He who lives in harmony with himself,
lives in harmony with the universe
Marco Aurélio - philosopher

Juliet was still an extremely spoiled young woman, when she married Simon, twenty years older than her. It was very common in 1921, marriages like that to happen in Germany. As the couple came from very prominent families, they had a magnificent wedding party. Important politicians and entrepreneurs, besides notorious members of the German-Israelite community of Berlin, attended massively. The gifts received were extremely lofty. From the bride’s parents, they received a banking institution; from the groom’s parents, they received a fully furnished house, besides jewels and a princely trousseau. It was meant to be an absolutely happy wedding, but that did not happen.

During the wedding party, Juliet looked for her newly wedded husband and found him hugging and kissing another woman, whom later, she found out to be his affair for over five years. It is unnecessary to say that the marriage ended, the same day it started. The bride, however, was bound to it forever. At that time, it was inconceivable a woman to break up with her husband.

The marriage, that had all elements to be perfect, started unhappily and took away from Juliet, all and any hope that one day she would find happiness. Yet, in order to match society’s expectancy, they had two children, Hans and Ludwig. The boys were everything to Juliet and she was every time closer to her mother, who helped her to raise them. Elizabeth was her son-in-law’s age, therefore she could get to control him more than her daughter. Wolfgang, father of the unhappy wife, barely met the son-in-law, whom he could not forgive for what he had done to his endearing daughter.

While the boys grew up, the Jews chasing started in Germany. Simon realized the risk that everyone was taking, staying in Berlin, and started to prepare the family’s escape to Sweden, a neutral country that was against Hitlerite anti-Semitism. Firstly, he sent abroad his furniture and what else he could save, under the names of non-Jewish friends. Afterwards, he embarked with his wife, the two children and his mother-in-law to restart their lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

When they arrived, they got shocked. What had happened to so many fugitives also happened to them. The good friends, whom they had trusted, had stolen nearly all their furniture and the belongings they had sent before, thus their remaining assets were only what they had brought with them. They stayed in Stockholm for three years, and after that, they decided to move to England, which was Germany’s enemy, so a safer place to restart a life.

When he arrived in London, Simon found a job as a bank clerk in a bank that previously was a representative of his own bank. There, he restarted a life. They managed to get a house to live, school for the children and rooted for the world war to finish soon. As Simon was afraid of automobiles, he used to go to the bank by bike, till one day, while biking on his usual route, he fell down from the bike, hitting the nape on the curb. That was enough. Simon passed away at the very place of his fall, Juliet was a widow and her two children became fatherless.

Elizabeth got desperate seeing her daughter, a widow at age 39, penniless, with two children to raise, and having never worked in life. That was the chaos. Mother and daughter grieved and started to think a way towards future. Hans, the oldest son, was sent to a professionalizing night course, and Ludwig kept going to a public school preparing to try to get a scholarship at a local university.

To keep these plans, Elizabeth gave her daughter and indirectly, her grandsons, the family’s emeralds to be sold and support the family, while Juliet looked for a job. Initially, she found a job as a clothes saleswoman in a small shop of German Jews, near her home. Of course, this was not enough to run a household. She, then, found a job as an accountant [after taking an English course], and practiced at night, when she finished her daily chores. Yet, the money was short to support two children, studies, her mother and the household. She found a job as a secretary of an influential lawyer of London City. Finally, money was even, but enough. On Saturdays and after a working day as a secretary, she worked as a saleswoman at the small shop. During the day, up to 5 o’clock in the afternoon, she was a lawyer’s secretary and after preparing the weekly meals that her children would take to college, she finished doing the chores and took care of her mother who was sick. She also did the accounting of the small shop where she worked at night.

That was how, and only for love, quite a lot of love, this mother raised her two children in foreign lands and even supported her mother and best friend. Both were inseparable and made company to each other, while the boys were out studying. The sacrifice, however, was not in vain. One of her children, Ludwig, got the scholarship to Oxford, where he graduated from King’s College Medical School. Hans, the oldest son, majored in radar technology, got a job at a large multinational company of that area, building airports worldwide, and later, started writing technical books about his specialty. Both drove a successful story, thanks to their personal efforts and an unconditional mother’s love.