My Grandfather’s Pearl Stickpin – 1918
Posted: November 1, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: Gabriele Höber, German navy mutiny 1918, German Revolution of 1918, Hoeber, Johannes Hoeber, Josephine Hober, Physiological Institute Kiel, Rudolf Hober, University of Kiel, Ursula Hober 2 CommentsRegular readers of this website may know that, for me, photographs, documents and objects are bridges across time. In this case, a picture and a pearl connect me to my family as it was nearly a century ago.
A German historian contacted me recently and asked for a photograph of my grandfather, Rudolf Höber, around 1915. That’s when Rudolf became Professor and Director of the Physiological Institute at the University of Kiel. I don’t have an individual portrait of him in 1915, but I found this great family portrait taken in February 1918.
The Höber Family, Kiel, Germany, February 1918. Rudolf Höber surrounded by, from left, Ursula, Josephine, Johannes, Gabriele.
The parents and their three children all look somewhat gloomy, but serious portraits were the fashion of the day. At the time the picture was taken, scientists came from as far away as Japan to study with Rudolf at the Physiological Institute, despite the fact that it was the middle of World War I. The sailor suit my father is wearing in the picture was typical for German school boys then and later. It was particularly appropriate in Kiel, which had a huge naval installation. A few months after this picture was taken, Johannes, 14, was on his way home from his Gymnasium when he witnessed the shooting that marked the mutiny of the German naval forces, starting the German Revolution of 1918.
When the photograph was cropped to pull out the portrait of Rudolf the historian had requested, I noticed something. In the center of the knot of Rudolf’s tie is a pearl stickpin.
Prof. Rudolf Höber, Kiel, February 1918.
When Rudolf died in 1952, the pearl stickpin passed to my father, Johannes. And when Johannes died in 1977 the pearl stickpin passed to me.
My grandfather’s pearl stickpin.
Although it is not particularly fashionable today, I still try to find occasion to wear the stickpin once in a while.
Wearing my grandfather’s pearl stickpin – 2016.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
Revolutionary Politician — Great-great Uncle Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim (1819-1880)
Posted: October 13, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: 1848, Abraham Geiger, Amalia Oppenheim Hoeber, Baden uprising, Bettina von Arnim, German Revolution, Gustav Struve, Heidelberg University, Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, Ludwig Bamberger, Schoenhauserallee Cemetery 4 Comments
Doctor of Law degree granted to Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim by the University of Heidelberg, March 20, 1839.
In the extensive archive of my family’s papers, I found the University of Heidelberg law degree bestowed on my great-great-grandmother’s brother, Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim. This was in 1839 and he was just 19. Although he taught law for a time, Heinrich was denied a position as a professor of law because he was Jewish. Later, however, his legal training enabled him to become a well-known journalist and commentator for liberal and left radical causes for nearly 40 years.
As a young man, Heinrich was a member of the intellectual and literary circle around Countess Bettina von Arnim in Berlin. Although he was short and had an odd voice and accent, he was known as a great conversationalist and a man of “uncommon wit” (Carl Schurz). His boyish appearance and sparkling talk made him a favorite with women. In the von Arnim salon he befriended some of the leading European thinkers and progressive political figures of the day. For a time he shared rooms with theologian Abraham Geiger, one of the prime founders of Reform Judaism, and he was good friends with the young Karl Marx.
In March 1848, Heinrich participated in the political uprising in Berlin in a failed attempt to wrest a more democratic form of government from King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. He addressed several of the mass demonstrations in the Tiergarten park in the Prussian capitol. Later in 1848, Heinrich fled to the southern Duchy of Baden where he continued his revolutionary activities with a left extremist wing led by Gustav Struve in Karlsruhe and Lörrach.
Declaration of the short-lived German Republic by Gustav Struve, Lörrach in the Duchy of Baden, September 21, 1848. Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim was was one of the leading voices in this failed attempt to establish a constitutional form of government.
In July 1849, the Baden revolution collapsed and Heinrich was driven into an 11-year exile in Switzerland, France, Belgium and England. He was unable to return to Germany until 1861. During his political exile, he continued to publish pro-democracy commentary, much of it in French.
Revue Germanique, Paris 1858, including articles by Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim
Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, “Letters on Modern German Historians,” Revue Germanique, Paris, 1858.
When he was finally able to return to Germany, Heinrich continued his liberal political writing. In 1879-80 he earned recognition for his articulate opposition to a sudden onslaught of antisemitism led by the prominent historian Heinrich von Treitschke. Oppenheim’s articles targeted the attacks as a political strategy of conservatives to discredit governmental reforms being pressed by liberal activists, many of whom were Jews.
Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim’s rebuke to the notorious antisemites Heinrich von Treitschke and Adolf Stöcker, Die Gegenwart, Berlin, January 1880.
On March 29, 1880, a few weeks after publishing his rebuke to the Berlin antisemites, Heinrich died of a chronic lung ailment . His funeral was attended by many representatives of the Berlin news corps as well as liberal political activists from all over Germany. Shortly thereafter, his colleagues published a long pamphlet collecting numerous speeches about him and the obituaries published in the many newspapers in Germany. The pamphlet contains the only known portrait of Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim.
Memorial brochure of obituaries and tributes by public figures dedicated to Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, Berlin, 1880.
The funeral for Heinrich took place in his home in Berlin and a long procession accompanied his casket to the Schönhauser Allee cemetery. In December of that year, the family arranged for the erection of a grave monument of pink granite. My family’s papers includes the original text of the gravestone inscription, written by the liberal political leader Ludwig Bamberger.
Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim’s grave inscription written by Ludwig Bamberger, 1880.
“In memory of Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, born Frankfurt a/M 20 July 1819, died Berlin 29 March 1880.
True and good of heart, strong and bright in spirit, always a ready fighter, always a helping friend, expert in learning and life, compassionate to the least of men, faithful to the greatest of men, willingly accepting and even more willingly giving all that a man can give, thus he worked for his country, thus he lived for others to his last breath, thus unforgettable, irreplaceable, he lives in the memory of his family and his friends.”
Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim’s grave (left), Schönhauserallee Cemetery, Berlin. The grave of his sister Amalia, my great-great grandmother, is on the right.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
The Photographic Art of Philadelphian Bill Rapp
Posted: September 27, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: Bill Rapp, Camden Ferry, Ditta Baron Hoeber, Frank Hoeber, Free Library of Philadelphia, Horticultural Hall, Michael Froio, Philadelphia street scenes, street photography 1 Comment
Bill Rapp, Philadelphia-to-Camden Ferry on its last day of operation, March 31, 1952. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
I first spotted one of Bill Rapp’s photographs among the antiques at the Fitler Square Fair in our old neighborhood in Philadelphia. This was around 1980. Bill’s wife Jean dealt in prints and old documents, and in her booth she had a beautiful image of the interior of the old Philadelphia-to-Camden Ferry. The price was a little more than I wanted to pay, by my artist wife Ditta encouraged me to buy it. Bill made his living as an advertising agent, not a photographer, but he had a wonderful eye and his printing was impeccable.
A portion of our collection of Bill Rapp originals that we acquired in the 1980s.
At the annual spring fairs over the next several years, Ditta and I acquired additional prints of Bill’s beautiful work. My particular interest was the rare slices of Philadelphia history that Bill had captured. Ditta, the photographer-artist, had a particular appreciation for the artistry of Bill’s work. By the time Bill died in 1989 we had accumulated a nice collection of his photographs. What happened next, however, was unexpected. About a year after Bill died there was a knock at our front door — it was Jean Rapp. She held tightly in her hands a sizable batch of photographic negatives bundled together with a rubber band. They were Bill’s. She said that because we had shown so much interest in Bill’s work over the years she wanted Ditta and me to have the negatives to print whatever copies we wanted for ourselves. When we finished with them, Jean asked that we donate them to the Free Library of Philadelphia. We gratefully accepted the negatives and the responsibility that went with them. Not long after this we learned that Jean, too, had passed away.
