Marianne Gottlieb

Marianne Gottlieb, remembered as Mr. Bubis’s most faithful employee, is associated with both a hazardous episode in the Bubis family’s exile and the quiet, uneven work of rebuilding a life after the war. The account credits her with helping Bubis and his wife cross the Dutch border, then follows her return to his household in Hamburg, her recovery from extreme poverty, and her continuing efforts to be useful to him. Her story is told through acts of practical loyalty, but also through uncertainty: even the details of the border crossing survive as competing versions rather than a settled record.

Before and During Exile

Gottlieb had worked at the Bubis household until 1933. She was described as a respectable-looking woman, about Mr. Bubis’s age or perhaps a little older, and as his most faithful employee. That loyalty acquired particular significance when Bubis and his wife fled toward the Dutch border. Gottlieb was said to have driven the car that carried them there; after border police searched it and found nothing, the couple continued to Amsterdam. The means by which Bubis and his wife passed the border remained unknown. In every version of the story, however, the feat was credited to Gottlieb. The narrative therefore gives her a central place in the family’s escape while preserving a gap around what precisely happened: her importance is stable, but the mechanics of the crossing are not.

Return to Hamburg and Recovery

When Bubis returned to Hamburg in September 1945, he had lost his wife, and Gottlieb was living in dire poverty. He brought her to live with him. Her recovery came gradually: first, she regained her sanity. One morning she recognized Bubis as her former employer but said nothing. Later, after Bubis returned from city hall, where he was involved in political affairs, he found supper prepared and Gottlieb waiting at the table. That evening is described as a happy one for them, though it also brought the story back to exile and bereavement. Supper ended with the account of Bubis’s exile and his wife’s death, and with tears for Mrs. Bubis’s lonely grave in London’s Jewish cemetery. Domestic care thus becomes a setting in which personal loss is neither resolved nor left behind; the memory of the absent wife remains present in the life Gottlieb and Bubis are trying to resume.

Work, Setbacks, and Continued Loyalty

As Gottlieb’s health improved, she moved into a small flat overlooking a damaged park that came alive again in spring. Bubis accepted her wish for independence, even though he did not share it. When she soon asked for help finding work, he made her his secretary, a fitting position for someone who could not bear idleness. Her recovery was not steady. Although she rarely spoke about her difficult experiences, her health sometimes failed abruptly, and at other times her mind faltered. The effects reached into Bubis’s working life: on one occasion, when he needed to meet English authorities at a particular place, Gottlieb sent him to the other end of the city. She also scheduled appointments with Nazis who wanted to offer their services to Hamburg, and at times fell asleep at her desk, her head resting on the blotter. These episodes show the limits of her return to ordinary work without diminishing the persistence of her attachment to Bubis.

The Archives and Narrative Significance

Bubis eventually found Gottlieb a new job in the Hamburg archives, supposing that books, files, and papers would better suit her. The change of workplace did not end her erratic periods: the narrative says they continued there in equal measure, alongside her pragmatic activity. Nor did a new job loosen her loyalty. She still visited Bubis during hours taken from sleep, in case she could be of use to him. Gottlieb’s passage from household employee to refugee helper, dependent companion, secretary, and archive worker makes her life a small-scale record of rupture and attempted repair. Her story connects the incomplete evidence of the border crossing with the incomplete recovery that follows the war. When Bubis finally tires of politics and city affairs and decides to revive his publishing house, Gottlieb’s continuing presence belongs to the wider effort to begin again, though the account does not specify what role she will have in the publishing venture.