Gaby

By Joseph W. Michels

GABY tells the extraordinary story of a proud woman building a life across three continents. The adored only daughter of secular Jewish industrialists, she was born in 1936 Berlin at the height of the Nazi rise to power. Her family fled to relative poverty in British occupied Palestine. Gaby became a patriot for the nascent state of Israel, serving in the military during the 1956 Sinai campaign. But a fierce academic ambition drove her to California to pursue an education.

In America, Gaby found relative happiness as a mathematician, wife, and mother of two. She was a pioneer and talented innovator in the use of computers, and often brought that expertise into play while accompanying her widely traveled archaeologist husband. But like so many women of her time, she struggled to balance professional goals with family responsibilities. Though her talents were recognized in everything she undertook, Gaby herself never felt she fully realized her early promise and expectations.

This vivid life history traces a path through political disruption, personal ambition, painful loss, and family loyalty. It offers glimpses of the rich traditions of pre-War Germany and the Israeli pioneer spirit within a modern American life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491742105

Joseph W. Michels

JOSEPH W. MICHELS came to fiction writing after a long career as an archaeologist and cultural anthropologist. KAGNEW STATION: DATELINE 1956 is a sequel to the ALAN HARPER TRILOGY. The author became acquainted with Kagnew Station in 1974 while directing a large archaeological project in the region. The project’s headquarters was two blocks from the entrance to Kagnew Station and the project’s staff made extensive use of the base’s facilities.

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GABY

Copyright © 2014 Joseph W. Michels.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Credit for cover art photo:

Copyright © 1985 Joseph W. Michels

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-4209-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4210-5 (e)

iUniverse rev. date:   07/29/2014

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Preface

Berlin

Ramat-Gan, Israel 1938 - 1957

New York City 1957

A Foreign Student In America 1957 - 1958

Joe 1958 - 1959

Gaby’s Parents Arrive 1959

Planning A Life Together 1959

Marriage 1959

An Academic Journey And Motherhood 1960 - 1965

State College 1965 - 1968

Guatemala 1968

Del Mar/La Jolla 1968 - 1969

Back To Guatemala 1969

State College: Starting Over 1969 - 1973

Ethiopia 1974

Gaby’s Brush With The Past: From Israel To Berlin 1974

Disappointment And Change For Gaby As The Nest Empties 1975 - 1983

Life As A Dean’s Wife 1984 - 1988

Grandchildren And Gaby’s Restitution Claim 1989 - 1994

Edging Towards Retirement 1995 - 1996

Retirement 1997 - 2000

The Final Years 2001 - 2002

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

G aby’s daughter is to be thanked for encouraging the author to take on the task of writing this biographical memoir. She had persuasively argued that the grandchildren would come to appreciate a more complete portrait of the woman they only knew as young children. It was also her hope that the creation of a written narrative might offer fresh insight into the life of a woman she both admired and loved. Whether that was achieved only she can judge. In any case, the author gratefully acknowledges her unflagging enthusiasm and support all during the writing.

Also by Joseph W. Michels

OUTBOUND FROM VIRGINIA

[An historical novel]

BICYCLE DREAMS

[An historical novel]

DECK PASSAGE

[A memoir]

CHURCH

[A William Church novel]

THE KINGSTONE RANSOM

[A William Church novel]

FRENCH DIAMONDS

[A William Church novel]

VILLA MARCKWALD

[A romance novel]

POSTSTRASSE 16

[A suspense thriller]

For The Grandchildren

PREFACE

O nly seldom does a person pass through the world who triggers a need in those surviving for a full and enduring portrait. Gaby is one. It has been twelve years since her death and the absence of such a portrait has become achingly apparent to those who knew and loved her. Part biography, part memoir, the portrait that follows will acquaint you with a woman of very special merit.

Gaby was not a celebrity nor someone who cultivated a public image. She was a very private person; accordingly, the author had to rely almost entirely upon personal memories—memories of the woman herself, as well as memories of the accounts of her early life that she shared with those who knew her. Helpfully, a diligent scrapbooking effort over four decades served as a useful documentary resource…still the portrait drawn will possibly contain inaccuracies, mistaken impressions, imperfect timelines, or other errors of recall seemingly inevitable when such a long time has passed. However, the author is confident the essential spirit and character of the person shines through.

