My grandmother is the little girl in this picture. She died in Buenos Aires about 20 years ago. Although I lived in London, thousands of miles away, we were very close. I was her only grandchild, and she used to talk a lot about her family history. Before she died, she left me an album with a load of pictures of her, her mother and father, and her ancestors.
Her mother was the author Else Jerusalem, and father Victor Widakowich, a professor who became the director of the zoo in Buenos Aires. Here are some pictures of them from that album.
Else with her daughter (and my grandmother) MiriamElse with Miriam and a baby tiger from the Buenos Aires zooElse with her husband Victor. They emigrated from Vienna to Buenos Aires in 1905Victor with the baby tiger
In the photo album, my grandmother left me a few pages that she’d typed for me, telling me about her family history. Below is the page she left me about her mother, Else Kotanyi de Widakovich (Else Jerusalem). Sadly I only read this after my grandmother had died, and so it’s the only direct memory I have of my great grandmother.
Here is a translation into English:
My mother Else Kotanyi de Widakovich
I know very little about her ancestors. According to my mother, her father, Maximillian Kotanyi, was Hungarian, a quite adventurous individual who liked good wine, his violin and women, paying little attention to his wife and six children. My mother had a very difficult personality, which was particularly evident in her family life, but on the other hand, she had a very powerful “esprit” as the French say. As a result of her spark, her cheerfulness, and the jokes that she made up on the spur of the moment, jokes that were sometimes cutting, although always original, she was at the heart of social life in Buenos Aires and VIenna. In our big mansion in Belgrano, which now no longer exists, she would welcome some of the great personalities of the time – everyone from the President of the Republic, Hipolito Irigoyen, to the ranch owners felt very privileged when she invited them. However, she also appreciated scientists, and Albert Einstein was a close friend. It was funny to see the great sage accompanying her to the fair or helping her to do the shopping, which is not to say that they didn’t both attend the grand meetings that were organised for the master by the most celebrated mathematicians in Argentina. All this happened around 1925. When my mother travelled to Berlin, she would visit her old friend and I had the honour of being told by him that I was “as beautiful as an old Egyptian princess”. My mother’s last days were very sad – a victim of arteriosclerosis, she died alone and somewhat forgotten.
Before she married my father, she wrote a book that was translated into many languages, even Spanish. As it was unusual for women to write books on unsavoury topics – and The Sacred Beetle (The Red House ) describes the life of a prostitute – she used the surname of her first husband: Jerusalem. I still have a copy in German. It was the subject of a film that was big in its time – The Red Lantern – starring Conrad Veidt. [In fact the film is called Die Rothausgasse (the Red Alley) ]
