Kafka’s Mother
Julie Löwy, Franz Kafka’s mother, was born into a bourgeois Jewish family on 23rd March 1856 in Poděbrady on the Elbe in eastern Bohemia. Julie’s mother died young of typhus; her father, a wealthy brewery-owner, moved the family to Prague after selling his property at a profit. In Prague, the girl grew to a marriageable age, and in Prague she married Hermann Kafka, a businessman born in southern Bohemia. A year after their marriage, a son was born to the couple – Franz. Two further sons died during infancy, so Franz remained the only son and heir, although three daughters followed him: Elli, Valli, and Ottla. Julie outlived her son by ten years: she died on 27th September 1934 and was buried in the family grave in the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague.
In a way, all things good are dreary.
Franz Kafka, Aphorisms
Mother works all day, feels happy or sad according to events, without considering her own affairs in the least.
Franz Kafka, Diaries
