Willi was the second husband of Olga Rozentals/Rozenvalds. He was a Baltic German from the town of Kuldiga in western Latvia. He was born in 1891, one of six children born to Jeannot Droune and Jenny Kuschinsky. Willi served as a Latvian Rifleman during WWI and married Dorothea Spurre in June of 1920. They had two children, but it was an unhappy marriage. According to old newspaper articles and family stories, it is clear that Willi battled alcoholism all his life. In 1938, Willi found himself divorced and estranged from his two sons.
In December of 1939 Willi became a border in flat #20 at 11 Miera Street (formerly 9 Karlīnes Street). Olga’s family had lived here since 1921 but at this time it was only Olga, her young son Valdis and her adult nephew, Žanis Zekants Jr. They regularly took in borders as a source of income.
By late spring 1940, there were rumours about a possible Soviet takeover. Latvia had been an independent nation since the end of WWI and they wanted to remain that way. Olga had spent so many traumatic years fleeing and fighting against the Soviet threat – this new development must have made her more and more concerned for the safety of her and her son. On June 15, 1940 Olga and Willi were married. This was also the day that the Soviet Union invaded Latvia, leading to what is known today as the ‘Year of Horror’.
This may have initially been a marriage of convenience. As Willi’s wife, Olga and Valdis were eligible to emigrate to the German ‘Fatherland’ as Hitler was encouraging all people of German descent to do. We know that Willi’s eldest son from his first marriage attended Willi and Olga’s wedding. Willi and his son had a significant argument that day and they never spoke again. Did his son not approve of Willi’s rushed marriage to Olga? We will probably never know.
Olga, Willi and Valdis all had to renounce their Latvian citizenship forever in order to emigrate. This was a big step to make and attests to the seriousness of the Soviet threat. Olga and Valdis left Latvia on the 10th of July and Willi joined them in March 1941. They settled first in German occupied Poland, where tragically Valdis died in July 1941. They then lived in the region of Thuringia in eastern Germany before fleeing the Soviets once last time in July 1945.
They finally settled in Bonn, Germany and remained there the rest of their lives. Some of Willi’s siblings had also emigrated to Germany and they had regular contact with them in the years after the war. Willi died in 1960, three years before his wife. They are both buried in North Cemetery in Bonn.