Norbert Triestram, born in Breslau in 1918, came to Holzminden after World War II. The city on the Weser, where his mother was born, was a contact point and became his place of work.
Norbert Triestram worked as a freelance photographer. His works captured the life processes and upheavals of that specific time in a photographic way. The photographs shown here were taken from 1948 to around 1960.
My father, Norbert Triestram, was born on 7th March 1918 in Breslau (today Wroclaw) to Elise and Eduard Triestram and was an only child. His parents had moved to the town on the Oder at the beginning of the century. After an apprenticeship as a building engineer his father founded a construction business in Breslau. He had gained his degree at the School of Construction in Holzminden on the Weser and it was here that he met his future wife, Elise Falke. The small construction business was doing well in the 1920s. The company was involved in the building of the living quarters for the police force and in the construction of the town hall in Breslau. As it were, my father grew up in a secure and stable background.
The early death of his father in his mid-fifties meant that my grandmother returned to the comfort of her family in Holzminden in the early 1940s. My father had often spent the holidays there with his aunts and Holzminden had thus become his second home.
The course of history was to prove a difficult time for young men who were born around 1920 and my father was among them. He had finished school and achieved the school leaving certificate. His dream was to begin an apprenticeship as a camera man for Universum Film AG. At that time photography and film were a highly modern and new technology with particular demands and that had apparently appealed to my father. However, before he could begin, he was recruited into the Reich Labour Service.
The Reich Labour Service was established in 1935 and continued until 1938. Every 18–25 year old had to complete this service for six months. I presume that my father carried out this duty around 1937 – 38.
The Second World War began on 1st September 1939 with the invasion of Poland. Due to his career aspirations, my father managed to join a reconnaissance unit in the Air Force. He was deployed to a ground unit working in the laboratory. As a result of the importance of this work, the personnel were not involved in direct war action during the whole of World War Two. He was “very lucky” to survive the war with no physical injuries. Looking back, you can say that from 1937 until the end of the war approximately seven years passed before my father could begin his professional career.
In 1945 and then aged 27, he began his apprenticeship as a photographer which he completed in 1948. As of 1948 photography was once again permitted in the British zone which allowed my father to work as a freelance photographer in Holzminden. He began as a regular photographer and accepted additional jobs for the local press. There were two local newspapers, the traditional “Täglicher Anzeiger” and a regional edition of the “Neue Presse” from Hannover. My father worked for both newspapers. This marks the beginning of Norbert Triestram’s archive. A special historic document was being created. The exodus from Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia after the war resulted in the increase of inhabitants in the small town on the Weser from 11,000 to more than 20,000. This increase in the population did not, however, result in any new living accommodation. The town was like an ant hill and much from this period is reflected in my father’s photographs.
Back in the lap of his family my father now bravely began to start his own family. Three children were born quickly one after another: two girls and a boy in the middle; many years later another girl. My mother most certainly did not have it easy as bringing up the children and the chores of everyday life rested solely on her shoulders. My father was rarely at home.
His work as a photographer meant he would continue his unsettled life of the war years which left very little time for his family.
He had become a nomad in younger years and remained a nomad for a very long time. Our father would arrive unannounced and unexpected and was gone again before you knew it. We, the children, and our mother were often models for his staging of images.
The combination of photographic press work with his regular photographic work makes my father’s work special. This is turn creates the subtle appeal in his pictures. My father remained a freelance photographer until the beginning of 1970. Afterwards he worked as a photojournalist for the “Täglicher Anzeiger”.
My father died in Holzminden at the age of 71 after a short illness.