The Frankfurt branch of Bernard Moteurs
Richard was very charming and sociable, he always had been. That's how he met Granny. He went to the theatre where Heini was acting. He went backstage and then invited the whole cast to a good restaurant in Frankfurt.
Lisa in Frankfurt in the early 1930s
Richard lived for four years based in Frankfurt until 1935 working for the German branch of Bernard Moteurs. Heini and Granny were inseparable twins. Though granny had been training and then working as a seamstress for 5 years since the age of 19, she was always out with her brother and his friends at the theatre. Because of her beauty, kindness and joi de vivre, she was very popular. In fact she was approached by a Hollywood agent, Harry Piel, also a prolific actor. Perhaps Harry was being serious, perhaps he was trying to seduce Lisa, but certainly Lisa dreamed a little of a career in Hollywood.
She accompanied her brother to the restaurant often after the play finished and Richard was splendid, he paid for everything. He knew about the theatre, like Heini he loved walking in the mountains and climbing. He cut a dash.
Richard fell for Lisa right away and started to romance her, sending her roses and presents and giving her all his attention. Bit by bit Lisa came round and she was charmed. Hitler had come to power in 1933. It was just at the time the Nuremberg laws were being introduced which prohibited mixed marriages between Jews and Germans in 1934.
Richard proposed to Lisa and then left for France to work in Paris. He could no longer work in Frankfurt. Lisa must have accepted this arrangement. She took the decision to marry Grandpa despite the Nazi's silly racial laws. Richard in Paris sent for her almost pre-emptorily, and she went. She even left her twin brother, the closest person to her to be with Richard. All thought of Harry Piel gone.
Lisa on her honeymoon in the Cote d'Azure in 1934
But as soon as she arrived in the flat in Paris Richard welcomed her, married her in a registry office and then and then left her to go on a business trip. She was a little confused she said. But when he came back they went on a honeymoon to the South of France and they had a short time before Granny was pregnant and during that time Lisa said it was absolute heaven.
You could go out every night, she said. The restaurants were not expensive and it was great fun. Grandpa had a wide circle of friends who came to visit and gradually Lisa was completely adopted into their circle and, understanding Richard's active and explosive, character, they felt sorry for her too.
Of course Lisa's brother Heini was one of the first people to come and visit and he tells of how Richard met him at the station and before they went to the flat he invited Heini to a little restaurant where they could try 40 different hor d'oevres. The only seat we could find was at a table set on either side of a pillar. To keep up the conversation we both had to lean to one side, he said.
They often went to the cinema in Paris. Along with the theatre and he told her about his father and mother and sister and brother. As soon as Lisa was pregnant she was confined to quarters. She stayed at home and knitted and sewed and cooked while Richard went out and travelled.
When Richard first arrived in Paris in 1930 he had stayed at about five different hotels. He must have fallen in love with Paris and France then. The Viennese always looked to Paris as the greater cultural centre. He loved fine clothes and beautiful women and culture and the theatre and Paris was the place to be and soon his French was excellent. He worked very hard and earned enough money to buy a car and enjoy himself.
Years later in 1979, he carefully applied for French nationality after returning to France in 1961. Taking into consideration that he had worked for the same French company for 25 years before and after the war. That his sister had been betrayed to the Nazis by the French Vichy policemen. That his daughter was born in Paris. They owed him something. Grandpa was a Francophile. He wanted to become French before he died. But the response from the French authorities came after he died. His application to become French had been refused.
It would have really hurt him, said Lisa. It's just as well he never knew.
The light hearted Paula Neumann and Else Steinhardt, Lisa thought they were silly.
The Steinhardt family came to visit. Cousin Paula came too. Else and Paula were always laughing. They laughed at everything. They weren't very serious. Mama Steinhardt, Regina was a kind simple woman said Lisa and she said nothing about Papa Steinhardt, who was an important man, but about to lose his foreign editorship of the Neue Frie Presse because the newspaper would be closed down by the anti -semitic Austrian authorities.
At the time Lisa was exhausted from the birth and in love with her little girl and the centre of attention and she was probably as meek as a lamb faced with the Steinhardts, but later on she took the argument she had with Richard, who was full of genuine selfishness and machismo, to them.
Eve and Lisa were grateful for Arthur's calming and moderating influence on Richard.
She criticised Else and Mama and Papa Steinhardt. Else was silly. Mama Steinhardt was a simple peasant woman and Papa Steinhardt a pompous and selfish man who spent his money unwisely on self aggrandizement. But Lisa never criticised Arthur, who she only met in South Africa. When Richard behaved badly and bullied her, she would go to Arthur and he would support her and talk to Richard and Richard would apologise to Lisa. Arthur was 8 years older than Richard.
Flora and Arthur in uniform in Israel in 1941 and a friend (Nelly?)
Arthur was also closer to his parents. He followed in the footsteps of his father and became a journalist. A respected journalist who, like his father, specialised in Bulgarian and Southern Slav affairs. Isidor was a supporter of the Austro-Hungarian empire and Arthur shared his ideals and fought in the Jewish regiment. Richard was more his mother's favourite. He rejected his father's offer to pay for a university education and launched himself into a career in business. He wasn't going to follow in his father's footsteps.
I always found Grandpa to be a little ridiculous when he wanted to make up with Granny. He would make big eyes at her like the little boy in the photograph in Sarajevo and call her:
Poupie, Poupie
And it would seem to work. But underneath Granny was keeping the score. Andy was a little thinner than Chris when they were little. Not much, just a little, and Grandpa would look at him and say, voice full of mocking, loving concern: Andy my boy, are you hungry? Would you like something to eat? And then he would ask Granny to make us something delicious. He would feed Andy and ask him: Was that nice, Andy my boy.
In a way I think he was feeding his hungry younger selves. The boy who had lived through the privations of WWI in Sarajevo. The slender teenager who saw his father go out to fine restaurants for working lunches and come back and who then told stories about how wonderful it had all been and how the great men of Vienna had talked and listened to him and sometimes even deferred to his superior knowledge. But the children and Richard lived mainly on his mother's dumplings and soup.
When Grandpa told Lisa this she was judgmental in her Lutheran way. How could Richard's father go out dressed to the nines and spend all that money, acting like a Gran Senor, always leaving his wife behind, leaving you all to eat dumpling soup?
Richard was the same, said Lisa. If it wasn't for me and the fact that I saved our money he would have lost it all. He was too generous. He wanted to impress. She said: 'He told me once.' "Lisa, I wanted to be a Gran Senor. To live like a Gran Senor.'
But that's how he met Lisa. And it worked on her. She was swept away by his generosity and his cultured charm and his good looks .
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