Gisela Mach

Gisela Mach, the only person, with whom I ever had a lasting relationship

I met Gisela the day I found my first studio-apartment on the Kurfurstendamm, about 3 days after arriving in West Berlin. Gisela had just moved into a smaller room in the same apartment. We stayed together a year and a half, first moving into another apartment nearby. Then, Gisela found me my fabulous photo studio in the same house as two friends of hers, who lived above my studio. It was a house built by a sculptor in the beginning of the century and contained two large sculptor studios. The sculptor, Erich Reuther, lived and worked in the studio below me. Gisela took a condo apartment just off the Ku'damm, near where we first lived. We stayed together and both had keys and full access to the other's apartment.

Together, we bought our wonderful doggy, Napoleon, a pure-bred Longhair Dachshund. Gisela kept him in her apartment, and I picked him up and took him to my studio during the day, while she worked. We had dinner together four or five days a week at Gisela's apartment, where she loved to cook for me German specialties that I loved. Then, after a nap with Gisela and Nappi, I went on my nightly rounds.

We stayed close until the day I left Berlin, in 1968. From her, I learned real self-less love and lasting friendship, and true Berliner tolerance.

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