| AdminHistory | John Konsbruck spent his early life in Stepney and worked for the Library Services in Tower Hamlets. The following was written and kindly supplied by Ann Konsbruck, John's wife. She has also provided the contextual information for the items in the collection.
'He only had a few mementos from his early life, which I think was pretty hard, and which is making his family history research quite difficult. Most of what I have pieced together since he died is based on my memories of what he told me and some entries in a couple of his old diaries.
His mother Katarina, known as Katy, was born into a middle class Jewish family in Vienna in 1916. The family moved at some point to Koblenz in the Rhineland, but following the rise of the Nazis, Katarina escaped via Hamburg to England in October 1939 John was subsequently born in St Albans in February 1940. I am aware of one other relative who later moved to South Africa and is now deceased, but the little evidence we have suggests the rest of the family perished in the Holocaust.
Katarina became a dressmaker and after the war they moved to Fashion Street, in Stepney. I don't know which primary school he went to but I remember he said it had a playground on the roof. He later went to Raines Foundation Grammar School.
John's mother contracted multiple sclerosis when he was about 16/17 and I believe he lived for a short time with a friend's family, possibly David Rosenberg at 318 Kingsland Road. As he was considered too young to look after himself, although acknowledged to be quite capable, he eventually went to Westwood, a Jewish Boys Home in Snakes Lane, Woodford. Katarina died in 1960 at Tooting Beck Hospital and is buried in Plashet Cemetery.
His friendship with Con [Cornelius McCarthy] obviously began in the library and I remember him telling me of the concerts that they went to in Toynbee Hall, Royal Festival Hall, etc.
He married in 1962, had two children and moved to Wales although sadly the marriage failed. He eventually became librarian to the Alex Gordon Partnership, an architectural practice, where I later became assistant librarian; we married, had a son and had twenty five very happy years until his sudden death in 1999.
John always said he was not Jewish but just grew up in a Jewish area and had lots of Jewish friends, which we now know was not true. However I have since learned from someone of a similar background that this was quite common as given the times and parents' fears, children were drilled into this denial.
Despite the hardships he had suffered in his early life John was always a cheerful person, he spoke most fondly of the East End and the various colleagues and libraries he worked in.' |