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
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
Unlocking Nehru: The Rudolphs Innovate, 1963
Posted: January 21, 2016 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Delhi, Francis W. Hoeber, interview techniques, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lloyd I. Rudolph, New Delhi, political science of India, Prime Minister's Secretariat, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 4 Comments
Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, a few years before their interview with Jawaharlal Nehru in New Delhi.
My sister Susanne met her husband, Lloyd Rudolph, at Harvard and they embarked on a unique joint career as political scientists. They wrote and taught together, specializing in political development in the then newly-independent India. They were 32 and 35, respectively when they took their second research trip to India in 1962-63. On this occasion they settled in the capital, and shortly after their arrival asked with intrepid directness for an appointment to interview Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. They were pleased and somewhat amazed when their request was granted. The invitation, in an oversize parchment envelope and typed on impressive stationery, was hand delivered by a uniformed messenger in an elegant car to the Rudolphs’ house at 44 Lucknow Road. The interview was scheduled for Tuesday, February 13, 1963.
The house at 44 Lucknow Road, Delhi, where Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph lived at the time they interviewed Nehru.
Recognizing that this was a rare opportunity, Sue and Lloyd devised a singular scheme for making the most of their time with Nehru: they decided they would take no notes, so that neither he nor they would be distracted by their writing. Sue and Lloyd prepared for days. They read articles and newspapers and began drafting a set of questions for the Prime Minister. These they revised again and again to make them simple and direct, with the intention of being both respectful and provocative. When they were finally satisfied with the questions they had formulated — they memorized them. Their determination was to be with Nehru with no paper or writing instrument visible.
Prime Minister’s Secretariat Building, New Delhi, where Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph met Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, February 13, 1963.
On the appointed day, Sue and Lloyd drove their little green Fiat to the imposing Prime Minister’s Secretariat in New Delhi. There they were ushered into Nehru’s private office, where they were able to question him intently for more than an hour. He was cordial and frank, though guarded on certain issues as Sue and Lloyd had anticipated. In an amusing aside, Sue took out a cigarette at one point (everyone smoked then) and Lloyd and the Prime Minister both lit a match for her at the same time. Sue looked at Lloyd but turned and accepted a light from the handsome Nehru.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, 1947-1964.
Already while driving home, Sue and Lloyd talked rapidly as Sue furiously scribbled down notes of what the Prime Minister had told them As soon as they returned to the house on Lucknow Road, they hastened into their study and closed the door. With the prepared list of questions before them as an aid, they spoke into the microphone of their little tape recorder and dictated Nehru’s responses. Each reminded the other of what they had heard, using their collective memory to recall with precision what Prime Minister Nehru had said during the interview. Sometimes during the dictation, one of them would start a sentence and the other would finish it, a rhetorical characteristic that would become one of their habits in subsequent years. They turned the tape over to their secretary to transcribe and later edited the typed transcript before having it typed into a final version with an original and five carbon copies.
The transcribed interview came to a dozen legal-size pages. The candid responses they had been able to elicit from Nehru were a testament to their methodological inventiveness and unique teamwork. Sue and Lloyd used the information they gleaned in numerous articles and books over the ensuing years, and made the transcript available to other scholars. It was cited as recently as last year in a history of the Indian Army since Independence.
Sue and Lloyd’s study at 44 Lucknow Road, Delhi, in 1963. That’s me on the right holding their daughter, Jenny.
I know the details of this story because I was the secretary who typed the notes of the interview along with many others they conducted with government and political officials that year. In 1962-1963 I took a year off between my second and third years as an undergraduate at Columbia University to work for them in India. It was quite an adventure.
Sue and Lloyd were unique scholarly collaborators. Through decades of writing and teaching they made an indelible imprint on the field of political science and enriched the lives of countless students and scholars around the world. Their emotional, personal, intellectual and professional bonds made them inseparable life partners for 63 thrillingly adventurous years. Susanne died in her sleep on December 23, 2015. Lloyd slipped away equally peacefully on January 16, 2016, just 24 days after Susanne.
