Stamboom Veenstra, Dijkstra, Peperkamp en Van den Dobbelsteen » Johann Heinrich Göbel (1905-1996)

Persoonlijke gegevens Johann Heinrich Göbel 

• Hij is geboren op 24 juni 1905 in Amsterdam.
• Feiten:
• (diversen) .

  in 1953 naar USA geëmigreerd

• (diversen) .

  This history is written by Johann Heinrich Gobel, (Henk) born 24 June 1905 in Amsterdam. He died in La Selva Beach, CA. USA on 17 Dec 1996. The history,written in Dutch in 1972, was translated into English by Francisca Horst Goebel.
  
  I feel that I am well qualified to write this history of the Gobels and in particular as it relates to the Gobel Bakery on the Amsteldijk 52, in Amsterdam, as I was involved with the bakery for nearly half a century. I will relate it as my father, Georg Frederik Gobel told it to me.
  
  In the year about 1835, three brothers left Niederwaroldern, Waldeck, Germany and walked and worked their way to Amsterdam, Netherlands. They came on “wanderschaft”, which means they worked a while whenever they ran out of money and then would travel on. Their names were Wilhelm 1804, Johann Heinrich 1816, and Johannes 1819.
  
  The boys were farmers, and had a sister, Catharina Wilhelmina Gobel, living in Amsterdam. She was married to Ernst Luckel, who had a very successful bakery on the Markenplein, located in the Jewish Corner. The boys learned the baker trade in that bakery. Soon, due to the industriousness of these German boys, there were three Gobel bakeries in Amsterdam.
  
  Johann Heinrich (1816), my grandfather, bought a bakery on the Amsteldijk 52, located between the Rustenburgerpadt and the Kuiperspadt, with the help of his father in law, Matthijs Aubertijn. It became his officially on 1 May 1844, having been purchased from Mr. Hendrik Kaartman. In 1799 Mr. Kaartman had bought it from Jan Joost Nederhout, who had been the owner since Sept 1769. On 22 Feb 1718, according to buyers contract documents of Nieuwer Amstel—located in the Rijks Archief Haarlem—Willem Cramer bought the house and property situated outside the Utrechtse Poort on the Amstel River between the Cuypers and Rusteburgerpad, for 1800 guilders. Willem Cramer must have been a good member of the Catholic Church, for in his will dated 9 Nov 1731, he willed the house and ground to the orphanage for girls in Amsterdam.
  
  Hannes (1819) bought a bakery at the corner of the Leidsegracht and Keizersgracht.
  
  Wilhelm (1804) bought a bakery at the corner of the Prinsengracht and Beerenstraat—this bakery still existed in 1972, being run by a great grand child by the name of Muller.
  
  Johann Heinrich(1816) in turn taught his nephew, Georg Friedrich Muller, the baker trade, when he came from the Waldeck area of Germany.
  Johann Heinrich must not always have been a pleasant man because when his nephew Muller was deathly ill he refused to call a doctor and if his wife, Susanna Aubertijn, had not insisted on a doctor, there probably would not have been a Muller bakery.
  
  Matthijs Aubertijn, the father in law of Johann Heinrich, was of Huguenot ancestry. Originally from France---the name there was Aubertin. They must not have had an easy life, as there were many deaths and there were children among the extended family who were in an orphanage in Brussels, Belgium. Matthijs Aubertijn was a retired miller and cattle dealer. He seemed to be able to hang on to his money. He lived on the farm “Krant Salland” along the Amsteldijk. This farm was close to what is now the Trompenburgerstraat. He also distributed the “Oprechte Haarlemsche Courant” (The True Haarlem Newspaper). The papers were not delivered to his house, and he had to go to Haarlem with a horse and buggy to pick them up. That he also had financial disappointments comes to light with the following story. He was the owner of three laborers cottages on the Buijtensingel. Ownership of houses does not always bring happiness. It has always been that way, and will probably always be so. But to make a long story short-- (this is so typical of my Oom Henk telling a story, as I remember him---fgp 2004). One of the tenants was always complaining about the water well on the property---the water was no good, etc. The cleaning of this well was too costly for Matthijs Aubertijn, so he sold the houses. The first thing the new owner did was to have the well cleaned and what did he discover?? A red, copper kettle containing golden Louis d’ors. (French coins). Is this to be a warning to future generations??
  
  Johann Heinrich (1816) married Johanna Aubertijn on 13 Mar 1844. To them were born Willem(1846), Susanna (1850), Elisabeth(1844) and Heinrich(1849). (Oom Henk (1905) does not mention two other children who died young or at birth—fgp 2004)
  
  Willem (1846) became an excellent baker, but he never wanted to have a steady job and did not want to work in the bakery on the Amsteldijk. Off and on he was manager for Eduard Bundels and worked for several other bakeries. He married Miss Botschuiver.
  
  Susanna (1850) married Otto Adolf Gottlieb Kauffmann who left Germany in 1870 because he did not like conditions there. They established and operated a very successful floral business on the Ceintuurbaan. Their rubberstamp said the following: O.A.G. KAUFFMANN, Bloemisterij anno 1875, Amsterdam-Z. Ceintuurbaan 388-390. Telefoon 72-23-00.
  
  Elisabeth (Maria Catharina Elisabeth Johanna , 8 Dec.1844) married a manager of the sugar factory, Spakler and Terrerode. When her husband, whose name was Ringk, suddenly died after falling on the ice, she started in business for herself. For several decades she operated a business in tar products, rope, etc. located at the end of the Overtoom in Amsterdam.
  