In the hope of evoking actual circumstances only known secondhand, or through the lens of distant memories, the account presented in the following pages has been given a narrative structure, much like that found in a novel, often with fictionalized imagery and dialog.

BERLIN

G ABY always knew it was her mother’s family line she’d identify with; her mother and her aunt made sure of it. It wasn’t as if her father’s family was of negligible consequence, indeed her parents’ marriage was arranged—a straightforward business arrangement between the two families—but the story her mother and aunt told was simply too compelling.

The story begins in 1833 when a Jewish family, grown wealthy in the woolen industry of West Prussia (now a part of Poland) moves to Berlin and takes up residence in the Ephraim Palais, a gorgeous rococo mansion of fifty-plus rooms built in 1766 and located in the Nikolai District.

In 1841, eight years after the family had moved to the Ephraim Palais, their oldest child, a girl named Rosalie, now sixteen, caught the attention of a young man living on the same street less than two blocks away, a man who only recently had arrived from West Prussia. As it turned out, he was also a member of a family made wealthy through the woolen industry. For five years, the young man courted the girl, finally securing her hand in marriage in 1846. Most likely, the wedding took place in the grand ballroom of the Ephraim Palais, an elliptically shaped room located on the floor immediately above street level embellished with elaborate rococo decorative treatments, and opening out onto a beautiful baroque balcony through stately French doors.

By the time of the marriage, the young bride had eight siblings. Three more would arrive in the next few years, guaranteeing the Ephraim Palais would continue to be filled with youthful activity throughout the family’s residency there. In the later years of residency the family also leased a villa in the town of Charlottenburg, which was then a fashionable recreational retreat west of Berlin. Like other wealthy families, Gaby’s ancestors would spend part of the summer there, returning to the bustling city of Berlin at the end of the holiday season.

In 1843 the State of Brandenburg purchased the Ephraim Palais in anticipation of major construction connected to the redirection of a dam across the nearby Spree River. However, the family was not obliged to move out for another ten years as the construction work kept being put off. But finally, in 1853, circumstances compelled the family to seek accommodations elsewhere in the city.

*    *    *

Two years after the marriage, Rosalie gave birth to a son named Felix, one of three children she would eventually have. Owing to the death of his father while still a boy of eleven he grew up with the knowledge he’d be able to take control of the family’s wealth at an early age. While only in his twenties, a remarkably prescient Felix used his inherited wealth to establish a manufacturing enterprise specializing in the fabrication of knitted woolen apparel. He commissioned the building of a factory complex of considerable architectural significance that occupied almost a whole city block in the Berlin neighborhood of Fredrichshain. It was the 1870’s and Berlin had become the capital of the newly founded German Empire. Felix’s move was in keeping with the spirit of the robust growth in manufacturing that made the city a major economic center—one where the city’s growing population could enjoy a vibrant cultural life.

Felix frequented the concerts and other theatrical events of the day and in so doing became acquainted with a young dancer named Ida. A woman of considerably less social standing than that of his own family, Felix kept the relationship secret for some time. However, in 1877 he married Ida and over the next eleven years they had six children. Their eldest child was a son named Paul.

Paul grew up in considerable luxury in a large apartment on Prinzenstrasse in the Friedrichshain/Kreuzberg District of Berlin. Under the tutelage of his widowed grandmother, Rosalie, he acquired all the cultured elegance expected of members of Berlin’s prominent families. Although Jewish, the family gravitated to a more secular, non-observant form, more in keeping with the mixed society of industrialists and bankers to which they belonged.

In about 1903 Paul, now a young man in his mid-twenties, married well, and the couple moved to a spacious apartment on Knesebeck Strasse in the newly fashionable Charlottenburg District, now an integral part of the city. In 1905 their first child was born—a daughter named Edith. Three years later, a second daughter, Ilse, was born. Glimpses of their childhood have been preserved thanks to the growing popularity of still photography. Perhaps the most memorable images are of their nursery, with its lavish display of toys, the oversized doll house furnished as if it were a mansion, and the formality of apparel in which the two girls were dressed.