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and Lloyd Rudolph, India, 2012
For more on the Hoeber Family go to http://againsttimebook.com/.
AGAINST TIME: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939
Posted: August 10, 2015 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: American Philosophical Society, Destruction of Duesseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Escaping Nazi Germany, Francis W. Hoeber, German Social Democrats, Immigrant experience, Immigration visa, Johannes Hoeber, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph Leave a comment
To all of you who are readers of this website, and who mean so much to me:
I am pleased to let you know that my book, Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939, about my parents’ flight from Germany to America just before World War II, will be published by the American Philosophical Society Press on September 1, 2015.
You are invited to join me for a reading and reception at the historic building of the American Philosophical Society adjacent to Independence Hall at 104 South 5th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, September 9, 2015 at 5:30 P.M.
In a nutshell, here’s the story of Against Time: My father, Johannes Höber, left Nazi Germany for America in November 1938. My mother, Elfriede, and my nine year old sister, Susanne, were unable to leave until nearly a year later. Fifty years later, I found an old folder containing the long letters Johannes and Elfriede exchanged during the anxious months they were separated. In these letters, Elfriede describes the worsening situation in daily life under Hitler’s regime and Johannes describes his rapid entry into American political life in Philadelphia. Against Time collects those letters with an introduction, notes and an epilogue that set the letters in the context of their time. Johannes and Elfriede were both political scientists and activist Social Democrats, so their letters are of more than just personal interest. Together, the letters tell the intense story of a remarkable couple in one of the most tumultuous periods in world history. You can learn more about the book and read excerpts and view the illustrations at www.againsttimebook.com .
Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939 is available for ordering at a pre-publication discount from the American Philosophical Society Press by clicking here . Copies are set to be shipped on September 1.
Thanks so much for your interest.
How do You Raise a Bright Little Girl in Nazi Germany?
Posted: September 2, 2014 Filed under: Hoeber, Uncategorized | Tags: Düsseldorf, Elfriede Hoeber, Erich von Baeyer, Escaping Nazi Germany, Johannes Hoeber, Rhineland Karneval, Susanne Hoeber Rudolph 2 Comments![Erich von Baeyer, "Portrait of a Young Girl" [Susanne Höber], 1938](https://hoebers.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/susanne-von-baeyer-portrait.jpg)
Erich von Baeyer, “Portrait of a Young Girl” [Susanne Höber], 1938
Susanne Höber, Düsseldorf, Christmas 1938.
Although our parents were nonreligious — Konfessionslos in German — Düsseldorf was a Catholic city and our family measured life around the celebration of the holidays of the Christian calendar — Lent, Easter, Pentecost, St. Martin’s, Advent, Christmas. The Karnival season in late winter — the German equivalent of Mardi Gras — was celebrated raucously in Düsseldorf and the surrounding Rhine valley. Rosenmontag, the Monday before Ash Wednesday, was celebrated with a huge costumed parade in which children participated as well as adults. For Rosenmontag in February 1939, Susanne decided she wanted to dress as a Mexicanerin, a Mexican cowgirl. Her grandmother helped her assemble all the accessories for her costume — wide skirt, big belt, checked shirt, kercheif and a broad-brimmed hat. Elfriede tracked down the makeup Susanne wanted as well as a cap pistol (despite Elfriede’s pacifist aversion to such toys). The final charming effect was documented both in a photograph by Susanne’s Uncle Günter and in her own self-portrait drawing.
Susanne Höber as Mexicanerin for Karneval, Monday, February 20, 1939.
Had Johannes and Elfriede remained in Germany, Susanne would have been required to enter the Hitlerjugend, the Nazis’ corps for indoctrinating children in the fascist ideology of the Third Reich. Protecting her from such an intolerable experience was one of the many reasons our family fled Germany.
POSTSCRIPT: After I wrote the piece above, I sent it to Susanne to review. She liked it, and sent the following additional story. Note that this is a memory from 75 years ago:
