Z is for Zehlendorf

My maternal grandparents, Hans Boltz (1910-1992) and Charlotte  Manock (1912-1988) were married in 1937.

Their first home was in Eschershauser Weg 27, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Berlin. Zehlendorf is a district in the south-west of Berlin near the Krumme Lanke lake, on the edge of the Grunewald forest.

They lived in a  flat (apartment) in a housing estate known as Onkel Toms Hütte, served by a  U-Bahn station named after the 1852 anti-slavery novel. The estate, designed by several by well-known architects, among them Bruno Taut and Hugo Härings, was built between 1926 and 1932 . The apartment blocks had communal back gardens that led into the forest.

My grandmother, Charlotte Boltz, outside her new home in 1937

Eschershauser Weg in 1937

Eschershauser Weg in the snow about 1937

from Google maps

A satellite view of Eschershauser Weg showing how it is set in the forest and the communal grounds surrounding the flats from Google maps

According to Google Maps a U-Bahn leaves for Berlin Zoo every ten minutes. The journey takes just over half an hour. Charlotte's parents lived near Berlin Zoo.

Public transport from Eschershauser Weg to Berlin Zoo from Google maps

Hans's parents lived at Florastraße 13 in Steglitz. His father, Fritz Boltz (1879-1954) was a live-in janitor at a school there. There is still a school at that address. Florastraße is about six kilometres away from Eschershauser Weg and it takes about half an hour to get there by public transport.

From Eschershauser Weg, Zehlendorf, to Florastraße, Steglitz per Google maps

I visited Eschershauser Weg in 1982

The back of the flats overlook a communal garden with a sand pit and play space. Each flat has a balcony. Photographed 1982.

The sandpit at the back of the flats in 1982

My mother playing in the sandpit at Christmas time. She was three years old.

My mother playing in the sandpit aged 4

My mother on her sled at Christmas when she was three years old. The balconies at the back of the flats can be seen.

My mother told me about tobogganing on her sled down a very steep slope with two stones at the bottom of the path that you had to avoid. I found the path and stones in 1982. The slope was not big but it must have seemed so to a small child.

the sloping path with stones at the bottom in 1982

The flat was very close to the forest.

The forest was a very short walk from the flat in 1982

My grandmother pushing my mother in a pram near the flat with her parents Emil and Helene Manock

Related posts

• K is for Kennengelernt
• Kanu-Club Wannsee

Further reading

• http://patrickbaty.co.uk/2013/03/16/onkel-toms-hutte-uncle-toms-cabin/
• http://blog.visitberlin.de/en/874-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-and-yet-so-close-the-u3-to-onkel-toms-huette.html
• http://www.lostmodern.net/biglinks/en_onkeltom_web.pdf
• http://www.secretcitytravel.com/berlin-september-2014/berlin-bruno-taut-modernist-bauhaus-housing-estate.shtml
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkel_Toms_Hütte_(Berlin) in German

O is for Oma cooking from Dr Oetker's "Backen Macht Freude"

I didn't actually call my grandmother Charlotte Boltz née Manock (1912-1988) Oma, Grandma in German, when I was young. Although she was from Germany, to me she was just Grandma. However, my cousins called her Oma and my children know of her as Oma, distinguishing her from the many other Grandmas in the family.

My grandmother used to bake wonderful cakes, many of them from recipes in this book by the Dr Oetker company. I particularly remember her baking Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, Black Forest cherry cake.

My mother's copy of Dr Oetker's cookbook Backen macht Freude, (Cooking with joy). It probably dates from the early 1950s. It cost DM1.80. The Deutschmark was introduced in 1948.

The recipe for Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte page 104. (click on image to enlarge)

The recipe continued on page 105.

The recipe calls for a biscuit base, then a sponge. The cherries are sour cherries.

There were sour cherry trees at the bottom of my grandparent's garden. We would pick them each year around Christmas tree. Grandma bottled them. There were always cherries bottled and stored for cake making.

Some of my grandmother's cakes for a birthday in May 1985, quite probably my grandmother's birthday. The cake on the left hand side is Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. The other cake is a chocolate and almond cake. My grandmother was very fond of lily of the valley on the right hand side of the photo.

