol the border again.
When we were twenty yards away from the border patrol, one of the soldiers told me to “Dive!” He pushed me under the seat as they crashed through the gate at the border crossing. I could not believe it. They then brought us to the house of one of my diving competitors who lived close to Nuremburg. We stayed there until we found transportation to Bremen. Mostly in open coal-carts. When we finally got to our destination, we looked like chimneysweepers. After Marshall Plan and to America
After the Marshall Plan winded down, it was time for Eyk to find another position. He heard the superintendent of the fishing port of Bremerhaven was to retire. He applied for the job, and was hired. First, he went on his own, and only came home over the weekends. With the job, came a nice house near the fishing port. After half a year, we had to move to Bremerhaven, sad to say. We all missed Bierden.
I tried to move my clothing business also to Bremerhaven. We had successfully started to produce more expensive clothes. Sears was willing to help me ship my dresses to them via Sears Bremerhaven. Half a year had passed, and the herring cutters brought their rotten catch to the fishmeal factories. The whole city smelled like fish, so did my dresses. There was nothing else to do but to close up the production.
Eyk mad two trips with the fish cutters to see their operations. He did not really like what he saw at sea. The job was very tough. The men fished all day, then tied up the steering wheel at night, so that the ship would just drift. Being on the big ships before,
Eyk knew the staff on the bigger ships couldn’t see the small fishing boats, and would drive right over them. The cutter captains often owned their own boats, and just wanted to make money. And they made plenty of it.
The only thing I liked about Eyk’s job there, was the excellent and ever-fresh sea food. In general, the German economy got better. Germany, and also Japan, were allowed to build ships again, but most of them were built for reparations to other countries that thought Germany and Japan owed them something. Sea Captains, without Nazi affiliation, were in large demand. Eyk didn’t really like his fishing port job, and agreed to go back to sea. Since he had not sailed for a while, he started with a smaller ship going only to European ports, but was offered to become a warft captain. As a warft captain, he would bring new ships from Germany or Japan, to the countries that had received them as reparations or those countries who had bought them. I was allowed to go coastwise with him, like from the
Suez Canal to some European ports. And once a year I could go with him on a large trip, when it didn’t interfere with my job at the school. I loved those trips.
On one of those maiden voyages, we got stuck all of January in Stavanger,
Norway. The officers on the ship were Germans, but the ship crew was Indonesian.
Never in their whole life, had they seen snow, and their skin didn’t look brown anymore, but gray, because they were freezing so much, and couldn’t do any work. An icebreaker did try to get us out of the the stavanger fuord, but with a crew that couldn’t do anything, it was impossible.
Eyk did like to be on passenger boats, so when he had the opportunity to get a cruise ship as captain, he took the chance. I didn’t care for that very much, because it would keep him away from home for 9 months out of the year. So I kept teaching school and waited for the 3 months he was home.
The trips Eyk made with the cruise line, was 6 month Miami to the Caribbean, and another 6 months from Washington D.C. to the Caribbean. He met many nice
Americans on board, they were his passengers, and many of them are still our friends. On one of those trips to Miami, he bumped into an old friend of ours from one of our party trips to Hamburg. The mans name was Dick Langley. He asked Eyk what he was doing in
Miami, and Eyk pointed to his ship and said, “I’m the captain of this ship.” Dick pointed at a Waterman Line Freighter, and said, “I’m chief engineer of that one.” He asked,
“Where is Kuni?” Eyk responded, “Teaching school in Bremerhaven.” Dick couldn’t believe it, and told Eyk that he would sponsor me to come to the states.
That is what happened, Eyk came into Bremerhaven on vacation, and after lots of soul searching, we decided we would try to make it in the states. We promised each other we would always have enough money in the bank to come back to Germany, but we never had to do that.
Friends of ours who lost their farm in the Baltics, got money from the German government to rebuild. They opened a senior citizens home in Germany, and mama agreed to move there, and the people took all of our furniture, so that mama Schultz could live in familiar surroundings. There was no exchange of money, and mama could live there for two years without paying in exchange for the furniture.
