My great-aunt’s real name was Helena, but everyone called her Lenie.
I don’t know much about her — like many of my relatives, she passed long before I was born — so it’s hard to judge what she was really like. The one photograph I have of her, taken sometime in the early 1900’s, shows a tall, slender women with light eyes, pale skin, and curly hair in the brownish-gold shade sometimes called “dishwater blonde.” Her face is oval, her nose a bit long but still elegantly shaped, and she wears a fashionable wasp-waisted suit and a towering hat. My grandmother, her only sister, is similarly dressed but shorter, with darker hair, a squarer face, and penetrating gray-green eyes. The family resemblance is unmistakable despite the difference in height and coloring.
According to family legend, Lenie was very much like my aunt Betty, her elder niece, and those of you who’ve been reading these diaries for a while know what that means. Lenie wasn’t as frivolous or flamboyant as Betty, but she had the same lighthearted, slightly befuddled approach to life, and the same blithe self-assurance that comes with being the designated Pretty Girl of her generation.
That isn’t to say that her life was unalloyed sunshine and roses. Her first husband, Julius, was a schoolteacher, which ensured that Lenie could continue to live in the style to which she’d become accustomed, but they never had children of their own. This is probably why my grandmother named her own first-born after her brother-in-law, not that this probably was much comfort since young Julius of course was raised by Grandma, not Lenie. Worse, Lenie wasn’t even sixty when her husband passed in 1937, so she faced the prospect of a long and lonely widowhood since her only brother was dead and Grandma and her brood had moved out to The Farm in Venango County.
Fortunately she found comfort with a longtime family friend, a gentleman named Peter Keller, whom she married in 1939. Although she still called herself “Lenie” or “Lena,” trying to trace her movements after her second nuptials is difficult because her legal name was now “Helena Keller,” and if you think that’s confusing now, just imagine how it was in the 1930’s, when Helen Keller was an international celebrity, bestselling author, and social activist.
Regardless, Lenie’s second marriage was a joyous occasion. She was no longer a lonely widow but a happy (albeit middle aged) bride, and she decided to celebrate by taking her new husband to visit relatives over in the old country. She and my grandmother had been born in Pennsylvania but their older brother Adolph had been a baby when their parents moved to America, and there were still cousin overseas who’d kept in touch over the years. Lenie herself was fluent in both English and her ancestral language, so there wouldn’t even be a communication problem.
So it was that my great-aunt and her new husband set sail for Germany in the summer of 1939.
Yes. Really.
For those of you whose immediate reaction was “Germany in 1939, what were they thinking?,” please recall that Lenie was basically Aunt Betty version 1.0. Neither of them were particularly political or informed about current events, and it’s entirely possible that Lenie simply thought they were going on a jolly trip to see the family, nothing more. Remember, Betty managed to distinguish herself in Spain by dismissing Generalissimo Francisco Franco (who was not yet dead) as “the little man with the mustache” when asked whether he’d attended a charity bullfight. Lenie may well have had similar thoughts about the somewhat larger man with the mustache in Berlin, especially since by all accounts he’d revived the local economy, showered the populace with low-cost vacations, concerts, and other goodies, and triumphantly showcased the New Germany at the 1936 Olympics. She was American, after all, and a good Lutheran like the rest of her family. That they might have been better off going to the Grand Canyon or Cape Cod or the Wisconsin Dells or pretty much anywhere else in America almost certainly never crossed their minds.
Regardless, they seem to have had a wonderful time, at least at first. I have a badly faded postcard Lenie sent my grandmother from Hamburg saying “everything is beautiful,” and from her perspective it likely was. Germany was clean and prosperous, the exchange rate was favorable, and the countryside was gorgeous. There was plenty to see and do, excellent food and wine to sample, and the German relatives welcomed them with open arms. If one didn’t pay attention to the newspapers or the radio reports, their honeymoon might have been justly called “idyllic.”
At least until they decided that things were going so well they should extend their vacation a couple of weeks and sail home in September, not August.
Their cousins were silent when Lenie informed of this happy decision. They then asked if she’d changed her sailing date yet. When she said no, she and Peter were still scheduled to go home in late August, the cousins glanced around, made sure their fine, strapping son Manfred was nowhere in earshot, and said, “No. Go home. Go home now.”
Lenie looked bewildered. “But why? Everything is so pleasant and — “
“You don’t understand,” said one. “You cannot stay. There will be war in the next few weeks. You must go back to America before then.”
“But — “
“No. Trust us. There will be war.” The cousin did not raise her voice, but it was clear she was not joking “Everyone knows it is coming by September at the latest. You cannot be here when it starts.”
“But — “
“Lenie,” said the cousin. “You are not safe. Our son Manfred has been watching you ever since you arrived.”
Lenie froze, mouth half-open. “What?”
