Bruno Ernst Kohn

See photos and documents under the "Media" tab

(Note: the following story has been handed down from and to certain family members, and is supplemented with certain verified facts)

Bruno came from a wealthy Nürnberg banking family. He was a passionate collector of art, his specialty being antique Japanese woodblock prints, of which he had hundreds.

Bruno emigrated to England as a young man and became a naturalized UK citizen in 1909. He married Eleanor Elizabeth Buckman in 1910, the same year he purchased his estate home, "The Wilderness," on the Thames River, outside of London (in Kingston, Surrey; TF),

When Hitler came to power, Bruno, who was in the importing business, with investments in Germany, Austria, and Czech glass factories, set about getting temporary British guest visas for as many of his family members as he could. To do this, he had to reveal his ethnicity to Nelly and, according to my mother, "She pitched a fit, and screamed, 'Thank God we never had any children!'"

Each of the relatives came to stay at Bruno and Nelly's home until they could arrange for permanent visas, either in England or somewhere else. The use of their home as a staging area for Hitler-refugees galled Nelly, and Bruno apologized for her intemperate hatred of Jews to each of his family members, even as she openly called them "dirty Jews" to their faces. (According to my mother, "It was quite a carnival there, with Nelly on the couch in a huff and Bruno offering us tea, and the maid looking from Bruno to Nelly and back again, not sure whose orders to follow.")

When Bruno died, childless but very wealthy, it was revealed that he had left everything to his nieces and nephews. My mother, Liselotte Erlanger, received enough money to buy a house in the city, a summer home farm in the country, and a one-year-long paid vacation for the whole family to Europe.

Thank you, Uncle Bruno!

-- catherine yronwode

________________________________________

In the years when Bruno Kohn worked in a bankhouse in Brussels, from about 1897 until c. 1900, he came in close contact with Henry van de Velde, the famous Belgian-German designer and architect. Sophie Herrmann, Brunos cousin, wife of van de Veldes close friend Curt Herrmann, arranged this contact in 1897 and the next few years Bruno Kohn stayed often in van de Veldes house »Bloemenwerf« in Uccle as a familiar guest. Through van de Velde he also met famous other artists like the sculptors Constantin Meunier and Georges Minne. In many letters Bruno Kohn is mentioned by Henry van de Velde and his wife Maria as a funny guy with a good taste for life and art. Perhaps his interest in art is a result of the friendship with Henry van de Velde who was a collector of Japanese prints and a lot of others things as well. Who knows? From February 22nd to mid-April 1903 Bruno Kohn accompanied Henry van de Velde and his cousin Sophie Herrmann together with her husband Curt Herrmann on a six week trip with the luxury HAPAG-steamer »Auguste Victoria«. The opulent journey started in Genoa and led the passengers to Villefranche, Ischia, Malta, Nauplia, Istanbul, Damaskus, Beirut, Palestine (Jaffa, Jerusalem), Alexandria, Cairo (on the Nile to Memphis) and back via Sicily and Naples. In spring 1906 when Henry van de Velde arranged a big exhibition on German Art for the »Deutsche Künstlerbund« in the »Princess Gallery« in London-Knightsbridge, he met again Bruno Kohn several times and was a guest in Bruno's London home.

________________________________________

Here is a transcription from a taped interview with my mother [Liselotte Erlanger], which i made in the 1970s. -- catherine yronwode

BRUNO KOHN AND ELEANOR BUCKMAN

My uncle Bruno went as a young man to England to work for the bank that my grandfather had....

But he also went first to Italy and he was an amateur photographer and there are some beautiful photo albums of photographs that he took in Calabria and in Naples.

And he tried to import pottery from there to Germany at that time. But they couldn't pack it and it all got smashed.

{Catherine: "Who has the photo album? Where is it now?"}

The photograph album I probably will get. It's at Rena's. They didn't know what it was but.... He was a real good amateur photographer.

And then, when he went to England, he fell off a horse and was nursed by this lady, Eleanor Buckman, whom he unfortunately married [in 1910], and this is our famous aunt Nellie, who was very anti-semitic.

{Catherine: "Why did she marry him?"}

I don't know. Because he had a lot of money.

And her main thing was, "All Jews are terrible, but the Kohn family's all decadent and degraded."

And because she had no children she held that, you know, that "Your uncle is sterile, I could never have children." But apparently she had two or three miscarriages.

When we finally were refugees in England, I had to stay with them for four days on a weekend and I hold that the $12,000.00 I inherited for this weekend was simply restitution payment for this awful day i spent there.

{Catherine: "That was when you let the dog in, right?"}

No, that was the people I worked for.

I came there and they had this beautiful house, The Wilderness, which was then sold [after their deaths] and then part of the money we got was from The Wilderness ...

And I came in and she had these little floor sills between the rooms and I stepped on one and she said, "Only German Jewish girls step on floor sills that my maids have to polish."

And the minute you sat down to dinner she said, "Only German Jewish girls eat so grossly."

And not only I, but, you know, everybody else who went in England went through the same trip with her. Like my aunt [unknown which aunt; one of the Kohns]. Like my cousin Edith Collet, Edith Lang Collet, who they treated terribly. And my cousin Annaluise [Annaluise Löwensberg], and my cousin Mariella [Mariella Kohn]. And [my cousin] Fred Lang [Frederick Max Lang] stayed there for three days. And everybody who ever stayed there, in The Wilderness, has horror stories to tell.

Later on ... later on, my aunt Nellie went insane, apparently, and got paranoid, and the last time ...

{Catherine: She thought the Jews were after her? ... }

Yah, exactly!... and my father tells me the last time he saw her he came in this beautiful house, and my uncle Bruno was standing there.

And he said, "Aunt Nellie hid behind the sofa because she was afraid, and uncle Bruno said, 'Nellie, darling, it's all right. It's only Theo. You can come out.'"

And, as Catherine just suggested, I think she thought all this family were after her, which ... it was her karma, obviously.

When I stayed there for those four days -- or three and a half, I can't remember -- her sister appeared, who was a tiny little hunch-back lady who looked like a little witch. And there she was, blaming all the Kohn family for being decadent and unhealthy. And this little witch was knitting, and when they found out that I could knit very well, they made me sit down, and I knitted for three days straight for that little hunch-back witch, like I was in a Grimm's fairy tale.

And these are absolutely true stories and some of them can be verified, and even better stories told by some of the other cousins who stayed in England.