Bill Rapp, Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia. This building was a relic of the U.S. Centennial Exhibition in 1876. It was destroyed by Hurricane Hazel in 1957. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
In those days Ditta had a darkroom in our house for her own work. She hired a student to come in and make rough prints of the negatives so we would know what we had. The resulting proofs were fine, but we weren’t ready to part with the negatives because we lacked the resources then to print the images in the finished quality they deserved. Years passed with Bill’s negatives and the proof prints resting quietly in storage.
Bill Rapp, Ship Maintenance, Philadelphia, ca. 1950. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
In 2011, we decided it was finally time to deal properly with Bill’s legacy. In the meantime we had become friends with Mike Froio, a photographer and instructor at Drexel University. We arranged with Mike to clean and scan all of Bill’s negatives. Ditta selected more than a hundred of them to be printed in archival form. In 2012 and 2013 we donated two large albums of these prints to the Free Library of Philadelphia along with an indexed archive housing all of Bill’s original negatives. We also gave the Library a set of disks containing the scans of the negatives and photographs along with a digital inventory.
Bill Rapp, Street scene, 9th and Bainbridge Streets, Philadelphia, ca. 1950. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
Recently, the Free Library finished loading many of Bill’s images online; you can see them by clicking here (look for the live lambs that were once sold in the Italian market to be turned into Easter dinner). Curator Laura Stroffolino also posted a nice blog entry about the collection that you can read here. It is a privilege to participate in preserving the legacy of a fine artist whose work might otherwise have been lost.
Bill Rapp, O.U. Lunch (“Baked Beef Hash Rice and Carrots 35 cents”), Philadelphia, 1950s. Bill Rapp Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
Stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
A Story in Some Grains of Sand
Posted: July 6, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber | Tags: Baltic Sea, Delft vase, Elfriede Hoeber, Hoeber, Immigrant experience, Jacob Marx, Johannes Hoeber, Josephine Hober, kiel physiological institute, Rudolf Hober, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, University of Kiel Leave a comment
Old Delft vase acquired by Jacob Marx around 1870, Berlin.
When I went to my late sister Susanne’s Vermont home recently, I spotted this familiar old family vase. I placed it on a table on the sunny porch to photograph it. Then, with relatives watching, I turned the vase over and poured out — some ordinary sea sand.
Sand from the vase. Baltic Sea, Kiel 1914, Barnard, Vermont 2016
How did I know there would be sand in the vase? The answer is a story I heard from my father a long time ago.
My great-grandfather, Jacob Marx, was a banker and investor in Berlin in the mid-nineteenth century. He made some smart investments in the industrial boom before and after the Franco-Prussian War in the early 1870s. Some of his new wealth he invested in art, including several antique Delft vases.
Jakob Marx, 1835-1883
After Jacob died in 1883, the vases were owned by his widow, Marie, and when she died in 1913 they were inherited by my grandparents, Rudolf Höber and Josephine Marx Höber. At that time, Rudolf and Josephine lived on Hegewischstrasse in Kiel, a university city and naval harbor on the Baltic Sea.
Rudolf and Josephine Höber with their first child, Johannes, around December 1904 (ten years before they inherited the Delft vases).
Josephine displayed the vases atop a tall Schrank, an antique wardrobe cabinet in the family living room. Inconveniently, however, a streetcar line traversed the street in front of the residence, and every time a trolley went past the Delft vases shook and rattled. The noise annoyed Josephine, who also feared the old pieces would be shaken off the cabinet and break. To resolve the problem, she gave her ten-year-old son Johannes a metal pail and told him to go down to the shore of the Baltic, fill the bucket with sand and bring it home. Josephine then filled each Delft vase with sand. The extra weight kept them from rattling on top of the Schrank for the next 19 years.
