Gerda Guttfreund IV: El Salvador for the First Time

After a blissful honeymoon through Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Panama, the newlyweds headed north to San Salvador. In advance, Heinz "Quique" had written his friends about Gerda. In response, Andre Joseph (one of Quique's closest friends) responded jokingly; "The women of the community are already criticizing Gerda!"

All questions in (....) are mine.

We flew to Salvador from Panama. Heinz was very excited to be back. He had been away five months. He went from one side of the plane to the other saying, “Oh, look, this is Lake Coatepeque! This is this volcano! This is that volcano! This is the other lake!” And I was just sitting and thinking of all the people that were waiting for us, because everybody would go to the airports at that time in Salvador, and I didn’t know one soul. Everybody was Heinz’s acquaintance or family so I was quite afraid of it...So when my husband was so excited, he got a little upset. He said, “What is this? You’re going to live here and you’re not interested?” I said, “Heinz, do you realize how I feel?” And we talked about it and I started crying. Then he had to console me before we arrived, before the arrival. And everybody was there.

(How many people do you think, roughly? Ten?)

At least twenty. (laughs)

(Oh, my God. That would scare anyone!)

Ja! (laughs) Twenty people you don’t know and you are going to live with them.

(So what year is that, ’46, that you moved to Salvador?)

We arrived in Salvador in January.

(January of ’46.)

Ja.

(What were your immediate impressions?)

Well, it was difficult. First we were living in a hotel, and then we moved to the Liebes’s for a short time, and then we moved into the house of the aunt, of the sister of my husband whose husband had really started the business. But he had died, and she moved to Guatemala, so the house with all the old furniture and curtains from Hamburg we rented.

(I see.)

She was the sister of my mother-in-law. The house, I mean, the furniture and everything to me had a smell of old, but the garden was beautiful, very big garden. But we lived across from where the soldiers lived, how do you call it?

(Barracks?)

No, you don’t call it barrack. It’s a big place.

(Fort?)

Ja. Which was also on another side opposite the President’s house. When there was a revolution, a short revolution, they would shoot from that place to the President’s house, but some bullets went into our house, which was on the other side. (laughs) Just before my first child was born, there was such a revolution. My husband enjoyed it. He went to the street to meet others to see how the revolution was going. (laughs) And I was in the back of the house hoping, because there were even chairs with still holes from the previous revolution. We didn’t know if it would end before I would give birth to my child. So Heinz was reading in the medical books what he had to do in case the child was coming. (laughs) He would have loved to be a doctor. He enjoyed the situation, but fortunately we didn’t have to go through that. It was over.

(And you had your first child in 1946?)

Yes, in November.

(A boy.)

A boy, ja.

(And his name is—?)

André Rubén.

(How did your—how were you received by the Jewish community?)

That was difficult, because I was the first import of women, young women, after the war. Everybody else had been married for nine years, had about three children, most of them, not all of them, and were quite heavy after the three children. And here comes this young woman. It was a little awkward. In the beginning, my husband felt we had to be in touch with the whole community. And I was happy after eight o’clock at night that nobody had called to say, “Are you at home? We would like to visit.” So they would come around 8:15, and 10 sharp they would get up and leave. It was not interesting at all, with exception of some whom I had some contact with, especially the brothers of Joseph, with whom we had lived. One really became a very good friend. The other one loved to read and loved art, so we had a lot to talk about.

And the Liebeses and a French couple whom I liked very much, your grandmother, but there were very few that I really enjoyed coming, because I also wanted to be alone with my husband. We hadn’t been knowing each other for such a long time, so I was always relieved when nobody announced their visits. And little by little, he accepted that we didn’t have to see the whole community all the time.

(So you stay in Salvador and you have two more children, two girls.)

Mm-hmm.

(And eventually, those girls go off to school.)

Ja. But much before that, I had two more children. When the first child—before, when I knew already that André was going to leave for school, I wanted very much to have another boy. But it was a little girl that came, and we were very happy. She was a very lovely baby. But then I thought, “She can’t grow up alone. The others are much older.” So I wanted another child. My husband was not too convinced of that, but I convinced him.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC