Kuni Shultz Final Draft
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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.