In 1933, the Nazis forced Rudolf out of his position in Kiel and he and Josephine emigrated to Philadelphia. They took the vases with them — and the sand went along. Josephine died in 1941 and Rudolf in 1953 and then the vases — and the sand — were inherited by my parents, Johannes and Elfriede. They moved several times and at each move the vases were carefully packed and the sand with them.
Johannes died in Washington DC in 1977 and Elfriede in Oakland, California in 1999. When we divided up Elfriede’s possessions among her three children, my sister Sue expressed a desire to have the Delft vases. We wrapped them and transported them — and the sand — to the house in Barnard, Vermont, where she and her husband Lloyd worked and wrote in the summers for many years. And there they have remained until now. The next home for the Delft vases and the sand from the Baltic Sea remains to be seen.
Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph’s house in Barnard, Vermont, the last stop so far in the Delft vase’s journey.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
The Dark Humor of a Nuremberg Prosecutor — 1945
Posted: May 17, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: denazification, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, German Social Democrats, Immigrant experience, Johannes Hoeber, Letters from Nazi Germany, Nuremberg Prosecution, Robert M. W. Kempner Leave a commentRobert Kempner was my parents’ friend and, like them, a Social Democrat and activist against the Nazi Party before 1933. Like them, he fled Germany for America before World War II. At the end of the War the U.S. government recruited Kempner, a lawyer, to be one of the lead prosecutors at the International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg. The fact that he was bilingual made Kempner particularly effective in cross examining the Nazi leadership. He also was a witness against Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1960.
Robert M. W. Kempner when he was a prosecutor at the International War Crimes Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1946.
While my parents were able to escape Germany before the War, my mother’s mother and three brothers were trapped there for the duration. After the war, communications between Americans and German nationals continued to be restricted for many months. Desperate for news about her family, and unable to communicate through civilian channels, my mother wrote to Robert Kempner in Nuremberg asking him to find out if they were alright. As a prosecutor, he had access to the American military mail system, and wrote my parents an extraordinary postcard in response. The original is preserved in my family’s papers.
Postcard from Nuremberg Prosecutor Robert M. W. Kempner to Johannes and Elfriede Hoeber, December 26, 1945.
The first surprising thing is that Kempner used a Nazi-era card with an Adolf Hitler postage stamp. There is great irony in the inscription on the lower left: The Führer knows only war, work and care. We want to take whatever part [of that burden] off him that we can. By the time this postcard was written, the Führer’s cares were long over, since he had killed himself more than six months earlier when the Nazis were crushed by the Allies.
The trial of Major War Criminals had begun on November 20, 1945 and would continue until the end of the next year. There was evidently a Christmas recess in the proceedings, since Kempner writes that he was on a vacation trip (!) to places like Heidelberg and Mannheim where he and my parents had been associated in anti-Nazi activities years earlier. Note, by the way, that Kempner wrote in English, even though his and my parents’ first language was German. American military censors would probably not have allowed letters through if they were written in a language other than English.
Reverse of Postcard from Robert Kempner to Johannes and Elfriede Hoeber, December 26, 1945.
Kempner did not respond directly to my mother’s questions about her family (he probably wasn’t able to contact them) but he responded to reports of widespread starvation and freezing conditions in the war-devastated country. This was probably my mother’s biggest concern and Kempner wrote, “The Germ.[an] situation is not to [sic] bad, they need more fat and meat but they have enough bread and also enough coal for [heating] 1-2 rooms.” Overall, though, Kempner shows little sympathy for the suffering of the Germans, far too many of whom denied any involvement in the nation’s atrocities. Here is the full text of the postcard:
Dec 26Dear Elfriede and Jonny:It was very nice of Elfriede to write me. Thanks for the letter. At present I am travelling (5-6 days) for vacation, visiting Heidelberg, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt.The Germ. situation is not to[o] bad, they need more fat and meat but have enough bread and also coal for 1-2 rooms. Of course, they don’t like the de-nazification program. You know they all ‘had’ to join the Party, were helpful to Jews, if not having a Jewish grandmother, or at least participants of July 20, 1944, which was, if all the allegations of participation were true, a mass movement of the first rank. The Communist vote will be pretty low because of the happenings in the Russian area where fraternization without giving cigarettes is called rape. There are a lot of openings for Elfr. & Jonny but I think we better stay around Philadelphia Pa. Hope you will write me again.Yours,Robert MWK
“July 20, 1944” refers a failed attempt by eight military officers to assassinate Hitler. After the war, totally unrealistic numbers of German claimed to have supported it.
