Hella Maria Hochstadter Holman Memoir - University of Illinois ...

Q. In the mean time, your mother was. . .
A. Well then my grandparents moved from Silesia. They were
living in a town by the name Gruenberg which was in lower
Silesia. My grandfather had been a Silesian and he came from
Lowenberg in Silesia and because Gruenberg was a relatively small
town, my grandmother who came from an excellent family in Poland
just couldn't stand it any more and for her sake my grandfather
moved to Berlin and bought a furniture factory.
Q. Did they take care of you while your mother worked?
A. No, my mother then became sort of a free lance writer after I
was born because this assignment on the street corner in Berlin
happened before she got married and she moved away when she got
married and then of course when I was born, she stayed home with
me. But she did some freelancing but not very much as that time
because, you know, it was war time and they were very busy after
a year or two providing food and milk and all these things
because there were tremendous shortages of everything during the
first world war.
Q. So then as you grew a little older she began to do more
journalism?
A. Oh yes, she did then after I was about a teenager, or before,
she always contributed to newspapers but mostly on a freelance
basis because she just didn't go to work. I mean this was not a
requirement and actually very few women of her status did. But
she always needed the outlet of writing.
Q. She was basically a journalist?
A. Yes, she was basically a journalist.
Q. Now, did she sell any of her free lancing?
A. Oh yes, she was paid for it but she did not write any books.
She wrote poetry, very nice poetry and she wrote articles,
observations of her life, you know and things like this.
Q. Was she involved in the arts?
A. In the arts?
Q. Did she write about the arts? What did she write about
besides poetry?
A. Actually, she wrote more about the human condition. She did
not write about the arts. She was not as art conscious at the
time before she married my father and really she was never as art
interested as I have become or my father was.