  Hein ( Johann Heinrich 1849) became a blacksmith and married a daughter of Borggreve. He had an excellent blacksmith shop on the Amsteldijk near the Hoedemakerspad (van Ostadestraat). Too bad the man could not resist the liquor offered him by the farmers after he shoed their horses, because that became his downfall.
  
  When Johann Heinrich’s (1816) first wife, Johanna, died on 24 Oct 1852 during childbirth, he married with consent of the King, another daughter of father Matthijs Aubertijn on 6 July 1853. Her name was Susanna. Of the seven children born to them, only two lived to adulthood----Johannes Hendrik (1861) and Georg Frederik (1866).
  
  Johann Heinrich (1816) died at the age of 53 on 3 Nov 1868. His wife Susanna was then known as the widow J. H. Gobel. For the next 85 years the bakery was known by the name of “the widow J. H. Gobel”. It was quite an accomplishment for a woman alone to manage a bakery, even if it was not a very large one.
  
  JohannesHendrik (Hendrik)(1861), did not feel like working in the bakery, and left at a young age for Germany where he learned to be a farmer. When he returned from Germany around 1879, he wanted to emigrate to the USA, but he met a Mr. Buhrmann, who was visiting Holland from South Africa, and had built up a large farm in the neighborhood of Ermelo, South Africa.
  Mr. Buhrmann encouraged him to go to South Africa, and Hendrik, liking adventure, departed for that destination soon after. He worked hard there—he had a farm, was a prison warden, a court officer, owner of a mine, was rich and poor, and at last ended up working for a gold mine where he transported 10,000 pound Sterling in gold monthly by horse (in two saddlebags) from the mine district to the Finance Dept. in Johannesburg. He was not allowed to use more than one horse to transport the gold. In the case where his horse was sick, the journey would take longer than a day and he would have to stay the night in a crummy hotel. He would place the saddlebags against the bedroom door and his gun by his bed. Luckily nothing ever happened, but the job did have its risks. He married the daughter of an English Missionary. Her name was Lilly Wiggens. Unfortunately his happy marriage to Lilly ended when the Boerwar started.
  When everything was settled between South Africa and England, Hendrik received a pension. He married Christien Arends, who was a descendant of the preacher, Jan Arends (Hagepreken).
  
  Georg Frederik, (1866), stayed with his widowed mother. The property stake in those days was near the St. Willibrord Church and the bakery was then at Amsteldijk 15, which was in the community of Nieuwer Amstel.
  When the old bakery was torn down in 1887, the little house was exactly 300 years old. The year “1587” was discovered in the beams under the roof. Before 1881, the bakery had the nickname of “Het Oude Laagje” (the Old Low). Around 1860 there must have been a ditch in front of the house, so one had to get to the store over a wooden bridge.
  From a historic viewpoint, the row of old houses of which the bakery was one, had the attention of Dutch artists. This is proven by a drawing L.F.V. Nieuwland made in 1761 of the Inn “De Steene Brug” (the Stone Bridge). This was formerly the estate of Dominee Deknatel, (a minister) which was next to the old bakery.
  
  After Johann Heinrich’s (1816) death in 1868, his wife Susanna took over the management of the bakery, as was mentioned earlier. She hired bakers and fired them, and when she was sometimes without help, she sent little Georg with a note to the “bakers inn” with a request for a decent baker, as she was a widow and had to do everything herself.
  Now mind you, Grandmother Susanna was fully capable of taking care of herself. In 1869, after her husband’s death, a contractor came into the bakery and asked her if it would not be wise to build on the little field behind the bakery. After meeting with him several times, she ordered him to build four low income dwellings with a second story. The houses had their entrance at the Kuiperspad, but were not built parallel to it. For many years after, hundreds of families lived in those dwellings. Eventually, some of the homes were used as workshops or warehouses for woodcarvers, carpenters, chair matters, etc. A cigar maker hand made his cigars there and a flower boy sorted his flowers there to be sold on the street. After 1930, the houses most towards the rear were joined to the bakery. The alley with the four homes often brought a lot of misery, although the people who lived there were mostly not the cause. What I am going to write next is not so outstanding.
  On the birthday celebration of our Queen Juliana, 31 Aug 1810, the leather factory of de Vries next to the alley burned down. (there are more than one error here---either made by the writer or the translator, or both-------Juliana’s birthday is in April—perhaps 1910, her mother, Queen Wilhelmina’s birthday was the 31st of August, around 1880.)It was a total loss, which would have been much worse if the wind had come from another direction and burned down all the homes in the alley. The lot between the Rustenburgerstraat and the Kuiperstraat was sold by the city of Amsterdam to a laundry called the Vlijt. This new building took up much room and made the alley way much narrow. Protesting to the city did not help and Mr. van der Roest, our neighbor, who was a drafting teacher for night classes at the trade school, also protested violently, and when he went to get his approval papers at the city they could not find them, according to his oldest son, John van der Roest, a captain in the Netherlands Army. While writing this story, the old saying comes to my mind---The big steal and the little ones steal, etc.
  My father, Georg, was not a fighter, so he left it as it was. We had heard enough of building lawsuits-----his father in law, de Leeuw, although he was in his rights, lost a building lot lawsuit and that cost him over 12 hundred guilders.
  Later on the alley was absolutely not suited for parking of bread wagons, because they had a wider wheel base.
  
  The bakery was not enlarged until after 1900 thanks to the old fashioned oven, which was so well suited for the baking of whole wheat bread. During the baking process, the oven was nearly entirely sealed off. All the moisture remained in the bread, making it more steamed than baked. The weight of the bread varied from 1 to 12 pounds. This oven was not as good for making white bread.
  