The comment about the Russians is unclear, but it was well known that the occupying Soviet Army committed massive rapes of German women, including elderly women and young girls.
Kempner’s comments about “lots of openings” refers to the fact that, as exiled Germans committed to democracy, my parents would have opportunities in a new government to be installed by the Allies — but Kempner didn’t recommend it. In any event, my parents never considered returning to the country from which they had been driven out.
It was an idiosyncrasy of Kempner’s that he addressed my father as “John” or “Jonny.” My father was adamant about not Anglicizing his name, which was Johannes. During his lifetime Robert Kempner was the only one with the temerity to address him as John.
Years later, Robert Kempner successfully sued the German government for restitution on behalf of hundreds — perhaps thousands — of victims of the Nazis, primarily in Israel and America. My parents were among the clients for whom he secured some compensation from the German authorities for the losses they had suffered.
More stories about the Hoeber family are to be found in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, published by the American Philosophical Society. Information is available here. Also available at Amazon.com
Review of “Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939” from CHOICE, A Publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries
Posted: May 2, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Against Time: Letters From Nazi Germany 1938-1939, American Philosophical Society, Destruction of Duesseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, Francis W. Hoeber, Hoeber, Immigrant experience, Immigration visa, Johannes Hoeber, Letters from Nazi Germany, Philadelphia reform movement, Susanne Hoeber, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 1 Comment
I am delighted that the following review appeared on May 1, 2016, in CHOICE, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
REVIEW
AGAINST TIME: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, by Francis W. Hoeber
Francis Hoeber possesses, apparently, decades’ worth of materials from his family’s history. However, he has chosen to publish only letters from 1938 and 1939, because they are truly exceptional in foregrounding human experience in the face of obliterating fascism. His father, Johannes, had emigrated from Germany in 1938, with the idea that Elfriede would follow with their young daughter. Complications arose. Eventually they united, lived in the US, and raised their family. That is a passive, objective summary. In contrast, these letters, written by two literate, gifted writers, construct a deeply experienced history entwined with significant world events. Genuine, emotional, human, rational—the letters exemplify precisely why published history needs such primary material. We can read or view synthesized historical accounts in textbooks or documentaries; we can summarize and categorize, intellectually. However, only by absorbing the personal narratives of people who recount the events they lived through can readers approximate the feelings, the vibrant presence, the individual acts that enliven historical experience. Through self-expressed microhistory, whether routine (running a business) or epochal (Kristallnacht), readers feel the macrohistory viscerally. Hoeber provides relevant context in footnotes and summaries to orient readers.
Summing up: Highly recommended.
–J. B. Wolford, University of Missouri—St. Louis
More information about Against Time is available by clicking here.
You can order the book directly from the publisher by clicking here.
Also available at Amazon.com
A Surprising Perspective on America — 1937
Posted: April 25, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Cape Cod, Chatham MA, Düsseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, Fiorello LaGuardia, Hoeber, Johannes Hoeber, Josephine Hober, Philadelphia, Rudolf Hoeber, university of pennsylvania 2 CommentsRudolf and Josephine Höber, my grandparents, fled Nazi Germany for Philadelphia already in 1933, but their son Johannes and his wife Elfriede were holding on in Düsseldorf in the belief that the Nazis couldn’t last. By 1937, my grandparents were desperate to have their children join them in America, so Rudolf and Josephine invited the young couple to come and visit them in America. It turned into a grand trip.
Steamship Europa in Cherbourg, France. Photo by Johannes Höber, May 1937 as he and Elfriede were leaving for a month in the US.
Elfriede kept a travel diary capturing her impressions of the country that would later become home to her and Johannes and their little girl, Susanne.
