Inside Frau Ochmann's flat

Frau Ochmann's nephew let me into her flat today and I took some photos. The flat is a time capsule, stuffed with furniture, clothes, plants, nic nacs and papers.

Here are some of the photos, including the view out of her window onto the cemetery.



More photos to follow!

Frau Ochmann

Frau Liselotte Ochmann (née Major) is another of my next door neighbours. She has lived in the building since 1933, when she moved in with her parents Georg and Klara into the corner fourth floor flat, whose windows look out over Hermann- and Okerstraße. The view is amazing up that high; you can see over the whole cemetery opposite, to far in the distance Treptow and south down Hermannstraße.

In December 2010, Frau Ochmann had to move out because at 88, after her husband's death, she cannot manage on her own any more. She only agreed to move out if she could keep her flat, her home for nearly 80 years. I have only seen her once, as she was being taken to the apartment where she now lives. She is wheelchair bound because she has one leg; her other leg was amputated at some point as it was cancerous. She has never had proper heating installed in the flat, she still has coal burners. Her husband used to look after her, carry her and presumable the coal up the four flights of stairs.

Frau Ochmann's nephew gave me a booklet of postcards and photos that she had meticulously put together. These are the images that you can see here. Her little booklet is quite frankly amazing: it shows the house in 1907, then in the 1950s and then her documentation of the house in the 1970s clearly shows how the renovation of the façade erased all the last evidence of the building's grandeur. Furthermore, she lists who the names of those people who lived in Okerstraße 1. in 1933, as she and her parents moved in.

A postcard with postmark from 1907:

Photos from a neighbour Inge Hopp from the 1950s :

From 1960s:




Documentation of the building being renovated:



In the 1990s:



And finally - who lived in the building in 1933:

Books about the Kiez

My research is really being helped by the great variety of books about the neighbourhood. These are going to keep me busy - I just borrowed them from Helene-Nathan-Bibliothek in Rathaus Neukölln. The Stabi at Potzdamer Platz also has some interesting things in their collection.

Jason, 4 O.G. Rechts

I just interviewed my first neighbour!

Jason Hendaway lives on the same floor as me, but unfortunately is, as I write this, moving out. He's moving to Cologne for work. He's lived in the building for 5 years and so had some interesting things to tell me. He talked about my immediate next door neighbour Frau Ochmann, who has lived in the house all her life, but who now lives in a retirement home on Sonnenallee.

He also told me about a murder that was committed in one of the shops downstairs! He was interviewed by the police when it happened but didn't see anything. I will try to find out whether there are any newspaper articles in the local library....

A trip to the archive at Museum Neukölln

A few weeks ago I visited the archive at Museum Neukölln (http://www.museum-neukoelln.de) and the kind staff there presented me with material about the Schillerkiez. Above are some wonderful postcard images of how the Schillerpromenade once was at around 1910 - 1920, just after the kiez was built. I love the one with the lady flaneur strolling down the promenade, I think it relays the idea of what the architects were trying to achieve with this incredible wide boulevard.

Amazingly the last postcard above was in their records – it shows a glimpse of my building's shop front from 1929 when it was a fur shop (ein Pelzladen - Pelzwaren translates to fur goods). I suppose it is also quite telling about the type of people who lived in the area (people who could afford fur). This is now sparking my imagination: I wonder what other shops were once in this building?

More coming soon! This website is under construction.