Yesterday I baked a cake from Dr Oetker's recipe. I was pleased with the result. The taste takes me back to my childhood. The cake is very light, not too chocolately and the sour cherries are beautifully tangy.

Baking the cake

Making the biscuit base. It seemed very dry despite the egg white but it did come together after being chilled.

the biscuit mixture is chilled and rested

pressed into the base of the springform tin

my baked biscuit base fitted perfectly onto my cake plate

Baking the sponge

the egg yolks are beaten with a little warm water til they are pale and creamy

egg whites are beaten separately

fold egg whites in - I do it a third at a time

add sifted dry ingredients

and fold in gently

the baked sponge

upside down cooling - I am pleased with the texture

The filling

Assembling the cake

The finished product

Essential ingredients

I felt fortunate to be able to buy in Ballarat both sour cherries and Kirschwasser from the Schwarzwald

Further reading

Translation of the recipe into English by Reddit users at the request of somebody else whose Grandma used to make this cake: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/13jtsz/my_grandma_who_past_away_used_to_make_a_black/

K is for Kennengelernt

My grandparents Hans Boltz and Charlotte Boltz née Manock recalled and celebrated the day they met, 24 January 1930, for the rest of their lives. The day of such first meetings is known in German as Kennengelernttag, 'the day of becoming acquainted'. I recall it being a special day with them making toasts at each anniversary.

Charlotte Manock as a young woman

Charlotte, eighteen at that time, had gone with her family to a tea-dance, Tanztee , possibly at a restaurant by one of the Berlin lakes. Hans went up to the group and asked Charlotte to dance, and from that time they were committed to one another.

A five-o´clock tea and dance at the Berlin Eden Hotel in the 1930s. Image from https://kreuzberged.com/2016/03/30/berlin-past-five-oclock-at-the-eden/
The Hotel Eden would have been close to where the Manock family lived near the Berlin Zoo.

My grandparents would not have been dancing outside in January.
Tea Dance, Tegernsee 1932 photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt and in the collection of Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Lufthansa German Airlines retrieved from http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/221655

Charlotte and Hans were from different backgrounds. Charlotte's father was a prosperous businessman and Hans's father, who had been in the army, worked as a school caretaker.

In 1931 Hans was a cadet [Anwärter] in the Prussian Geological Survey [Preussischen Geologischen Landesanstalt]. He had spent four years at the Technical School of Cartography in the State Institute for Mapping, and joined the Geological Survey in 1930. His training lasted another three years until he took and passed the examination for the Cartographic Service in March 1933. He was then appointed to a non-tenured post, on three months notice, which he held until May 1937, when he received a permanent position, subject to formal confirmation which was given in January 1938.

Charlotte and Hans married in April 1937, not long after he had received his appointment in the cartographic service. They had been engaged for four years and known each other for seven.

Charlotte and Hans following their marriage in 1937 outside the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche

Related post

• Kanu-Club Wannsee

Kanu-Club Wannsee

My maternal grandparents, Hans Boltz (1910-1992) and Charlotte Manock (1912-1988), were members of the Kanu-Club Wannsee in Berlin before they were married.  The following pictures are photos from their photo album.

Wannsee is in the south-west of Berlin, Germany. The River Havel forms two lakes separated by a bridge: the Großer Wannsee (Greater Wannsee) and the Kleiner Wannsee (Little Wannsee).  There is still a Wannseer Kanu-Club located on the Kleiner Wannsee which takes canoe hiking trips.

Kanu-Club Wannsee 1931

1931- Hans Boltz is in the middle back (wearing glasses)

Hans Boltz is second from the front

1935

Kanu-Club Wannsee 1935

waterfight

Hans Boltz is in overcoat with glasses

Charlotte Manock at the Kanu-Club

Hans and Charlotte

camping with canoes

Charlotte camping

Charlotte camping

canoes in a lock

Charlotte

This week's Sepia Saturday blogging theme is Robinson Crusoe. There seems to be some mention of canoes in the novel giving my post a tenuous link to the theme.