  Georg Frederik (1866) was a real “Nieuw Amsteller” and participated in many sports. One of these was ice skating—especially “style skating”, more like figure skating. In the winter when the Amstel River and the canals were frozen over, people would line up on the bridges to watch him skate. Skating was an inexpensive sport in which everyone could participate, as long as you stayed on your feet. Another favorite sport of his was sharp shooting, which in addition to costing a lot of money also took up a lot of time. He was champion of North Holland. He never drank and was well built, which was the reason for his success in this sport. However, being a baker and a sharp shooter was not a good combination of using one’s time and means well.
  
  There were fat and lean years, and after his marriage to Wilhelmina Georgina de Leeuw in August of 1898, thirteen children were born to their union. A decline in the bakery business began in 1914 with the start of World War I. The Netherlands government impounded all the grain. The Gobel Bakery had the reputation of always using the best quality grain from the Haarlemmermeer Polder and the Anna Paulowna Polder in the province of Zeeland. The machines from their own granary had to be sold and even though Georg worked like a horse, the misery could not be avoided. The price of bread was regulated by the government, but the quality was bad. The fact that the bakery did not sell pastry or cookies did not help their financial situation. The reason for this was because three doors further, at Amsteldijk 55, there was a pastry shop owned by Mr. Kragt. The Gobels did not think it morally right to start competing with them by selling pastries. They considered this unfair as they had been friends for years.
  
  The bakery baked all the bread for the Belgian fugitives who were given shelter in Holland, but there were so many expenses involved that there was not much of a profit margin.
  
  It is understandable that through the years, the Gobel Bakery took care of a lot of people’s daily bread, especially since they delivered door to door all over Amsterdam. When the Jan Steenstraat was completed, a very musical family, Belinfante, moved into one of the new homes. For the bakery this was something new, because the family ordered a special Christmas bread (Kerstbrood or Stollen) to be baked for them every Saturday. This enabled Georg Gobel to perfect his skill at making Christmas bread. There were very few bakers in Amsterdam who could compare with him in that skill. Rightfully the bakery could advertise on their wrapping paper with the words “Specialty in Saksisch Thuringer Weihnachtstollen”. In 1924 there was a big bakery exposition in Haarlem and the bakery entered their Kerstbrood and got third prize. Georg Gobel was satisfied with his third prize, but the salesman for the H.H. Hocker Flour Mill Company in Heemstede said that his entry could have easily won the first prize, but bakery Franken, who had worked so hard for the exposition could not have been sent home with a third prize.
  Now that I am writing about the Hocker Company---after WWI, the Gobel Bakery did not have its own mill and bought their wheat flour from the Hocker Company. The salesman had an easy sale of flour to bakeries every time he mentioned that the Gobel Bakery bought their flour from their mill.
  The old fashioned wood oven belonged to the inventory and therefore was a source of free cigars for the baker and his employees. A Mr. Brakel owned a cigar store in the Rustenburgerstraat. He made the cigars and every week dried about 20 boxes of cigars on top of the oven, always leaving a few sacks of cigars for the bakery. Next to being a source of income, the old oven was also a source of chagrin, dust and smoke. During all those years it consumed a lot of different varieties of woods. Part of “Oud Rosenburg” in the Meer was burned in it. Every year a turf ship delivered 80,000 turfs from Vinkeveen. They were stored in the attic of the house in the rear. To check if de Vree delivered the exact number of turf, I, Henk, the writer of this story, had to sit on a chair behind the bakery door. Every time a basket came in I marked it on a slate. With the sixth basket I striped off the 5.
  During WWII, acquiring enough burning material became a real problem. Someone who worked with the Bakery Committee, had the courage to say that 16 pounds of coal was enough for 1 sack of flour. Luckily the Fuel Committee allowed us 47,500 turf for the old oven. Modern hot air ovens are burning while the bread is baking, but the old fashioned oven had to be heated first---cleaned when the fire was out---cooled down for a few hours, then bread could be baked in it two or three times. Wood chavings for the oven were supplied by furniture factories ‘tWoonhuijs and Brunot, the airplane factory of Trompenburg, and the saw mills of Schouten and Vermeulen.
  
  At least every three months, my father had to make repairs to the old oven. Either the oven floor had to be replaced or some bricks had fallen from the ceiling. The fire cement that was available in Holland could not withstand the terrific heat of the oven. All this came to an end, when one of many hobos who came into the store in the early morning hours asked for a bun. My father was always generous and would freely give them bread. He would talk to them, ask where they were from and what they had done before to earn a living. This particular man said he had worked at the smelters in Germany. My father asked him what kind of cement they used when they had to repair the ovens. The man knew a lot and told him the cement came from Emmerich. Ten days later my father and oldest brother left by train for Emmerich. They found the cement factory, which was owned by a lady, and ordered 20 sacks of fire cement.
  The bakery also had a problem with a wet cellar, located under the kitchen. No one had a solution for drying it out. Another of the early morning visitors at the bakery store, told my father that he used to specialize in constructing basements. Upon inspecting the wet cellar he came to the conclusion that there was no air circulation and therefore the moisture never dried.
  
  One of the faithful bakery customers before 1920 was Cornelus de Gelder, better known as “Had je me Maar”. ( loosely translated as “Try and get me”.) Whenever he came in, I would see how long it would take me to get the shocks off his electro magnets. He was also a ventriloquist, and would demonstrate this by telling the cleaning lady that she was hiding a child under the floor and the child wanted to get out. There was always something going on in the Gobel Bakery!
  
