Julia Mann-Borghese
The Costa Verde in Brazil is the home of Thomas and Heinrich Mann's mother. Julia was born in 1851 in the humid jungle air of Paraty, a small town about 250 km south of Rio de Janeiro, which is now entirely a protected historical site. Although she only lived there for seven years, she retained vivid memories of this emerald-green spot by the sea throughout her life. She later wrote that she grew up "among monkeys and parrots." Her father had emigrated from Lübeck to Paraty at the age of 19 and made his fortune there as a successful merchant. Julia's happy childhood ended when her mother, Dona Maria Luiza, died giving birth to their sixth child. Her father decided to return to Germany with the children, a decision that meant a profound change for them.
Culture shock and Lübeck cuisine
From the endless summer to Lübeck in northern Germany, where nobody spoke Portuguese, there were no slaves, no palm trees, and no wealth, and the customs and traditions were as foreign as the unfamiliar food. Julia's great-grandson Frido Mann recounts that Julia mistook the snow falling from the sky for sugar during her first Lübeck winter.
Julia was sent to a boarding school, quickly learned not only High German, but also Low German, English and French, and at the age of 18 married the Lübeck senator Johann Thomas Heinrich Mann.
Lifelong longing for the South
The musically gifted and literary-minded mother shared her inner world with her daughters, and especially with her writing sons Thomas and Heinrich. With lullabies and short stories, she awakened in Thomas, who later immortalized his mother in his 1930 novel "Bild der Mutter" (Picture of the Mother), a love of dreaming and writing. He wrote in 1936 that he inherited his "cheerful nature," his artistic and sensual inclinations, and—in the broadest sense of the word—his love of storytelling from his mother.
Julia Mann in the Buddenbrook exhibition at the Behnhaus
During the renovation and expansion work at the Buddenbrook House, one of the stations of the exhibition “Buddenbrooks in the Behnhaus”, which is currently being hosted at the Behnhaus Drägerhaus, is dedicated to the exotic mother of the writer brothers and her lifelong love for the South, which she passed on to her children.