Elizabeth Subercaseaux Elizabeth Subercaseaux Elizabeth Subercaseaux Sommerhoff (born 1945) is a Chilean journalist and writer. Elizabeth Subercaseaux grew up near Cauqenes, Chile at her grandparents' home called Santa Clara. Subercaseaux's father died in 1956, when he was 42 years old and she was 11. The five children of the marriage – Bernardo and Juan, older than Elizabeth, and Martin and Ximena, younger – were brought up by their mother, the sculptor, painter, and photographer Gerda Sommerhoff, who was born in Germany and grew up in Holland. She is the great-great-granddaughter of the German composer Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck. After finishing high
Michael Wieck by others, and life became more and more difficult for them as the war dragged on. In late August 1944, Königsberg was repeatedly fire-bombed by the British Royal Air Force, and much of the city's center, including the medieval castle and the 14th century Königsberg Cathedral, was destroyed, gutted or heavily damaged. "The people of Königsberg shall never expunge these nights of terror from their memory," Wieck wrote. When the Red Army, after a bitterly fought siege lasting nearly three months, conquered Königsberg on April 9, 1945 – one month before the end of World War II – the city