“Manfred is in the SS, the Leader’s bodyguard. He thinks you are spies and has reported your every move to his superiors,” said the cousin. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “He’s been going through your luggage. You must leave, as soon as you can.”
What Lenie said was never reported to me. I do know, however, that Lenie and Peter kept their original sailing date in late August. That’s why they were back in Pittsburgh when the funny medium-sized man with the mustache invaded Poland barely a week after they got home.
It’s also why, when my uncle Louis tried to find those cousins late in 1945, once the war was over and he was able take some leave after the long and bitter fight to liberate Fortress Europe, he had no luck. To this day I have no idea what happened to those cousins Lenie and her husband visited, or even what town they lived in. They and their world were swept away, lost forever to the ambition and bigotry of a regime so cruel it attempted to remake the world to further its aims.
As for Lenie...whether she truly realized how close she came to disaster isn’t clear. But every time I see that ancient postcard, all I can think is “what if she hadn’t listened….”
My great-aunt was lucky. She listened to her cousins and never experienced the horror to come, although she must have been crushed to learn that her hosts had disappeared. Others, such as the subject of tonight’s diary, were not so lucky.
Her name was Annmarie, although everyone called her Nesthäkchen.
Americans don’t know much about her, although she’s been called “The Anne of Green Gables” of pre-war Germany. Slim, blonde, and determined, her adventures were chronicled in some of the most popular, beloved children’s books of their day. Her creator became rich, and by the late 1930’s Hollywood was seriously considering buying the movie rights to the Nesthäkchen series as a vehicle for Shirley Temple even though the books had yet to be translated to English. Her place in the literary pantheon should have been assured.
Except that the most popular, and probably best, Nesthäkchen book was all about the home front in Germany during the Great War, meaning that any film based on it would be all but unadaptable for English-speaking audiences, even if Annmarie was played by one of the most beloved child stars in the world.
Worse, Nesthäkchen’s creator had a secret. And that meant disaster no matter how many books she’d sold, or how many girls adored Nesthäkchen and identified with her:
Nesthäkchen and Her Dolls (Nesthäckchen und Ihre Puppen) and its nine sequels, by Else Ury — Else Ury was in many ways a typical product of the late 19th century Bürgertum, or German middle class. Her father, Emil, was a prosperous merchant who could afford a home in the fashionable Kaiserdamm neighborhood, while her mother Franziska was genteel, cultured, and well-educated. She and her siblings received the best education their parents could afford, with plenty of exposure to the flourishing artistic, musical, and literary culture of Wilhelmine Berlin, and it’s little wonder that Else, the older girl, decided on a literary career. She began with short pieces for “Auntie Stoss,” the beloved Vossische Zeitung newspaper, and by 1905 had published her first collection of short stories, What the Lucky Child Heard. This was quickly followed by a steady stream of novels, short stories, and occasional pieces over the next 28 years. Most were standalone works, but there were two series: the five Professors Zwillinge books, about a set of twins who were roughly analogous to the Bobbseys, and ten volumes following Annmarie “Nesthäkchen” Braun from adorable infancy to comfortable old age.
All of Ury’s books sold well, but it was the Nesthäkchen series that really took off. A prime example of a popular German genre called the “Backfischroman,” or story of a young girl from the schoolroom to a respectable marriage, Ury’s books stood out from the crowd thanks to Annmarie herself. Instead of the more usual hausfrau in training, Annmarie was the sort of spirited, intelligent child with a nose for minor trouble that’s been a literary staple for generations. Critics often compared her to Ann Shirley, the beloved heroine of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books, and the parallels are striking; like Anne, Annemarie eventually leaves home, obtains an education, and earns her own living until she’s ready to marry, and raises a successful, happy family.
It’s little wonder that German girls (and their mothers) loved Annmarie and snapped up her adventures almost as soon as they appeared in the bookstores. They were so popular that even though the sixth book, Nesthäkchen fliegt aus dem Nest (Nesthäkchen Flies From The Nest), ends with Annmarie marrying and beginning a family, Ury’s publishers talked her into continuing the series thanks to a deluge of fan mail. The next four were not quite as popular (or good; even though the series allegedly covers Annmarie’s life until 1972, there is almost no sign of the immense technological and social changes of the 1920’s, let alone the succeeding half-century), but all ten books continued to sell, even during the hyper-inflation of the early post-war period and the Great Depression a decade later.
All of this meant that by 1933 Else Ury had earned a quarter of a million RM for her books alone, or the rough equivalent of $1.4 million today — and that doesn’t factor in her earnings for radio adaptations, translations into several European languages, and pieces she wrote for the newspapers and magazines. By the standards of the day she was a wealthy woman indeed, and although she continued to live with her aged mother, she bought a vacation home in the Silesian mountains she dubbed “Haus Nesthäkchen” for obvious reasons.