  My mother also helped in the bakery store now and then, and there were always people who offered things for sale. One day a merchant came with soap. My mother said “no”. The merchant replied “How can you refuse to buy from me when I just endangered my life to come to your store?” When my mother enquired how his life had been endangered he replied “I arrived by ferryboat from the Tolstraat across the Amstel river”. Another time a man was selling umbrellas----my mother told him she never went out, upon which he said: “Buy one for the showers at home!”
  A fruit merchant told my mother that his wife had just had a baby girl. After telling her the same story three times a year, she did not believe him any more. In reality, my mother was a good Christian woman, who gave help when needed and said “Why am I different from other people?” Of course sometimes you buy when you are taken in and really don’t need the item at all. This happened to me when a Jew with a basket of apples came in one afternoon. I told him I did not need anything. He said “I have to get rid of them, my wife is at the hospital.” He was not lying as his wife ran a fruitstand near the Binnen Gasthuis Hospital.
  
  Around the turn of the century, socialism gained a foothold, although there were no benefits and low wages. There were several bakery strikes---in 1903, and 1908-1911. In 1911 a strike started at Bundels and my father was involved as he was a member of the bakery owners organization called “De Voorzorg”. To break this strike it was decided to help Bundels out and keep on baking. My father found a Mr. Rekers and together they finished baking the bread in the Bundel Bakery. They had a good time doing it and did not have to bring a lunch as there were plenty of buns with ham, bottles of beer and pots of coffee. This party did not last long because the Gobel Bakery employees also went on strike. They would come down to eat and drink, but refused to work. This of course could not go on as my father always paid his workers more than was customary. The bakers who lived in house were fired, and my father did as much as he could himself in order to keep up with the demand for bread. After the strike they hired new employees of which I still remember two names, “Willem and Hein”.
  
  The word “sabotage” had not come into vogue----but still questionable things were going on with the bakery. Although there was always dust and smoke from the oven, the bakery was kept reasonably clean. There were no bugs except for the ever present silverfishes until one day we discovered roaches. My father was very suspicious as to the origin of the roaches and made a thorough search of the bakery. He found an empty bottle under the oven that had been filled with those dirty insects. One of the bakers had put it there to pester his boss. The entire back of the building that housed the bakery was cleaned with gas and that was the end of the plague. Although my father paid higher wages there was still dishonesty among his bakers. Upon receiving a tip from a former foreman, it was discovered that Willem and Hein were stealing from the bakery. They were arrested. My father tried to avoid a courtcase but that was impossible. When the case was tried half the courtroom was filled with bakers helpers. This was told to me years later by a part time baker who had the nickname of “Scheve Willem”. (Crooked Willem—he was a hunchback.) My father, Georg, was by nature not “after the money” and if at any time a worker was dishonest, the problem was always solved in a pleasant way. At my father’s funeral someone came to the cemetery to pay his last respects. He had to be supported by his relatives as he was crying like a child. He and my father had had quite some experiences when he was younger. It was not my father’s habit to cheat somebody in business, so I am privileged to say that I am proud of my father the way he was. He always said “Think about one thing----circumstances make a man”. Although circumstances were often very difficult for him and my mother, they always stuck to honesty in business.
  
  As I am still homesick for my beloved “Amstel”, I cannot forget to write that in the years before the Labor Law was established the students of the rowing club “Nereus”(there were always rowing competitions going on on the Amstel River) would often come to the bakery in the early morning to buy fresh wheat buns or whole wheat buns with raisins.
  When my father talked with those strong young men, he could not resist testing their strength. He would say, “I believe you are strong, but you cannot lift from the counter as much as I can. Then it was always “Get the weights and the skeeter”. At the end of the shelf he put about 13 pounds and father Gobel lifted it with his right hand from the counter. Then the rowers had to try it and I never saw a student who could.
  
  One of our customers was the well-known portret painter Martin Monnikendam. He had his workshop in the old Ruiterstraat. My father, in his wealthy years, desired to assist the arts. In 1911 he asked him to paint a portret of himself and my mother. When the portraits were hung in the living room, a neighbor lady, Sr. Bruggink of the City Health Department came in to see them and the first thing she said was: “Let me get a piece of cotton out of my bag, Gobel, your nose is too red!”
  
  The Dutch Reformed Church in Amsterdam handed out bread tokens to needy families who were eligible. The Gobel Bakery was assigned to furnish bread for these tokens. The bakery participated in this program for over 70 years. The bakery also did not abandon their suppliers. For 80 years they bought their milk from the farm “Welna”. This farm was situated on the Amsteldijk and was visited once by Lodewijk Napoleon.
  
  The bakery had all kinds of customers. During WWI, Mrs. Lissone entered the bakery. She lived on a big estate on the Amstel river and her husband was the owner of well known travel agencies. She asked---“Gobel, do you put alum in the bread?” My father asked her why we should do that and she replied “to shrink our stomachs!” My father set her mind at ease. Around 1930 we had among our customers several promoters for a certain life style that was introduced by the Swiss Dr. Bircher Benner. Soon we were asked to bake Bircher Benner bread. We received a booklet from Zurich every month called “Der Wendepundt im Leben unnd im Leiden”. (“The Turning Point in Life and in Suffering”.)
  When in 1932, Dr. Bircher Benner visited the family Booy of Boissevan and had dinner with them he declared “This is the best bread I have eaten thus far that is made from my recipe”.
  