We had two dogs, sky terriers, and they accompanied mamas Schultz to her new surroundings on the North Sea, and she was very grateful to have them. The dogs had babies there, and the money earned from the sale of the puppies was enough to pay for their flight to the states. When we picked them up at the airport in New Orleans and called their names, “Effi and Pitty”, they remembered us. It was heartwarming.
Moving to the States (New York, New Orleans, move to Houston)
By February 1956, we had our immigration papers, and booked, on the “Seven
Seas”, a passenger ship from Bremerhaven over Montreal to Newark, New Jersey.
Newark was a terrible port. There were rodents running over the pier, which I had never seen. We waited, with fourteen pieces of luggage, for our friends to pick us up. I was ready to take the next ship back to Germany.
I thought about the pier in Bremerhaven, it was beautiful, and I got a send off from all of the high school students I taught. So it was a shock when we arrived, my first impression of the states. Our friends lived in Yonkers, upstate New York. When we drove up the Westside Highway, I thought I would never manage to drive a car in New
York. We stayed in our friends’ house for about a month, then had our own apartment.
Eyk really didn’t want me to be alone in a foreign country, so he found a job at a company that bought and sold sea-fairing vessels. So he started to work in New York
City at his first land job. Six days into our American life, I was able to find a job as an alteration fitter, for an upscale boutique in upstate New York.
Longing for some physical activity, I joined the women’s athletic club in New
York, started working out, and signed up for a diving class. The instructor noticed right away, that I didn’t belong in that class. Her name was Hasel Baar, and she was a professional diver in the New York Aquashow. One day, she asked me if I was interested in diving in the show, and take her place. She introduced me to the boss of the show, I tried out, and then started my professional diving career.
It was a strange feeling when I received my fist paycheck, because I liked to dive, and didn’t feel like I should have been paid for it. My second paycheck didn’t feel so funny anymore. And by the time my third paycheck came around, I was already waiting for it with anticipation.
In September, when the diving season was over, I was looking for a place to work out that was closer to home, then the Fourteenth Street Athletic Club. I went to the
Yonkers YWCA to join, and came out being hired as a physical instructor. I liked the job, and had a good time.
Eyk was offered a captain position with United Fruit. The money was good, and he would be in New York every two weeks. So he took the position. Through my time with the Aquashow, I met many artists who preformed during the winter in show in New
York City. We were offered invitations quite often to all of these shows, which I liked.
We also were invited to dinner and parties after the performances by the artists, which I didn’t like.
Once in a while, Eyk would say, “I wish I could stay home.” I think 34 years at sea had taken a toll on him. One day, I saw an add in a shipping newspaper for a port captain for a gulf port. They required the applicant to speak French and preferably one other foreign language. I looked at that add for several days, and then asked my boss at the YWCA, to help me compose a letter to send to New Orleans.
Eyk was at sea, but came home just in time to open the letter where he was offered to interview for the port captain position in New Orleans. He came back from
New Orleans with a job offer for a six-month trial period. He was hired, and I went to my boss at the YWCA, and told her that I had to resign. She told me that she should have never helped me with the letter for Eyk. Eyk liked his new position very much. Many of our ship officer friends, from the
Marshall plan times in Germany, came to New Orleans. Times had changed, and so did the parties. Everything was much more sophisticated. When we moved to New Orleans, I started working as the physical education director at the YWCA there.
During that summer, I taught swimming in private pools. And later, I had my own swimming and diving teams. The second summer, I almost had a little sports group. I taught all of the synchronized swimming, children’s gym classes, and lady’s exercise classes. I was also hired to do a monthly aquashow, mostly synchronized swimming, at a pool at the Royal Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter. This show was actually broadcasted on TV, and was called “The Second Cup”. All of this was a lot of work, but I liked it. On top of all of this hard work, I was pregnant with Sven.
Sven was born in October 1960. I stayed home for three months, and then I started teaching in an all boys catholic junior high school that January. I had this job until we moved to Houston.