Paul took over active management of the factory upon his father’s death in 1919. By that time Edith was 14 and Ilse 11. One year later, a third child, a boy named Felix, was born. Paul was said to be an imposing figure as a mature man—tall and stately, always dressed formally and invariably seen around town chauffeured in the latest model car. The factory continued to prosper, with a wide-ranging salesforce marketing products throughout Germany and beyond.

*    *    *

At some point, Paul acquired a minority partner—a man named Carl. Anxious to solidify the factory’s ownership in a single household, one that represented the interests of both the majority and minority partners, Carl persuaded his nephew, Hans, to court Paul’s younger daughter, Ilse. Both families were supportive of the proposed merger, and Ilse succumbed both to the pressures of her family and to the charms of the young man. It was 1928 and Berlin was in the heyday of the Weimar Republic, a period of cultural renaissance with breathtaking developments in theatre, art, cabaret, music and architecture, together with what was widely regarded as American influences in personal dress and behavior.

But in one area of culture—the wedding—no deviation from tradition would be tolerated. The families insisted on the very best of arrangements, and that of course meant the wedding must take place at one or the other of the two best hotels in Berlin—either the Kempinski or the Adlon. Both were located close to the Brandenburg Gate in the Mitte District of the city. The Kempinski was favored, and it was there, on October 27, 1928, that Ilse and Hans were married. It was a lavish affair by all accounts, with what appeared to be a large and distinguished guest list based upon the collection of presentation and gift cards preserved over the years by the family.

Hans was given a position at the knitted woolen factory, joining his father-in-law in the shared management of the operation. The young couple leased an apartment on Roscherstrasse in the Charlottenburg District and began a carefree life engaged in the many diversions available to an affluent and active young couple in the greater Berlin area. They included summer outings for power boat racing, swimming, hiking, amateur photography, and restaurant dining. Winter sports included ice skating and skiing. Many of these activities—both in summer and winter—took place in Saarow-Pieskow, then one of the preferred resorts for Jewish artists, film stars and others active in Berlin’s cultural scene. Located about 70 km southeast of Berlin, it was easily accessible by rail and featured a pensione favored by Ilse, Hans, and Hans’ close friend, Werner.

*    *    *

On the fifth of November, 1930, Ilse gave birth to a son named Wolfgang. The 1930’s was a tumultuous decade for Germany. Crippled by debt arising out of the debacle of World War I, the nation faced even greater disruption following the effects of the American stock market crash. The population became receptive to the blandishments of the Nazi Party. And by 1930 the impact of Nazism on Berlin—the nation’s capital—reached a fevered pitch as the party sought representation in the parliament. There were torchlight parades, propaganda posters and what seemed like an almost uncountable number of Nazi newspapers in circulation. Anti-Semitism had always been present in the city but in 1930 Goebbels, exploiting the killing of an SA storm-trooper, launched a particularly aggressive campaign against the city’s Jews.

It was not a good time to be raising Jewish children, however secular in outlook, which might explain the couple’s seeming reluctance to bear a second child, at least during the next five years. With Hitler’s ascendency to the Reich Chancellorship in 1933 anti-Semitism became even more pervasive. The couple found themselves spending more and more time in Saarow-Pieskow, hoping to avoid the unpleasantness while securing for their son, Wolfgang, a healthy outdoor setting where he could play.

*    *    *

The year 1936 was particularly eventful for the family, and in many ways serves as a useful starting point for considering the couple’s efforts at securing some means of escape from a country now subject to the Nuremberg Laws—laws that stripped Jews of citizenship and ushered in relentless persecution. On January 28 of that year Gaby was born. Now, with two young children in the family, the urgency of the situation was evident, but unfortunately not to all. Despite the couple’s entreaties, Ilse’s father, Paul, the patriarch of the extended family, refused to give his blessing for the young couple and their two children to emigrate. His resolve apparently didn’t weaken even when, on April 21st of that year, Paul and his partner, Carl, were forced to relinquish ownership and control of the factory as part of the Aryanization policy instituted by the Nazis back in 1933. There was a nominal sale to an employee, a man who worked in marketing and sales, but if any of the purported sales price was actually paid to Paul and Carl there is no record of it. Then on the 16th of October of that year Paul died, and the young couple finally was able to begin making serious inquiries into possible destinations.