It’s no wonder that by 1939 she was openly marketing her work to English-language publishers and film studios. Her nephew Klaus, who had moved to England for his education, had little luck finding a publisher in Britain — Ury’s writing, witty and full of wry literary allusions, proved difficult to translate — but another acquaintance had contacts in Hollywood, and by the summer her agent was touting the Nesthäkchen books as a possible follow-up to Shirley Temple earlier film Heidi. Hollywood was hungry for children’s books to adapt, and it looked like the adventures of Nesthäkchen would be perfect.
There was only one problem: Else Ury, who made her fortune writing about the epitome of the golden German girlhood, was Jewish. And by the time she was trying to find a British publisher and a Hollywood contract, she wasn’t trying to make money. She was trying to save her life.
The 1920’s may have made Else Ury rich, but the 1930’s saw her lose everything she’d worked for. Her books’ popularity, her success as a magazine writer, her own status as a respectable middle-aged writer — none of that meant a thing to the government after 1933. All that mattered was that she was Jewish, and thus not suitable for the tender minds of the future mothers of the Aryan State.
And so even though there was not so much as a whisper in the books that Annmarie and her family were anything but good, respectable, patriotic Germans, the series was withdrawn from publication in 1935. She was expelled from the German authors’ league, and a pathetic attempt at currying favor with the new government by writing a book praising Hitler failed. Ury’s royalties dried up, no newspaper or magazine would touch her work, and her glittering success turned to ash. By the time she was corresponding with Hollywood, she was frantically trying to establish an income stream in America or Britain so she could emigrate, since she (like my great-aunt’s cousins) could see the gathering war clouds.
If she’d only decided to market her books a year earlier, she might well have succeeded. Shirley Temple, golden-haired and adorable, would have been an ideal Annmarie Braun for American audiences, and there were plenty of talented ingenues capable of playing Nesthäkchen as she grew up. A Hollywood contract would have been enough for Else Ury to obtain a visa, possibly even bringing one or more family members with her, and once the war started she could have applied for refugee status. It’s painful to think of the difference a single year would have made for both author and her books.
Unfortunately, Else Ury tried to wait it out that last crucial year. And lost everything.
Hollywood was interested, but not interested enough to purchase the film rights to the Nesthäkchen books in time. Ury and her sister were stuck in Germany, and as the war progressed their money and possessions were stripped from them, one by one. Even Else’s beloved Haus Nesthäkchen was confiscated and given to a suitably Aryan owner, and by the time she deported to Auschwitz in 1943, about the only possession she had left was her suitcase. This was painted with her surname in large white letters for identification purposes, and when she was taken to the gas chambers upon arrival, the suitcase was left behind.
The rest of the story is nearly as tragic as Else Ury’s end. Her sister, who had trained as a teacher before her marriage, also died in the death camps. Her books, which German mothers had hoarded and given to their daughters on the sly once the Nazis declared their innocuous tales of awakening womanhood verboten, were reprinted after the war, but #4, Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg, was banned for warmongering by the Allies and the last four, which depicted Annmarie Braun’s happy, unblemished life through 1972, were obsolete to the point of being nearly unreadable. If that weren’t bad enough, Else Ury’s last years and death were completely ignored by her publishers, the producers of an early 1980’s Nesthäkchen series, and the German public as a whole.
It’s only in the last few years that the truth has come out. A group of Nesthäkchen fans on a school visit to Auschwitz spotted her suitcase, realized who it had belonged to, and began spreading the word. Soon historians were openly writing about Ury’s later career and murder, and her suitcase was featured in an exhibition on her life in 1997. Several of her books, including Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg, are now available in English, and there was a major article in the New York Times on her life and career three years ago.
Despite all of this attention there is little evidence of a Nesthäkchen revival here in the United States. If Else Ury had found a translator in the 1920’s, they might have joined Babar the Elephant, Tintin, and Pippi Longstocking as cherished classics for children worldwide, but at this point it’s probably too late. It’s also debatable as to whether Nesthäkchen could have caught on anywhere outside of Europe; Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg is unabashedly pro-German, and it’s hard to see any publisher in an Allied country wanting to have anything to do with the series.
As for Else Ury...there are now several memorials to her, notably at her former homes in Germany and what is now Poland. German girls still read and love the Nesthäkchen books, even with #4 reduced to a summary at the end of #3, and it’s only a matter of time before there’s another television or movie based on them.
There’s even the small but real chance an adaptation could show up on American or British television at some point. A German-Austrian miniseries about those all-time pop culture icons Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy was a surprise hit on streaming during the pandemic, and Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes mystery series has been a critical and ratings smash. A series about a spunky German girl and her loving family might be just what these parlous times demand.
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Have you ever heard of Nesthäkchen or Else Ury? Have you managed to read one or two? Did you get out of a war zone just ahead of the troops? Did you watch the Maximilian/Mary TV series even though it was subtitled? It’s a chilly fall night here at the Last Homely Shack, so gather round the non-existent GIANT FIREPIT O’DOOM, have a cup of your beverage of choice, and share….
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