We became U.S. citizens when Eyk couldn’t get a government job he was offered because he wasn’t an American. We had been in the country for more than five years. We had our green cards, but Eyk couldn’t move up into a higher position. We had good friends in New Orleans, a Jewish doctor, whose children I taught swimming and diving.
Their names were Dr. and Mrs. Joe Schenthal, and they actually sponsored us. I had taught their children for many years. Their oldest boy received a scholarship in diving at the University of Michigan, and was chosen to be the American representative for the
World Student Games, which he won. Extra U.S. Material
We imported two babysitters from Germany for the first two years of Sven’s life.
The first was a beautiful girl with childcare education from Berlin. We helped her to become an airline stewardess with PanAm later. The second one actually was a friend from Hamburg. She married another friend of ours from the states. They are still married and live close to the Canadian border.
Sven was baptized in a little church close to New Orleans. His godmother was
Vera Schmitt, a good friend of mine from the exercise class in New Orleans. The godfather was our friend Dick Langley, our friend that sponsored me to come into the country. He also is one of the inventors of the shipping containers. On one of the rough trips from Europe to the U.S.A., his ship lost all of its deck cargo. Two engineers, he and the second engineer of the ship, scribbled on a napkin the concept for a container that could be easily fastened on board. I think this idea was the beginning of the containers that are now used everyday all over the world. He became a very wealthy man, because of that patent. Houston (YMCA)
In the fall of 1963, Ike became port captain in Houston. I started teaching at the
University of Houston for two semesters, and then started working for the YMCA as an aquatic instructor at the Northwest YMCA, and then added a position at the Dad’s Club, which was just put under supervision of the YMCA. It had two pools. The organization grew fast, and staff was needed. I moved from part time instructor, to women’s director, to physical director, to executive. I was one of only five female executives in the country at that time.
I held this position for 25 years. Our Dad’s Club YMCA, grew from a budget of
$45,000 to over $1,000,000 when I left. We added another larger outdoor 50 meter pool, and a full gymnasium, with a fitness center. With these additions, we became the second largest YMCA in the city. We changed the name from our health club to fitness center, because other health clubs in the city were ready to sue us, because we were a non-profit organization making competition for other tax-paying clubs. It worked! We also became the aquatic organization in the Westside of Houston. At times, there were as many as ten pools, including neighborhood pools, under our Y’s supervision.
And with the reputation as one of the best age group swimming teams in the country, we were so well known that the people, who moved into the city, picked our area to live so that their children could swim and dive on our teams. Many of the best coach’s in the country, started at the Dad’s Club. Such as Richard Quick, the Olympic coach who became very successful. Also, Skip Kenny, a later Stanford University men’s swim coach, was with our organization. Our day camp program also became very successful, because it was run like a college program. The child could sign up for whatever classes they wanted to take, as long as they were signing up for every hour they were on the facilities. Kuni Eyk in Houston until 1990
It looks like when we moved to Houston, the Schultz family settled down in their jobs. The port of Houston grew and so grew Eyk’s responsibility, but he liked his job and actually worked longer then his age of 65. I also liked my YMCA work, because we started children as beginners in anything we offered, and took them to the top of their capabilities of whatever they wanted to do. Most important, it gave me the opportunity to work and still supervise the activities of our own child. I was lucky to be able to do this from the moment Sven was born.
First I stayed home with him for three months, then I started working at a Catholic
Junior High School in New Orleans City Park. I was able to bring him with me to school.
He grew up as a water baby. Many hours when I was coaching diving, he was sitting on my lap, which was boring for him. So he had no choice but to learn how to swim fast. He was four years young when he competed in his first diving meet. He tried many other sports, but always came back to diving. Finishing up with a diving scholarship at the
University of Houston.
Being so long involved in the sport of diving, I became a member of the National
Diving Committee, chaired the National Age Group Committee, ran many national and international meets, and led national team trips abroad. This was my volunteer work to give back to the sport for so many hours of enjoyment.