Elfriede Höber’s diary of the visit to America, May-June 1937. Click image to enlarge.
Page of Elfriede’s trip diary with Johannes’s photos. Click on image to enlarge.
Elfriede complained on every page about the “unbearable,” “insane” heat (Washington and Philadelphia before air conditioning) but otherwise she and Johannes found much to like in America. They were impressed by Washington, where many of the iconic government buildings along the Mall had recently been finished, and they liked the democratic feel of the place.
Elfriede: “We drove by the White House as though it were an ordinary residence. No guards to be seen. Unfortunately Mr. Roosevelt was not at home.”
In Philadelphia, the family attended the graduation of Johannes’s sister, Ursula, from the University of Pennsylvania medical school. They were impressed by the 1,500 graduates and the audience of 8,000 in Philadelphia’s Convention Hall, with Roosevelt’s Secretary of State Cordell Hull as commencement speaker.
Ursula Höber upon her graduation from medical school, University of Pennsylvania, June 9, 1937.
Elfriede loved Connecticut: “This is the way I always imagined New England to be, with hills and forests scattered with enchanting villages with white wooden houses and white churches on trim green lawns under high trees. The houses are mostly laid back from the street and not separated by fences. As a result the country seems so open and gains a wonderfully elegant and fresh appearance.” In Woodbury, Connecticut, they asked directions of a police officer. “This guy was like a sheriff in the movies, going around in short sleeves with a big tin badge, unshaven, and stormed off in the middle of our conversation and threw himself into his car to chase another car that had exceeded the Woodbury speed limit.” The family drove from Philadelphia to Cape Cod in two cars, a Ford and a DeSoto, where Elfriede declared the beaches to be the loveliest she had ever seen.
Höber family with their two cars at a lunch spot in Chatham, Massachusetts, June 1937.
Johannes and Elfriede traveled from Cape Cod (Fall River MA) back to New York by night boat! Elfriede: “Excellent cabin on the Commonwealth, a very old fashioned but very comfortable ship. Wonderful evening ride to Long Island Sound. Fantastic passage through the ocean of lights of the harbor of Newport. Night’s sleep interrupted by foghorns. Awoke at 6:15 in the East River. Reunion with the Empire State Building. Passage under the East River bridges that cross the river in great arches, all with two levels with eight lanes each. Generous good breakfast on board to prepare us for a day in New York.”
One of the steam boats of the Fall River Line that carried passengers between Cape Cod and New York until 1937.
Johannes and Elfriede spent their last America day in New York, where Johannes indulged himself three times in “America’s national drink” — an ice cream soda. Elfriede: “Lunch in an enormous restaurant. The ladies room has 60 toilets, 30 for free and 30 for 5 cents. The noise of the streets is mind shattering. The noise of the El is deafening, the subway hellish. The people in this city seem to have lost all sense of hearing.”
And a highlight of the whole trip, an hour before they boarded the ship to return to Europe, was to go by New York’s City Hall and catch sight of Fiorello LaGuardia, whose reputation as a dynamic, progressive mayor had reached even into the corners of Hitler’s Germany. “We were able to watch as LaGuardia stood next to his car for a few minutes talking with advisers. Because we were speaking German, a man appeared next to us out of nowhere, unmistakably a cop, and didn’t let us out of his sight until the mayor left.”
Fiorello H. LaGuardia, Mayor of New York.
Elfriede and Johannes returned to Düsseldorf in late June 1937, but the visit to his parents bore fruit. Six months later, Johannes and Elfriede began making their own plans to leave Germany and move to the United States. It would be nearly two more years, however, before the whole family could be reunited in Philadelphia.
Elfriede and Johannes Höber at home in Düsseldorf in 1938, a few months before Johannes left Germany permanently to live in the United States. Elfriede and Susanne followed him a year later.
The story of how Johannes and Elfriede eventually got out of Germany and into the United States is told in Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939. You can read more about that book here. Also available on Amazon.com.