  I could write a lot about the manner in which the bakery tried to keep their faithful customers and serve them, but that would get to be too much. However, I will give one example. Professor Kleijweg de Zwaan did not want to miss out on his whole wheat bread whenever he went on vacation on his yacht, so we mailed it to him in Vollenhoven. Every week we sent the van Hall family in Hattem their order of Bircher Benner bread via van Gend &Loos (UPS).
  
  There were times when the bakery had serious difficulties with the Labor Law. Father Gobel took great care in the preparation of his whole wheat bread. The dough was prepared with a minimum of yeast. This meant the rising process took longer than normal. Small bakeries were not allowed to start operating until 5 am, but larger bakeries could begin a few hours earlier. As my father started hours earlier, there was always the fear of visits from the Labor Officer and the police, and the family suffered much because of this law. My father once declared that he was tempted to do harm to people who prevented others from earning a living for their family. Abolishing night work and everything that has to do with it was made a law by a minister named Talma, who at that time was a senator. It would have been much better to introduce a law with a 45 hour workweek. The way the law was, we could not sell fresh bread until 10 am. But they gave permits to sell to hotels at 8 am.
  There was a bakery in Amsterdam that was doing very well. It had the name of “Our Principle”. Their principle was to do away with the night shift. The president of the bakery was the very sympathetic Mr. Hutter. His brother was the owner of the optical shops in Amsterdam. Mr. Hutter could never have guessed that by doing away with night labor would also be the downfall of the bakery that he managed. Later, Pasquini wrote in the “Telegraaf”----“Why can’t the bakers work at night? How could the harbor of Amsterdam manage if they could not work at night? How could a newspaper be brought in circulation if there were no night editors? Is there not a ruling possible that people can have a fresh roll at breakfast?”
  
  In 1929, I, the writer of this story, had been working for a first class Insurance Co. on the Heerengracht for over nine years. I made 85 guilders a month for 4 years without a raise. The work made me nervous and I was thinking hard to ask my father if he could use me in the bakery. I was hired on by my father, even though that last year I was given a raise of 40 guilders.
  
  One evening when the difficulties with the Labor Law got too serious, I went to the home address of the Inspector of Labor. He lived in the neighborhood of the Mr. P.C. Arntzeniusweg. After I rang the bell, a friendly gentleman opened the door. He was not taller than 5 ft. and wore glasses with half lenses. I told him who I was and he invited me in. After I had told him the difficulties of the Gobel Bakery, he said “You don’t have to tell me anything—I know it all.” When I told him that our whole wheat bread was better than from other bakeries he answered “I know that, I always eat bread from your bakery, my son picks it up when he comes home from the office”. After talking to him for a while, he gave me the advise to build another oven for white bread. I protested that we did not have the money for that and he gave me the address of a good oven builder, who would build one on terms. That is what happened, and in Sept 1930 I began working full time in the bakery.
  
  In the years between 1930 and 1940 we had French, German and English speaking customers. Some of these I will expand on. It must have been in 1932 when a moving van was unloading in the Zuider Amstellaan. The first thing they unloaded was a wine barrel. As it was my job to find new customers, I went over there. Since I still knew some French from my school years I could communicate with them. The last thing I said was “Choque jour dix heurs” (Every day at 10 o’clock). A day later we delivered a so called American loaf of bread. The next day, Mr. himself came to the door. He was very tall and he wore a French barret. His wife was a very elegant, little Francaise. He told me that was not the bread they wanted. We desire a bread a la flute. This was the family Koeley. Mr. Koeley was the vice consul for France. Another foreign customer lived on the Valeriusterras. He was an important German employee and his name was Mr. Schmidt. Whenever I delivered there and Frau Schmidt answered the door she would talk to me and usually end the conversation by saying “Our Fuhrer does not want war”. She was a steady buyer of our cookies, which were always sold in cans. For these cans we charged a deposit of 10 cents. Frau Schmidt hired a new girl to help her with the housekeeping and the girl asked our delivery man, Herman van der Hengel, for a can of cookies, he added 10 cents for the can. The girl then said “Wait a moment” and came back with ten empty cans and said “Now we are rid of them”. The next day Frau Schmidt answered the door and asked Herman to return all those empty cans, as she had never seen this kind of packaging in Germany. We also had a customer who first lived in the Tintoretto straat and later in the Herman Gorter straat. His name was Mr. Willis and he was the American Consul and was married to a Dutch girl. I never saw this man wearing a coat or a hat, even in bad weather. He must have been very strong. WWII was in progress for some time and Mr. Willis and his family were still in Amsterdam, until my brother, Christiaan, told me that Mr. Willis had had an auction and sold everything, even his oriental rugs and he was very satisfied as all the goods had sold for much more than he had paid for them.
  
  During WWII when bread delivery was impossible due to the stealing from the wagons (later in this story it speaks of deliveries going on anyway), Mr. Timbler, Director of the G.G.D., came into my office and asked if I knew a solution for him to get his bread. He had a house full of people in the Koningslaan. (This must mean that he had Jewish people in hiding?fgp) I found a solution. Next to the bakery lived a sister of the G.G.D. Her name was Annie de Boer. When she came home in the afternoon, she brought her handbag with coupons into the bakery and in the morning she picked up the bag and delivered it filled with bread to her Director on the Nieuwe Achtergracht. She was happy to be doing something for this fine man. In general the bakery did not have many Jewish customers. These people got their bread from bakeries that worked under Rabinical (sp?) inspection and many bought their bread from the Co-op. In 1942 the Germans prohibited the Jews from shopping outside the hours of between two and four, and our store became very busy during those two hours.
  The terrible thought that these people were murdered in an awful way, will always be a sad page in the history of the Netherlands. Luckily there were also Jewish people who by going under ground, averted this hell. I will mention one case. One of our long time customers was the family van Dantzig. After many moves they lived in the Richard Wagner straat. The employee who delivered the bread during the occupation noticed one day that Mrs. van Dantzig had blond hair and a few days later no one seemed to live there any more. Mr. van Dantzig, who was a painter, had found a hiding place for him and his family on the Veluwe (eastern part of Holland). He kept himself busy with the manufacturing of false identity cards and showed he was not afraid. Honor to this courageous man.
  
  During this terrible war period, we had to cover the large store windows with big panels in the evening, so there would not be any light shining to the outside. If you had to go out, you had to turn on a blue light. One Saturday evening, my brother who always came home from his deliveries after 8 p.m., forgot to turn on the blue light and a German soldier stepped inside. I was always the scapegoat when there were difficulties in the bakery, so when he asked for the boss they showed him to the bakery where I was in the tub taking my weekly bath. All the employees had left and the bakery was the only place with hot water available for a bath. Suddenly I heard a voice behind me saying “Are you the manager?”. All I could say was “yes”. Then he asked if I knew that the front door light was shining outside. I answered him in correct German that I did not know this because I was in the bathtub. He asked me for my name, and with my name being Johann Heinrich Gobel, thanks to my German grandfather, the German did not give me any difficulties and left. Fourteen days later I had to appear in court and was fined five guilders, after I hesitantly admitted to the facts. His honor told me that a hotelkeeper with 500 windows in his hotel was responsible for every window being blacked out.
  
  Since our German occupiers seemed to need lots of things—they decided that they wanted dogs---but they had to be large dogs. Soon the announcement was made that all dog owners and their dogs had to come to the Stadium. Many people were crying as they were walking with their dogs towards the stadium along the Amstelveenseweg. The Germans could not use small dogs and the Dutch creatively took their entrepreneurial spirit and made this to their advantage. One man was standing on one of the corners of the Amstelveenseweg with a small dog that he was renting out for five guilders. He would keep their large dog until the owner came back with a certificate stating they were allowed to keep their dog. The Germans were starting to catch on when the same little dog kept showing up with different owners, but a smart Dutchman said “Oh that was the dog’s brother”. If one could prove that the dog was needed to guard property then they could keep the dog, but they had to ask for a permit.
  
  We had a German shepherd dog named Herta. The dog hated uniforms but even more, motorcycles. One day a German soldier passed by on a BMW motorcycle with a sideboard. His speed was 20 km at the most. Herta jumped on top of the soldier and nearly tore off his pants. He stopped his motorcycle and asked the spectators if they knew who this dog belonged to. Of course no one would fess up that they knew and the German started to shoot at Herta, who disappeared quickly into the bomb shelter at the side of the Amstel river. The German thought “now I’ve got you”, but Herta knew the way better than the shooting German and got out on the other side, while the German was inside. One of my brothers told me that they were shooting at Herta. I ran outside and there was the soldier in his underpants. I asked him what was the matter and he told me what had happened. I took him inside to prevent things from getting worse and gave him my old motorcycle pants. He made some objections because it was not the right color, and said he would come back. Ten days later he came back with somebody from the Field police. The man had a terribly sour expression on his face. I let them in. Herta was asleep on the floor. They came to return my pants and the bakery had to pay 45 guilders for his new pants. Before they left, the motorcycle rider told me that it had been his first time on that motorcycle and that is why he was driving so slowly. Herta did not live long after this. She suddenly disappeared—probably kidnapped by a dog butcher, and probably ending up in a pot as goat meat.
  
  Not only were dogs stolen, but horses also disappeared. In the Kuiperstraat was a dairy from J. van der Linden. A horse disappeared from their stable and the story went around that by Tuinman, the milkman on the other side of the river, one customer asked another “Did Albert taste good?. Albert was the name of the horse that had disappeared. One of our neighbors was too smart for the horse thieves. That was old Kerkwijk—he lived with his wife in the Kuiperstraat #3. He took care of the yard and was a little involved with the black market. Whenever he came home with his horse, he walked her through the living room and kitchen and out to the center court where he put her in the shed. This same horse gave me and my wife a sleepless night during the hunger winter of 1944. One night my wife awoke me with the remark that there must be burglars. Indeed it sounded as if they were forcing the doors open with big hammers. I dressed myself (we slept two stories above the bakery) and went down the stairs with a battery light in one hand and a knife in the other. When I was in the bakery, I heard nothing anymore. I did not trust things, however, and went out the front door to inspect the back side of the bakery, but I could see nothing wrong. The entire time I was gone, my wife sat on the stairs with her knees shaking. We went back to bed but five minutes later the noise started all over again. I went downstairs again and this time heard the rattling of a chain which was coming out of the shed by Kerkwijk. The horse had gotten loose and was kicking with his rear shoes against the wall of the bakery. The next day I talked to Kerkwijk and he said he had not heard a thing. Another neighbor came along and said to Kerkwijk that he must sleep with ear plugs.
  
  During the war the bakery did everything to make life for our customers a little more pleasant. I begged the firms of Verkade and Hille for ontbijtkoek (yummy spicy breakfast cakes) and rusks. Sometimes Pijnenburg would have some also. Since we had also sold pastries before the war, we were allotted some sugar and fat once a month. We used this to bake cookies and then distributed them fairly among our districts and our customers. This was nerve wracking work because most of our customers expected more than we allotted them. Even so, our customer base increased continually.
  
  At the time that I am writing this, the bakery does not exist any more so there is no need for advertising its virtues. Nevertheless I want to relate the following incident. One of our delivery men stopped at a customer’s door and their doctor happened to be there. He looked out the window and saw the wagon with “Gobel” on it. He asked the lady if Gobel was her baker and when she replied in the affirmative he said “Try to keep them because their bread is the best in the entire area”.
  
  There is a saying that goes “appreciation is a flower that only grows in the cemetery”. This saying was not true on the first of May in 1944. “War Year!” That was the hundred year anniversary of when the bakery became known as the “Gobel Bakery”. That day was a truly unforgettable day in the history of the bakery. The support from friends and customers was astounding with flowers, flowers and more flowers being delivered throughout the day. Letters came from all over and one of the delivery men was given money in his district to donate to the celebration. A committee of ladies presented father and mother Gobel a Brandenburg etching, with the owner of the Rialto Theater doing the presentation. Mr. Dumee, in a short speech, showed his appreciation for the efforts the bakery had made throughout the years, and especially these bad years of war, to serve their customers. He ended his speech as follows: There is a proverb that says “At the end of the market, one gets to know the merchant”, but I would like to change that to: In time of war one gets to know its suppliers”. The day before the celebration (30 April) I called police headquarters and asked an officer whom I knew if I could display the flag on the first of May. He asked which flag. I of course said the Dutch Tricolor and he advised me not to do it, or I might be taken to jail that night.
  
  It really is a miracle how the people of Amsterdam survived that hunger winter of 1944-45. The occupation forces only allowed 400 grams of bread a week. We could not make deliveries. At 5 a.m. there was already a line of customers waiting from the bakery to the Rustenburgerstraat. Because we were not supplied with much flour, we had to distribute customer cards to our faithful store customers and delivery area customers who came from a long way, so they would not come for naught. The only other people who received a card would be someone who had just moved into the neighborhood. It was remarkable to see how the customers carried their burden in such a fine way. Since the customers were waiting in the cold so early in the morning, I would open the store at 6 a.m. with the request to come in one by one. We only had candle light as there was no electricity and therefore we had to mix the dough by hand. That was not too difficult, but once we put the dough in the ovens an employee had to pump on a bike to create light in a bicycle lamp for the oven.
  
  Friendship in business is not always rewarding especially not in the way we would like it.
  World War II was only two months under way, when the ingredients for making bread were already only available with coupons. We had always been faithful customers of Unielever, so after the restrictions became known, I paid a visit to their office on the Lijnbaansgracht, and asked if they could give me a few cases of shortening without a coupon. Their reply was “Sir, this is a large enterprise, we cannot help you.” I made a resolution that I would never buy anything from their “large enterprise” in the future.
  In the meantime, the bakery had become a member of the General Bakeries Cooperation.
  This was a purchasing cooperation, whom we enjoyed working with. They faithfully worked with the Dutch bakers and when the feared C.C.D. came by to check on irregularities in the company, they handed them accounting ledgers that only confused them and they were none the wiser for any irregularities that might be occurring.
  
  After the war, the sales rep. from Unielever, once again appeared in the bakery wanting to shake hands and take our orders and I was not afraid to give him a piece of my mind and chew him out royally. We had not seen him for five years, not even to bring a small gift of sausages for our family. They must have given everything to the Germans. Later, the manager of Unielever was prosecuted for embezzling 500,000 ration cards. But as always, you cannot win. The General Bakeries Cooperation signed large contracts with Unielever, because they were given better deals.
  
  After the liberation in May of 1945, we were given a shipment of 10,000 lbs of cookies
  for distribution. After some time enough flour was distributed, making the sales of the bakery increase rapidly. We received more than 100 sacks of flour a week, whereas when the war started we had only 40 sacks a week. This situation could not last long, as the bakery was not suited for this quantity and the delivery men could not keep up with the deliveries. There was also more food available for the people.
  
  Something else of interest happened. The larger bakeries, who had done nothing special for their customers during the war, all of a sudden were attracting all kinds of customers because they had a large variety of cookies, rusks, etc. available. There was no question in my mind what those bakeries did with their allotments of fat and sugar during the war.
  
  One case in point is that at the Staalkade was located a small office of the Flour Transport Co. of H. van Raamsdonk. I don’t think any Amsterdammer realized the importance of this tiny office. This office had complete control of the entire distribution of flour for all of Amsterdam during that horrible winter of 1944. If there ever would be a “medal” awarded for war services performed by the middle class, these people would be the first ones to deserve it. One day, when I came to bring my allotment of flour to Raamsdonk, their telephone was ringing and someone was calling----“This is Corporation such and such and we do not have any flour”. The reply from Raamsdonk was---“You do not get anything, as you got 4,500 lbs. yesterday”. Such things made you think!
  
  We had a pastry baker, who was hired to work for us at the start of the war. Before that he had worked in the kitchen of a Rowing Club. One day he came to me crying. He was afraid I would lay him off as the Germans were not giving us any more supplies for cookies and pastries. He was supposed to be in Vienna, and was living between his wife’s and parents’ homes. His wages could not be shown on our books. These risks and many more were taken by me. The man stayed in our employ! If the Germans had discovered these discrepancies, I probably would have died in a concentration camp.
  
  After the war ended, we found out that the bigger part of our employees were Communist minded and thus the good relationship we had among employer and employees was lost.
  
