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: