Lately Detroit's problems are making the news, even here in New York.We are told of the abandoned houses, the vastly overcrowded schools, the lack of jobs, the flight of the population to the suburbs and, of course, crime. I think there is now even talk of the city's going bankrupt.Clearly, this would be a disaster. So I cannot help but search for some positive sign or memorable event during my stay in the region.And then I remembered Orchestra Hall.
The original city of Detroit started by the River forming the hub of a wheel from which several avenues stretched out to the distance like spokes of a wheel. The center spoke was and is Woodward Avenue. This avenue has many faces. Some quite attractive, some total blanks where no buildings were ever built on the available lots. Several miles from the river stood a row of nearly or totally abandoned two and three storied buildings, one of which was the original concert hall serving the Detroit Symphony.One of the musicians remembered hearing concerts there and was reminded of the incredible acoustics.So he decided to investigate. He managed to enter the hall,clapped his hands stirring up the pigeons roosting in the rafters and surveyed the filthy horror of the building which had been left to its own demise all these years and wonders over wonders, the sound traveled ,clear as a bell, high into the rafters over the dusty seats and back down to the stage.
So he talked to some of his colleagues and they, together with their conductor, decided to present a performance to the public and the board of the Symphony. I managed to convince my husband who,as an economist, had no sympathy for hair brained idealistic escapades, to come to the concert. He agreed to join me, if for no other reason than to prove that he was right and we were all wrong.
Volunteers had dusted off all the seats. Somehow they had managed to attach parachute silk over the stage which had no roof left but could not convince the pigeons to find different accommodations who continued to fly around under the makeshift roof. My husband just smirked. And then the oboist appeared on stage and started unpacking his instrument.
It is the oboist who gives the pitch to the orchestra which he now was preparing to do. As the first notes floated across the stage and into the hall a stunned silence settled over the audience. We almost didn't dare to breathe. The sound was so magical as if descending direct from heaven, if you believed in heaven. I looked at my husband who had stopped smirking but could not quite manage to shut his mouth, he was that surprised. Needless to say, the concert was a roaring success and was the beginning of a very slow rebuilding and revitalization of the hall. Today the hall has been restored and forms the center of an entire performing arts complex.
It is often said in this country that "the Arts" are the icing on the cake. As far as I am concerned the "Arts" stand for creativity. Creativity of the highest order.Detroit has always had a large base of highly talented people among its broad segment of the population. It is these people who will slowly bring this city to life again.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Tönning
Tönning is the municipal seat for all of Eiderstedt. At that time it took about 1,1/2 hours to walk around the entire town. In the center stood a fair size church presiding over the town-square. More or less opposite the church was the municipal building which housed the offices and the official quarters of the governor of Eiderstedt who now was the husband of the owner of the piano, Around the periphery of the square were some stores such as a bakery, butcher, greengrocer and dairy-store None of them had enticing displays since nobody had any goods to display. Not far from the center of town was the small harbor which served the fishing vessels of the area, mostly shrimp-cutters. Thinking back over all these years I think of fog or rain. Never do I see the little town bathed in sunshine.
Somewhat out of town lay the barracks which housed the British troupes. our occupiers. Strict orders had been issued: There was to be no fraternization, though following these orders seems to have been been short lived. Where were the soldiers to go on their hours off-duty? Where were we to go when marketing or visiting friends? Into town. In my minds eye I see the streets filled with people. Soldiers and towns-people literally packing the few down-town streets. Soon after my arrival I joined the throngs just walking. And listening. Ever since I was quite young I have enjoyed listening to people speaking another language but my own. Once, as a child, in Hamburg, I followed a group of foreigners who had come for some international conference just so I could hear them speak. It didn't matter, that I couldn't understand them.
So here I was, in little provincial Tönning just walking the streets and listening to the soldier's conversations. Slowly I started to memorize a sentence or just part of a sentence, saying it over and over in my mind until I got home. In my room I would pronounce the snatches of conversation out loud until I felt comfortable saying the words, looking up those in the dictionary I didn't know. By this method I acquired quite a store of useful phrases in a fairly short time.Nowadays there is much talk against "rote" learning which is a) boring and b) you forget it anyway. Boring it is but really forgetting one doesn't. I remember how amazed I was to realize how much came back in a flash. Very soon I was able to hold a fairly sophisticated conversation in English.I do have to admit, though, that I have somewhat of a talent pronouncing words in other languages.
Thus I spent the first few weeks in Tönning, slowly learning some English, and,yes, meeting a soldier here and there. It seems. all we did was walking up and down the streets and talking. Once I was trying to explain the location of a store and referred to the "round" square in front of the church to the delight of my companion. I didn't know the word plaza and it took quite a while for the chap to stop laughing and my understanding the mistake I had made. To me "square"simply meant a place and not something which is actually square.
One day I was summoned to the office of a lieutenant who somehow had found out that I played the piano. He was looking for somebody to offer lessons to any soldier who wanted to learn to play the piano. Was I interested to tackle that task? I agreed gladly, partly, because I always liked to teach.
Luckily the few students I had were total beginners who basically just wanted to kill some time. So I did my best and at the same time learning more English. As I became more adventurous I found myself needing to know the past tense of a verb. Easy! I just clicked down the rule "run, ran, run" in my mind and proceeded to talk.
these, then, were the beginnings of my involvement with the English language long before I ever thought of coming to the States.
Somewhat out of town lay the barracks which housed the British troupes. our occupiers. Strict orders had been issued: There was to be no fraternization, though following these orders seems to have been been short lived. Where were the soldiers to go on their hours off-duty? Where were we to go when marketing or visiting friends? Into town. In my minds eye I see the streets filled with people. Soldiers and towns-people literally packing the few down-town streets. Soon after my arrival I joined the throngs just walking. And listening. Ever since I was quite young I have enjoyed listening to people speaking another language but my own. Once, as a child, in Hamburg, I followed a group of foreigners who had come for some international conference just so I could hear them speak. It didn't matter, that I couldn't understand them.
So here I was, in little provincial Tönning just walking the streets and listening to the soldier's conversations. Slowly I started to memorize a sentence or just part of a sentence, saying it over and over in my mind until I got home. In my room I would pronounce the snatches of conversation out loud until I felt comfortable saying the words, looking up those in the dictionary I didn't know. By this method I acquired quite a store of useful phrases in a fairly short time.Nowadays there is much talk against "rote" learning which is a) boring and b) you forget it anyway. Boring it is but really forgetting one doesn't. I remember how amazed I was to realize how much came back in a flash. Very soon I was able to hold a fairly sophisticated conversation in English.I do have to admit, though, that I have somewhat of a talent pronouncing words in other languages.
Thus I spent the first few weeks in Tönning, slowly learning some English, and,yes, meeting a soldier here and there. It seems. all we did was walking up and down the streets and talking. Once I was trying to explain the location of a store and referred to the "round" square in front of the church to the delight of my companion. I didn't know the word plaza and it took quite a while for the chap to stop laughing and my understanding the mistake I had made. To me "square"simply meant a place and not something which is actually square.
One day I was summoned to the office of a lieutenant who somehow had found out that I played the piano. He was looking for somebody to offer lessons to any soldier who wanted to learn to play the piano. Was I interested to tackle that task? I agreed gladly, partly, because I always liked to teach.
Luckily the few students I had were total beginners who basically just wanted to kill some time. So I did my best and at the same time learning more English. As I became more adventurous I found myself needing to know the past tense of a verb. Easy! I just clicked down the rule "run, ran, run" in my mind and proceeded to talk.
these, then, were the beginnings of my involvement with the English language long before I ever thought of coming to the States.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
EiderstedtV
I packed my few belongings, secured them precariously onto the rack of the bike, hoping the tires would not blow. Much of the way I walked. The road south came from Denmark. It was the the main artery leading to Husum and beyond. I soon found that I was not the only person heading south. The entire German army stationed in Denmark was slowly winding its way in the same direction. Hundreds of men were on the march, or rather trek. There was no more marching done. Everybody seemed quite cheerful, even joking. Most of the time I walked the bike, making sure nothing would fall off. It was such a relief to know that nothing would come shooting at us out of the sky. I chatted with the soldiers when relaxing on the grass. Once I met up with a small group who were from Hamburg. One of the men was a well known actor in Hamburg who later opened a theater in his apartment called " Zimmertheater"
"Theater in the room". Another person with whom I had a lively conversation was the first cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic. We talked music politics in Berlin. Would Furtwaengler be conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic or Karajan.? Since the soldiers had brought their own canteen there was plenty of food. The sun was shining, the war was over, what more did we want? Many of the soldiers were fairly young. Some even almost boys who were pressed into service at the very end of the war. Sixteen year olds. On the other hand, many were well in their fifties. It is all very well for people nowadays to say: Why didn't we do this that or the other?" For example, such as not hanging the flag out on designated days. You were reported by someone. In the city it was the super of the apartment building you lived in. He had orders to report you. If he didn't, someone else in the building would report him for not doing his duty. And so it went. All of this was now over and now on this trek nobody seemed to be worried about the near future.
So we wound our way slowly south until I had to turn west toward St.Peter, the very tip of Eiderstedt. My first encounter with a British soldier came when I tried to enter the main road which runs all the way from Husum to St. Peter. I was stopped by a lone British soldier, pointing his rifle toward the ground saying something. I don't know what precisely. Though I had had at least six years of English in school I was not able to say anything other than "yes" or "no". Not a single English word came into my head, let alone sentence. Somehow I managed to convince him to please let me through and I made it the last fifty miles to St. Peter where I found my mother still laid up with a swollen leg Thus began our new "After the war" life with its many changes. Neither my mother or I were afraid of the British who behaved very gentlemanly. I remember two or three young soldiers talking to my mother, maybe questioning her. The conversation seemed almost jolly. I was amazed how well my mother was able to form sentences in very broken English which she remembered from her school years and the times she had helped me with homework. There was even laughter. That was occupation
As I am writing this I remember why they were there. How could I forget?
The British powers there be had given orders that all adult females had to evacuate because the living quarters were needed for their own troupes. Luckily, my mother was allowed to stay. I just asked if I could take my bicycle and permission was granted. So, back I went in direction Husum. Only this time on top of a lorry, the British name for truck. I don't remember how many women we were or if there any children with them. We were housed in a huge barn where I slept exactly one night. Since I had my bicycle I was able to ride to Husum which was only about 20 miles away, and visit friends who themselves were refugees from North-East of Berlin. Not belonging had become the norm.
The main reason the British wanted us females out of St. Peter was that it became a makeshift prisoner or war camp for the German soldiers who had trekked down from the North. By the time the summer was over everything slowly settled into a somewhat stable existence The British were hardly noticeable except when the drove by in their jeeps.A make-shift high-school was organized for the children of the refugees. The husband of the owner of the piano had come out of hiding and now was appointed the highest government official for that region. They now moved into official quarters in Toenning, the local Government seat. By fall he had found larger quarters for my mother in the village of St. Peter from where life became much easier for her to manage. Meanwhile I had also moved to Toenning where I finally started to learn English.After all, it was about time.
"Theater in the room". Another person with whom I had a lively conversation was the first cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic. We talked music politics in Berlin. Would Furtwaengler be conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic or Karajan.? Since the soldiers had brought their own canteen there was plenty of food. The sun was shining, the war was over, what more did we want? Many of the soldiers were fairly young. Some even almost boys who were pressed into service at the very end of the war. Sixteen year olds. On the other hand, many were well in their fifties. It is all very well for people nowadays to say: Why didn't we do this that or the other?" For example, such as not hanging the flag out on designated days. You were reported by someone. In the city it was the super of the apartment building you lived in. He had orders to report you. If he didn't, someone else in the building would report him for not doing his duty. And so it went. All of this was now over and now on this trek nobody seemed to be worried about the near future.
So we wound our way slowly south until I had to turn west toward St.Peter, the very tip of Eiderstedt. My first encounter with a British soldier came when I tried to enter the main road which runs all the way from Husum to St. Peter. I was stopped by a lone British soldier, pointing his rifle toward the ground saying something. I don't know what precisely. Though I had had at least six years of English in school I was not able to say anything other than "yes" or "no". Not a single English word came into my head, let alone sentence. Somehow I managed to convince him to please let me through and I made it the last fifty miles to St. Peter where I found my mother still laid up with a swollen leg Thus began our new "After the war" life with its many changes. Neither my mother or I were afraid of the British who behaved very gentlemanly. I remember two or three young soldiers talking to my mother, maybe questioning her. The conversation seemed almost jolly. I was amazed how well my mother was able to form sentences in very broken English which she remembered from her school years and the times she had helped me with homework. There was even laughter. That was occupation
As I am writing this I remember why they were there. How could I forget?
The British powers there be had given orders that all adult females had to evacuate because the living quarters were needed for their own troupes. Luckily, my mother was allowed to stay. I just asked if I could take my bicycle and permission was granted. So, back I went in direction Husum. Only this time on top of a lorry, the British name for truck. I don't remember how many women we were or if there any children with them. We were housed in a huge barn where I slept exactly one night. Since I had my bicycle I was able to ride to Husum which was only about 20 miles away, and visit friends who themselves were refugees from North-East of Berlin. Not belonging had become the norm.
The main reason the British wanted us females out of St. Peter was that it became a makeshift prisoner or war camp for the German soldiers who had trekked down from the North. By the time the summer was over everything slowly settled into a somewhat stable existence The British were hardly noticeable except when the drove by in their jeeps.A make-shift high-school was organized for the children of the refugees. The husband of the owner of the piano had come out of hiding and now was appointed the highest government official for that region. They now moved into official quarters in Toenning, the local Government seat. By fall he had found larger quarters for my mother in the village of St. Peter from where life became much easier for her to manage. Meanwhile I had also moved to Toenning where I finally started to learn English.After all, it was about time.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
EiderstedtIV
Slowly, during the fall and winter of 1945 the peninsula started filling up with refugees from the East. At one point the main road through Eiderstedt way filled with covered wagons, one after the other, all slowly working their way to St. Peter where there were large dormitories belonging to the summer camps. All the farmers had to take in more refugees, some of whom ended up in the entrance hall next to our apartment where they were bedded on straw. They were not exactly received with open arms. Though life in St. Peter seemed peaceful it cannot be said that the locals had had an easy time either since the beginning of the war and their patience was stretched thin. Most had had to take in Hamburgians after the bombings there, abd food supplies were running low. Once, the entire region had run out of salt. This sounds ridiculous to even mention but if you are not used to having the taste of your soup or bread enhanced with some salt for weeks on end it can stretch the nerves of the best of us.After all, we had not heard of Mr. Bloomberg, the mayor of N.Y. who is urging all of us to eat less salt.
Many of these new refugees came from a region in Germany which was totally different from that of Eiderstedt. Now the locals had to share their homes with even more strangers. Specially the sharing of kitchens created enormous tensions. Jealousies arose among the housewives. Where does she get the butter, or simply anything that was scarce and rationed and often even with ration cards not available. At that time simply anything was procured on the black market. And now these people with their strange accents and habits had to be accommodated , Frau Tetens complained that they did not even know what a flush toilet was and clogged the plumbing with paper.