  It is not so strange for employees to strike for better wages, social security etc. but that employers go on strike is a rare occurrence. This is just what happened when on 18 Aug, 1947, the government under leadership of Mr. Mansholt began to lower the subsidy on the price of flour that was used in the bakery. This action did not even last a week, as there were bakers who wanted to be on the good side of Mr. Mansholt. He had made a big mistake in figuring the price of bread, and by lowering the price, the profit on a loaf of bread became too small. Mansholt had dealt in many illegalities during the war, and was well known for stupidities inflicted by him upon the Dutch people. When this Mansholt accepted a well paying job in Brussels and left the Dutch with all the results of his mistakes, he was severely run over the coals by a well known Dutch newspaper columnist. Relatives of Manshold who emigrated to Australia changed their last name, thus showing how “well loved” this name was in Holland.
  
  One more example of ill management by government is as follows. For home delivery, the government allowed the bakery to charge 1 cent more per loaf of bread. The government refused to change this rate, even during a severe winter when extra men were needed to pull the wagons through deep snow and the costs of bread increased by 5 cents a loaf. Even a layman could see that bakeries who delivered bread were operating at a great loss. After my departure to America, at least 500 small bakeries had to close their doors. These hard working middleclass bakers could not stay in business which was for 50 % to blame on the mismanagement of the Dutch Government after the war years.
  
  The Gobel Bakery could not exist longer than 110 years at the Amsteldijk, as many fundamental mistakes were being made that were not easy to change.
  
  Number one: The bakery was no longer in a good location. Only 20 percent of sales were made over the counter and the remainder had to be home delivered, thereby creating high delivery costs.
  
  Number two: When father and mother Gobel died the division of the estate caused great difficulties. The bakery had been a corporation for a long time with the parents holding the majority of the shares. Most of the children had worked hard in the bakery while they were young. They thereby earned an allowance and board and room and clothing money.
  
  Number three: The notary in charge of the estate, was not the right person for the job. He did not handle the affairs in a strong manner. Mr. Jan Berend van der Berg, who at one time was the notary for the Gobel family, had confided in me at one time that he hoped he would not be the notary in charge upon the passing of Mr. and Mrs. Gobel, as he was well aware of the circumstances and the difficulties involved.
  
  In the end, every one of the children involved considered themselves to be the boss of the bakery. My wife and I could only see trouble ahead and emigration as the only solution. This step was a difficult one to take, especially by the writer of this short story.
  I had lived and worked at the bakery on the Amsteldijk for 47 years, and I cried like a baby when the radio played a certain song recorded by patients in a Dutch sanatarium in Davos, Switzerland. I asked myself at that time “Why do I have to leave this place?” Now I know better.
  
  To force a solution of the sale of the bakery, I asked the bakery committee to appoint an accountant who was impartial and who could make a report on the value and the conditions of the Gobel firm. In the last meeting that I was able to attend, the accountant reported that the value of the shares was 123% and that if the family was interested he had an immediate buyer for the shares. The sale would have meant a discharge of employment for some of the relatives. I did not like that idea, but how the bakery could go on existing, I did not know either.
  The shares totaled 15,000 guilders, and the sales price for the business, inventory, buildings etc. would be 18,000 guilders. The members of the family could not go along with this, as they figured there should be more value to a business that had existed for so long and with the buildings and all. What they forgot was that there was a large second mortgages on the buildings. This second mortgage was loaned by Amstelveen and after the war we had to pay 1200 guilders for war damage to the buildings.
  
  That I finally wrote this story is due mostly to the fact that I broke my left arm and a few ribs when I fell off a ladder.
  
  La Selva Beach, Santa Cruz County
  California, U.S.A. 1972
  
  Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

• (overlijden) .

  Johann Henk Gobel Services will be Saturday for Johann Henk Gobel of La Selva Beach, who died Dec. 17 of natural causes. He was 91. Born in the Netherlands, Mr. Gobel moved to the United States in 1953 and settled in Santa Cruz County three years later. Before coming to America, he worked in his family's bakery in Amsterdam. Mr. Gobel continued his work as a baker in Santa Cruz County at Valley Queen Bakery in Freedom and the Pajaro Valley Bakery in Watsonville. Mr. Gobel was a member of the La Selva Beach Community Church since moving to La Selva Beach in 1962. He loved baking pastries for the Christmas season, fishing near the cement ship at Seacliff Beach and gardening. Mr. Gobel is survived by a daughter, Gepke Strobel of Prune-dale; two sons, John Gobel of Tennessee and Frank Gobel of Mt. Her-mon; nine grandchildren; and one great-grandson. Preceding him in death were his wife of 50 years, Petronella Gobel in 1993, and a son, Peter Gobel in 1994. Services will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at La Selva Beach Community Church. Contributions are preferred to a favorite charity.

• Hij is overleden op 17 december 1996 in La Selva Beach, Santa Cruz County, California (USA), hij was toen 91 jaar oud.
• Een kind van Georg Frederik Göbel en Wilhelmina Georgina de Leeuw
• Deze gegevens zijn voor het laatst bijgewerkt op 4 december 2011.

Gezin van Johann Heinrich Göbel

Hij is getrouwd met Petronella Hendrika Heidenrijk.

Zij zijn getrouwd op 19 mei 1943 te Amsterdam, hij was toen 37 jaar oud.

Kind(eren):

1. (Niet openbaar)
2. Johann Heinrich Göbel  1945-1998
3. Peter Hendrik Göbel  1949-1994 
4. (Niet openbaar)

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