Facade portrait: Jaroslav Böhm

Jaroslav Böhm

* 1881 in Zvoleněves (Austria-Hungary)

† 1946 in Bremerhaven

Immigration to Bremerhaven: 1907

Böhm is his surname; he comes from Bohemia, that much is certain. However, the confusion starts with his first name. ‘Jaroslav,’ as his granddaughter Brigitte Böhm says and writes. In the address directory of the city of Bremerhaven, where he immigrated as a young man in his twenties, he is listed as ‘Jareslaw.’ The details of his birth date vary by one day: he was born on May 30 or 31, 1881, and indeed – there are no discrepancies in the documents – in Zvoleněves. The Bohemian village belonged to Austria-Hungary at the time of his birth, and it still did when Jaroslav Böhm probably left for good in the winter of 1906/07. He was first registered in Lehe in February 1907.

Jaroslav Böhm, around 1924

What brought him to Bremerhaven is uncertain. Brigitte Böhm, who never got to know her grandfather personally, knows from her father’s stories that he went to the German Empire to find work. It’s quite possible that the trained saddler hoped to get a job in the booming shipbuilding industry of Bremerhaven. A family anecdote reveals his pragmatic character: At the border to the German Empire, he was stopped because of his violin – which, he was informed, would have to be taxed if he wanted to take it with him.

‘Well, then not,’ he reportedly said and broke the violin over his knee.

So, instead of an instrument, it was just firewood that he brought over the German border…

As far as is known, Jaroslav Böhm found work as a car painter in Bremerhaven. So the saddler knew how to manage. The occupation ‘painter’ also appears, around 40 years later, in his entry in the death register.

What is certain: The Bohemian did not leave Bremerhaven-Lehe again! His parents initially followed him from Zvolen, and then he brought his fiancée Barbara over. She also came from Bohemia. The two married in Lehe on

March 1, 1908. Of the total six children listed in the registration records, only two reached adulthood: Cäcilie and Helmut. In addition to the early deaths of four children, Jaroslav Böhm also had to cope with the death of his wife in 1928.

Even though Jaroslav Böhm only left Bremerhaven (or Wesermünde) for short trips, his nationality changed multiple times without his consent – the entry under his name in the city of Bremerhaven’s registration records reflects the history of his time. He immigrated as an “Austrian” in 1907 but received “Czechoslovak” nationality after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918; after the Nazi annexation of the Czech part of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, he became a “Reich German.” Although he experienced the end of World War II, he never officially became a “Czechoslovak” again. On the morning of January 5, 1946, Jaroslav Böhm died in the hallway of a residential building in Lehe at the age of 64.