It is true that the locals did not have the experience of being uprooted, bombed out or in constant danger of having bombs rain on them. Just the occasional strafer swooping down from God knows where shooting at you, Bit we all have had the taste of nearly a thousand bombers flying almost directly overhead for at least a half hour en route to Hamburg using the mouth of the river Eider to guide them until the turned toward Hamburg. The terrain between St.Peter is almost totally flat so that we could hear the detonations and the slowly see the sky light up in the distance as the city started to burn. I had experienced one of those overflights and know how horrifying the sound of those planes is. Years later, when I lived in Maine near a Naval Airbase one-just one- of those planes landed on that airstrip. I was immediately transported back to that night when they delivered their deadly cargo on the third of the four major attacks which flattened Hamburg. In other words, we all were affected by the horrors of war. Those who believed and listened to Goebbels propaganda still thought we could win that war. Those of us who listened to the forbidden stations knew better. The Americans had landed and were fighting in the West and the Russians were slowly winding their way toward Germany. Since these new refugees came from the eastern regions, the coast of the Baltic states West Prussia and the Polish Corridor, in short, east of the river Oder, they had not yet had the personal experience of war. It had so far been too far for the Allied planes to reach these regions.
I had no personal contact with the refugees behind our door and somehow forgot they were even there. They lived their life and we ours. Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were our downfall. Our radio stood on a shelf directly by the door to the hall, A door we never opened, even before the refugees came. Every night at midnight we turned on the radio to the BBC ever so quietly to listen to the latest news. We could barely hear the words but the opening sign of the BBC ere the drumbeats of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It was the vibrations of the drumbeats that gave us away. So they reported us to the authorities and one day when I came home, my mother informed me that we had orders to vacate the premises immediately. She had a swollen leg and couldn't move, which was the reason I had gone into the village to inform the Nazi chieftain, whatever his title, that she couldn't come and peel potatoes . He wanted to shut the door on me but I put my foot between the door and door-frame and demanded he listen to me. Maybe it was this "courageous: act that prompted him to kick us out. In any case, all I remember is that everything went pretty fast. Somehow we packed, got the piano relocated, took what we need and all of a sudden found that again we had too many things.
The width of the room to which we were moved could accommodate one two seat sofa and the width of a single bed and the length of two beds.There was a small table, an armchair and a washstand.Our clothes we hung into to shared closet of the owners of this small three hundred year old cottage, Again we were lucky. The old Frisian couple who owned the cottage were glad to have us instead of total strangers. Besides, the wife was the one who had taught my mother to spin.
Once my mother was installed I took off on my bike to the village north of Husum near the Danish border were I was a substitute organist. There the parsonage was crammed full with refugees of another kind. Somewhere nearby was an airstrip and a group of pilots and their planes had been relocated to that village. They were young, full of pep and seemed to have no care in the world. They were flying their planes around seemingly just for fun. They had brought wives and girlfriends along and I found myself sharing my room with a very stunning woman of about thirty. I was fascinated watching her put on her make-up, an activity I had never seen. Yes, I had had a lipstick but never used it much, Hamburgians were rather stuffy in that respect and around the church one definitely did not use lipstick. My mother used powder to powder her nose should it be shiny and that was all. So here I was, housed with this very elegant woman at the very end of the war. How much toward the end we didn't know, but it became clear to everybody, that it could not be much longer. The minister was not hiding the fact that he was listening to whatever station he could get to hear the latest information. And the, all of a sudden, it was all over.
Many of these new refugees came from a region in Germany which was totally different from that of Eiderstedt. Now the locals had to share their homes with even more strangers. Specially the sharing of kitchens created enormous tensions. Jealousies arose among the housewives. Where does she get the butter, or simply anything that was scarce and rationed and often even with ration cards not available. At that time simply anything was procured on the black market. And now these people with their strange accents and habits had to be accommodated , Frau Tetens complained that they did not even know what a flush toilet was and clogged the plumbing with paper.
It is true that the locals did not have the experience of being uprooted, bombed out or in constant danger of having bombs rain on them. Just the occasional strafer swooping down from God knows where shooting at you, Bit we all have had the taste of nearly a thousand bombers flying almost directly overhead for at least a half hour en route to Hamburg using the mouth of the river Eider to guide them until the turned toward Hamburg. The terrain between St.Peter is almost totally flat so that we could hear the detonations and the slowly see the sky light up in the distance as the city started to burn. I had experienced one of those overflights and know how horrifying the sound of those planes is. Years later, when I lived in Maine near a Naval Airbase one-just one- of those planes landed on that airstrip. I was immediately transported back to that night when they delivered their deadly cargo on the third of the four major attacks which flattened Hamburg. In other words, we all were affected by the horrors of war. Those who believed and listened to Goebbels propaganda still thought we could win that war. Those of us who listened to the forbidden stations knew better. The Americans had landed and were fighting in the West and the Russians were slowly winding their way toward Germany. Since these new refugees came from the eastern regions, the coast of the Baltic states West Prussia and the Polish Corridor, in short, east of the river Oder, they had not yet had the personal experience of war. It had so far been too far for the Allied planes to reach these regions.
