Marie Jahoda 1907-2001

Marie Jahoda über ihre Mutter Betty Jahoda, geborene Propst

My mother [i.e. Betty Jahoda, née Propst, ...] was born in a small Polish town within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When she was four years old, her mother died in childbirth. There were already four young children in the family. Her father, whom she met only once again about 40 years later, was a small-scale dealer in various goods with an irregular income. She never had a good word to say about him. The death of his wife, who, like so many Jewish mothers in precarious circumstances, had managed to keep their heads above water, left him in desperate straits. He took a desperate step learning that two casual business acquaintances were planning a trip to Vienna, he persuaded the two men to take the little girl along and deliver her to some distant relations. [...]
Uncle Rauch was an orthodox Jew who devoted more time to the study of the Talmud than to making a living, which was sparse indeed. Tante Rauch supplemented it with sewing and washing for other Jewish families. They had 4 children of their own, two slightly older than my mother. These children resented my mother; another mouth to feed when there sometimes was not enough to go round »even for us«. With the brutality of the young, increased by real deprivation, they taunted her for years as the orphan who did not belong.
How did she survive as a human being? Two things made it possible. The first was Tante Rauch. She must have been a saint, gifted with an inexhaustible capacity for love. She treated the little girl not just as if she were her own but with that special care which she intuitively understood was needed. The other factor was that my mother had natural gifts: a good mind and a though determination to survive, in part consciously motivated in the growing child so as to take revenge on her foster-siblings by showing them what the resented orphan could achieve.
She was a good pupil at school. Leaving as soon as was possible, she took a job as a shop assistant. [...] Around 1900 she answered an advertisement of my father's firm for a junior book-keeper and was hired. Two years later they were married. My father [i.e. Carl Jahoda], who was 13 years older. Had fallen in love with his good-looking, spirited and competent assistant. For her, the marriage was at first perhaps only her triumph over fate. Her personal involvement came, I believe, only gradually. [...]
After my father's death, her passionate dependence on her oldest son [i.e. Eduard Jahoda] grew. It assumed frightening proportions when she was forced to live with Edi and Susi [Jahoda, née Steiner] and their son [i.e. Franz Jahoda] after the emigration in one household. [...] For many years, she still ran the household in Manhasset. [...]
After two strokes in her eighties, mother spent the last 3 years of her life in a nursing home. She became child-like, relaxed, smiling, playing games with her visiting children. I saw her only on my annual visits to the States. The last time she said: you look as if you were my Mitzi. She died in her sleep.

Marie Jahoda Albu: Reconstructions. [Keymer, Sussex: Published by the author] 1996, S. 9-10, 13.

DAS ELTERNHAUS
über Betty Jahoda
über Carl Jahoda
über Edward Jahoda
über Franz Jahoda
über Fritz Jahoda
über Georg Jahoda
Karl Kraus --"--
über Susan Jahoda
über Anton Kuerti
über Rosi Kuerti
über "Mitzi"
Gedichte
Stammbaum