Ilse’s sister, Edith, and her husband managed to secure sponsorship for immigration to the United States through the efforts of Edith’s husband’s family. But neither Ilse nor her husband Hans had any such connections and were unable to pursue that option.

Earlier, perhaps in the latter part of 1935, Hans and his good friend, Werner, had traveled to Palestine to scout possible opportunities there should the family become desperate enough to give it serious consideration as a place of exile. They traveled widely, visiting towns on the coast, along with Jerusalem, settlements on the Sea of Galilee, various oasis communities of the interior as well as rural kibbutzim. As they went, Werner faithfully documented what they saw using a motion picture camera and black & white 35mm celluloid film. Ilse cried uncontrollably once she was shown the footage upon their return—footage filled with camels and donkeys, dusty huts, medieval walled towns, unpaved streets, Arabs in traditional garb, and open-air marketplaces that appeared—to her at least—as places of disorder and confusion.

Almost six thousand Jews had left Berlin in 1937, and by the end of that year only some 140,000 Jews were left in the city. Possible destinations were filling up, leaving fewer and fewer options for Ilse and Hans and their two children. Another, rather frightening, event put additional pressure upon them: a violent encounter between their close friend, Werner, and the Gestapo. Werner was accosted by two agents of the Gestapo on the street one evening. He fought with them, possibly losing vision in one eye in the process, but successfully evaded arrest and made good his escape. Still, the incident meant Werner and any close associates would—should their identities be discovered—now receive unwelcome attention from the authorities. Werner pressed Ilse and Hans to reconcile themselves to the prospect of a move to Palestine. Ilse eventually agreed, but only after the death of her mother on March 10th of that year. The following months were spent securing all the necessary papers, arranging for the packing of a large wooden shipping container with whatever they thought they would need, and saying goodbye to friends and relatives.

Despite emotional appeals by Ilse, she couldn’t manage to persuade her seventeen year old brother, Felix, to join them. Felix had a girlfriend and didn’t want to lose her. He argued he’d be able to evade notice by the authorities and could fend for himself. Tragically, on November 5th, 1942, Felix was put to death in the Auschwitz extermination camp. He’d somehow managed to survive in the city during four years of deprivation and hardship but once the Final Solution was ordered he missed being among the first shipment of Berlin Jews by no more than three months.

*    *    *

Finally, the day arrived. The year was 1938. Ilse, Hans, Werner, and the two young children stood on the boarding platform at Berlin’s main railway station awaiting their turn to board a train to Rotterdam. Suddenly, word past through the throng of people waiting for the train that the Nazis were to conduct one final inspection of travelers—a personal inspection involving clothing as well as suitcases and hand luggage. Painstaking care had been taken to ensure no proscribed items were included among the belongings packed in the family’s shipping container. The container had passed inspection and was already on its way to Rotterdam. But Ilse hadn’t the heart to surrender her and her deceased mother’s jewelry, and on the day of departure had concealed all the precious items in various parts of her clothing. Should this final inspection reveal her serious infraction the consequences, she knew, would be far more severe than merely having the jewelry confiscated. Despondently, she retrieved the various pieces of jewelry from their places of concealment and stood ready to discard them when quite spontaneously a woman slipped out of the crowd and approached her.

Give the jewelry to me, she said, and I’ll make sure it gets to Rotterdam for you.

Ilse looked at the woman suspiciously then glanced at her husband and at Werner. They shrugged their shoulders as if to say You’ll lose all of it in any case, what does it matter.

The woman explained she was there to see a friend off and could travel unmolested since she was not Jewish. After Ilse, with considerable sadness, handed her the jewelry, the woman wrote down an address in Rotterdam. Come to this address a few days from now. Your jewelry will be there.

Ilse was heartbroken as she watched the woman disappear into the crowd, the tiny cloth satchel containing all her jewelry gripped tightly in the woman’s hand.

*    *    *

Reluctant to confront the suspected loss of her jewelry, Ilse postponed her visit to the address the woman had given her until shortly before the ship taking them to Palestine was scheduled to depart. Finally, in the company of Hans, Werner and the two children, she undertook the trip, arriving at a private home in a residential district of Rotterdam where her knock on the door was answered by a woman who, after being assured Ilse was truly the intended recipient, handed her the tiny cloth satchel. Ilse thanked her profusely, then rushed away, intent on finding some place private where she and her companions could inspect the satchel’s contents. They couldn’t believe it, everything was there!

*    *    *

The ship taking them to Palestine finally left port; the five of them heading for a new life in an unfamiliar land: Hans was now 36; Werner, about the same age; Ilse was now 30; Wolfgang was eight, and little Gaby, two. Recovery of the jewelry was a particular blessing since it represented their nest egg—things that could be converted into ready cash should an emergency befall them. And in the wooden shipping container, now stored securely in the hold of the vessel, was everything they still owned. Werner had become an integral part of the family by this time, and had contributed a number of items from his bachelor apartment: paintings, crystal, silver trophies, and most importantly a wide assortment of mechanic’s tools he’d collected as a result of his participation in racing sports involving motorcycles, cars and powerboats. Ilse and Hans had filled the container with items from her wedding trousseau—delicate linens, fine china, crystal, silver flatware, porcelain objets d’art, and countless other small items meant to ensure she could recreate a home suitable for the upbringing of two proper German children of distinguished pedigree regardless of the circumstances. Added to the container, of course, were also the many items integral to the domestic requirements of a household: bed linens, drying cloths, table linens, cooking and serving utensils, electrical appliances, clothing, outer garments, and a few treasured pieces of household furniture.

*    *    *

Perhaps the hardest thing for others to understand was how Jewish parents, persecuted for years then cruelly forced out of their homeland with barely a fraction of their worldly goods, could aspire to instill in their children a high regard for German identity and culture. But that’s precisely what so many displaced German Jews did. And Ilse and Hans, together with their close family friend, Werner, were no exception. Their most precious identity was not one of simply being German, but most importantly, of being Berliners! A Berlin Jew, in their mind, was someone the world recognized as being quite special. Such a Jew was secular in outlook, cultured, successful in his chosen profession, affluent, and possessed of a quick mind and an acerbic wit.

Thus Gaby, despite having to grow up among an impoverished, culturally diverse and traumatized population of Jews from throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, was carefully coached by her parents to treasure her identity as a Berlin Jew; carrying it proudly alongside her equally cherished identity as an Israeli.

RAMAT-GAN, ISRAEL

1938 - 1957

H ans, Ilse and Werner chose to settle in a small town about two miles from the center of Tel Aviv named Ramat-Gan, a community of some five thousand inhabitants noted for its tree-lined streets and public gardens. Early on, they secured a lease on a nondescript masonry building with living accommodations on the second floor, with office and garage space on the ground floor.

With loving care, Ilse furnished the living space with the contents of their single shipping container: paintings were hung on the walls, oriental carpets covered the cold concrete floors, bedsteads and armoires were placed in the two bedrooms, and a parlor was set up in the principal room—one that also served as Werner’s bedroom once the family retired for the night. Glass-fronted cabinets held the fine china, silver, and porcelain, together with Werner’s collection of expensively bound books. The generous assortment of table linens found a home in the deep drawers of a credenza. Sitting around the dinner table after a meal, sipping their coffee in exquisite Rosenthal china as they conversed in German, the three young Berlin Jews could look around the room and imagine themselves back in Germany. Whether they articulated it or not, one suspects the flat served as a microcosm of the city they had been forced to flee, a refuge from the rough undisciplined world of Palestine that surrounded them, and in which they were forced to make a life.

And of course, a critical task in that regard was to figure out some means of making a living. Hans had managerial experience from his work at the factory, Werner, on the other hand, had worked in the investment department of his father’s bank. Neither background seemed marketable in the rudimentary economic setting of 1938 Palestine; they needed to improvise.

The solution came from Hans and Werner’s familiarity with automobiles—having owned and operated them back in Berlin—and Werner’s expertise in auto mechanics arising from his involvement with the sport of motor racing. They purchased two used vehicles in need of repair and opened a taxi business called TAXI RAMAT-GAN. Using the collection of mechanic’s tools he so presciently included in the shipping container, Werner quickly repaired the two cars. He worked