My YMCA work was my paid job. I especially liked to work with youth. Because of my European background, we offered many programs not know in the states before, like water baby classes for mother and children to learn together, youth soccer, where we had over 600 children in our first year involved, or gymnastics. We imported through my husbands connections gymnastic equipment from Germany. This equipment came from
Turnmeyer, a very well know gymnastics equipment company in Germany.
Our youth programs became models for a lot of the other YMCA’s. we were fortunate that our son could spend all of his after school hours at our YMCA. After homework, he had many opportunities to join any of the classed we offered.
Consequently, he became an all-around good athlete.
Eyk and I had no idea about how the U.S. school system worked, so we made many mistakes. In kindergarten, we enrolled Sven in a Lutheran school. First grade in public school was ok. But then we went to Europe and came back a week after the school year began. Not knowing that the racial component of that school had changed. Sven had a very rough time, so he and a friend of his, both changed schools in the middle of the school year.
Because of this experience, we enrolled Sven for junior high and high school in an all catholic school. Because of his diving success, he had scholarship offers from
University of Michigan, Hawaii, and Houston. Because he was only 17 at the start of college, we thought it was better for him to stay close to home for his schooling. So he signed with UH, where he made his bachelors degree. And after several more hours of schooling, he also obtained his masters degree. He is now a high school administrator for a school in the Clear Lake school system.
After we moved to Houston, our family finally settled down, we are living in the same house we’ve been living in since 1963.
Over the years, we literally became Hotel Schultz. Sometimes when I came home from work at night, there were strangers in our home. Eyk would pick up people who were promised housing and jobs in the U.S. and then were abandoned. Some stayed for months in our house. We helped them find jobs and many of them are still our friends.
My involvement in competitive sports also brought friends from all over the world into our home. There was always something going on, and we liked it.
After Eyk retired in 1975, he was helping me raise funds for the Dad’s club
YMCA. It was also the time where we took many international trips with diving, two of which were to Russia for the YMCA. He organized many of these trips, and was very good at it. It was a very exciting time for us.
After I retired in 1986, we continued to travel a lot. First to see places in the U.S. and South America, but as we grew older, our interests changed from seeing places to seeing friends and family, mostly in Europe.
Over the years, we were not spared from illnesses. Eyk dealt with diabetes, high blood pressure, and a hip replacement. I was diagnosed with cancer, and later had chronic diarrhea because of the cancer treatment. Two people, two personalities. Eyk was laid back and accepted his fate. Kuni, a fighter, and willing to do anything to survive. Eyk and Kuni after 1990
7/21/1990. One of our last family gatherings was Sven’s wedding to Monika
Ehlers. Monika looked stunning in her wedding gown and orchids from Wally Nakamoto, from his Hawaiian shop, in her hair. They also had beautiful orchid bouquets for Monika and her bridesmaids. It was one of our last family gatherings. All of the Schultz’s came over from Germany, and witnessed a traditional American wedding, mixed with some
European spice. For instance, to hide the bride for the groom to find. She was on the deck of a friends yacht. It was a very nice affair, to be remembered for a long time.
Winter 1993
Christmas 1993. It was Eyk and Kuni’s last Christmas together.
New Year’s Eve 1993. Eyk asked for us to dress up one more time, as we used to do. We had caviar and champagne like we had done many times before. Eyk must have sensed that this would be his last New Year’s Eve. It was the two of us together, like so many times before.
On February 17th 1994, after a nice meal together, Eyk was very content. I prepared his bed for the night, we kissed goodnight, and he seemed very happy. He would usually wake me up once or twice throughout the night, but he didn’t that night.
The next morning I wondered why he didn’t do so. As I looked to his bed, I knew what had happened.
When he retired, he received a ship’s clock from his employees. He liked that clock very much. The clock had stopped. At 2:45 AM that same night, and it was unable to be repaired. I’m sure that was the time that Eyk took his last breath. He died peacefully, and he will be missed forever.