Chapter 14 The Wilhelm family
Hilde and Alfred, mid-1920s. Alfred was Marianne's brother. Marianne was my grandmother.
Hilde modelling in the 1920s. The photographer was Ernst Förster, of the „Adèle“ Studios in Vienna, a top notch address.
The tiny 4.5 x 6.5 cm photo of Alfred with Claus on his knee, 1930. I found it in the suitcase archive I inherited in 2014. Claus was my father's cousin.
A selection of the Wilhelm family documents I inherited in 2014.
The perfectly preserved money transfer slip from the suitcase archive. It's dated 15 November 1930, Therese, my great-grandmother, undertook the transfer.
The notebook of the Wilhelm's possessions with the word 'Pfutsch' on it (lost/destroyed). From the suitcase archive.
Claus' drawing (when he was 15) of how the Wilhelm family were on the run from the Nazis in France for 3.5 years before entering Switzerland in September 1942. The numbers represent the stages of their flight.
Postwar right of abode document of the Wilhelm family, 1946. From the Archive for Contemporary History (AfZ) archive I gained access to in 2022. Alfred and Hilde look exhausted.
The various refugee camps in Switzerland the Wilhelm family had to stay in before being re-united.
Heinz Gütermann's list of the various keys to the 17 suitcases the Wilhelm family had with them while on the run from the Nazis. 1943, from the AfZ archive I gained access to in 2022.
'Souvenir de Bex' the refugee camp where Claus and Hilde were kept.1943, AfZ archive.
Haidi and Claus, probably on their wedding day in the 1950s.
The expressionist portrait of Alfred by Ernst Schromm, painted in 1966, that I inherited in 2014.