Women's Portraits

Erika Bucholtz

Childhood

Mrs. Bucholtz was born in Kharkov, Russia, as the oldest of three sisters. Her father was  a Baltic-German merchant. During the prosecution at the time of the Russian Revolution, the family moved to London and later to Helsinki, and finally back to the home country of German minority in Latvia, to Riga. There she completed all her school years until graduation. In the German school she learned Latvian, Russian and English. During further studies in Lausanne and in England, she completed her foreign language skills. 

Repatriation

The non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin changed her life dramatically. The German minority was expelled from the Baltic countries and resettled into German-occupied Poland. In Poznan, the family found a temporary new home. There, Erika had the opportunity to visit the conservatory in order to train as a pianist. Soon she developed an affection towards her German family doctor from Estonia , and in 1941 the couple got married. Two children were born in 1942 and 1944.

Escape

As the Russian front approached, her husband was conscripted as a soldier and women and children fled to the west. After two grueling years, the young family found together again, after the war, in Göppingen in Swabia. However they lived there still for a long time in a barrack under pitiful conditions. The father finally found a job as a physician in the hospital of Dillingen, and later he had his own practice in a little village. A future perspective came when they could open a practice in Senden. Tragically, Dr. Bucholtz suffered a major stroke after a short time and lived only a few more years as a care patient. Pension and retirement was not yet available.

Erika remembered her former training in a commercial school and took a job as a secretary. First she worked for the Board of Education, where she also was granted  municipal lodgings for her and their children in the city of Ulm. Later she worked until her retirement in different offices of the University of Ulm.

Life in retirement

At the age of sixty, the new freedom in retirement encouraged her spirit of enterprise.
In the newspaper of the Baltic country team, where she volunteered, she found the advertisement of a former fellow countrymen, who was looking for a conversation partner. Her reply has developed a ten years lasting friendship. For the first time she enjoyed partnership holidays to Austria and Italy and other European countries.

Activities in retirement

Most of her German-Latvian relatives had emigrated to America. She visited them in turn, extended to eight trips to the USA. She also sometimes took care for her little grandchildren since her son and her daughter were in employment. Nevertheless, the passionate pianist never neglected her musical education. She accompanied a solo singer at performances and founded a singing group with some music-loving seniors. In the popular university she was a frequent listener of lectures or refreshed in conversation groups her knowledge of Russian.

With former colleagues, she organized regular meetings in various cafés and maintained long-lasting contacts. "Now, all of them have past away," she said sadly.

In seniors residence and activities 

 Her living conditions became unfavorable in the 3rd floor of a post-war apartment, which made her think in the late 90-years of last century to move in a retirement home. In Ulm, there was no house at a price she could afford. So, at the age of  80 years, she moved to Memmingen, a little town 40 km from Ulm, in a nice 2-room apartment with balcony of a retirement home. Even the piano she could take along and some of her cherished memorabilia. In the senior residence she quickly found company with some like-minded housemates. They had talk and music afternoons and undertook excursions to the city or the surrounding area.
Unfortunately, she suffered serious illnesses with longer hospital stays. So, after a few years, she had to move to the nearby nursing home.

Nursing Home Activities

Now in her 94th year she has recovered amazingly well. Her eyes have quite lost sight and her legs are aching so that she now needs support in walking. Leaning on a walker she still visits her friends in the neighborhood. For going shopping in the nearby town center, to doctor's visits or appointments in cafés or restaurants, she travels with its own little electric car, which she is parking in the garage plugged on a battery. Her courage has not waned. She looks optimisticly in the future. As long as she is still alive, she would like to participate in all the interesting and current events. The development of today's young generation she hears in long telephone calls with her grandchildren. Current affairs she followes on television and in newspapers with the help of a magnifying reading apparatus. "I had the great chance and the special gift to meet always interesting people," she says with bright eyes at the end of our conversation.

Brigitte Nguyen-Duong, June 2011


Technical part of the interview

The interview was conducted on 18 June 2011 in the afternoon in the small apartment of Mrs. Bucholtz in a nursing home at Memmingen. Interviewer was Brigitte Nguyen Duong. For technical assistance, a video camera was running during the half-hour conversation. It was also made extensive notes. The prepared questionnaire was used only for the initial questions. A final part of the interview was recorded on the road in front of her house, with a video camera.
The portrait of Mrs. Bucholtz was compiled from the notes. Mrs.Bucholtz agrees with the publication of photos and video on the website, made during the interview. 

Brigitte Nguyen-Duong, Erdmute Dietmann-Beckert