I had no personal contact with the refugees behind our door and somehow forgot they were even there. They lived their life and we ours. Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were our downfall. Our radio stood on a shelf directly by the door to the hall, A door we never opened, even before the refugees came. Every night at midnight we turned on the radio to the BBC ever so quietly to listen to the latest news. We could barely hear the words but the opening sign of the BBC ere the drumbeats of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It was the vibrations of the drumbeats that gave us away. So they reported us to the authorities and one day when I came home, my mother informed me that we had orders to vacate the premises immediately. She had a swollen leg and couldn't move, which was the reason I had gone into the village to inform the Nazi chieftain, whatever his title, that she couldn't come and peel potatoes . He wanted to shut the door on me but I put my foot between the door and door-frame and demanded he listen to me. Maybe it was this "courageous: act that prompted him to kick us out. In any case, all I remember is that everything went pretty fast. Somehow we packed, got the piano relocated, took what we need and all of a sudden found that again we had too many things.
The width of the room to which we were moved could accommodate one two seat sofa and the width of a single bed and the length of two beds.There was a small table, an armchair and a washstand.Our clothes we hung into to shared closet of the owners of this small three hundred year old cottage, Again we were lucky. The old Frisian couple who owned the cottage were glad to have us instead of total strangers. Besides, the wife was the one who had taught my mother to spin.
Once my mother was installed I took off on my bike to the village north of Husum near the Danish border were I was a substitute organist. There the parsonage was crammed full with refugees of another kind. Somewhere nearby was an airstrip and a group of pilots and their planes had been relocated to that village. They were young, full of pep and seemed to have no care in the world. They were flying their planes around seemingly just for fun. They had brought wives and girlfriends along and I found myself sharing my room with a very stunning woman of about thirty. I was fascinated watching her put on her make-up, an activity I had never seen. Yes, I had had a lipstick but never used it much, Hamburgians were rather stuffy in that respect and around the church one definitely did not use lipstick. My mother used powder to powder her nose should it be shiny and that was all. So here I was, housed with this very elegant woman at the very end of the war. How much toward the end we didn't know, but it became clear to everybody, that it could not be much longer. The minister was not hiding the fact that he was listening to whatever station he could get to hear the latest information. And the, all of a sudden, it was all over.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Eiderstedt III
Another problem we had , was lack of electricity. If I remember correctly, we had light two hours in the evening and two hours in the morning, I think each starting at six o'clock so that people could prepare breakfast or supper. Sometime in the middle of the night they turned on the electricity again, thinking we would all be in bed sleeping anyway. This was, of course, the time of all illegal activities, such as slaughtering a pig which entailed sausage making, cutting up the meat into the proper pieces, chops etc. and kept the whole family busy for the entire night. Ever since the beginning of the war complete blackout was the law. In the city it had meant- no more street lights or using a flashlight to point the path underfoot. At least this was the rule in Hamburg and other northern cities. In Breslau they had installed some sort of pale blue light and it was possible to recognize people in the street at night. So when I wound my way to my destination in the sparsely populated area I could always tell if someone was up and around. Somewhere , from one of the windows, there might be a tiny crack of light which did not belong. Clearly, it was from a kitchen -and I knew where all the kitchens were- that would be legitimate because everybody, small farmer or homesteader, might be up and ready to milk.This lack of light was not only a nuisance to law-abiding citizens but disastrous for those of us who wanted to listen to the forbidden broadcasts such as Radio Moskau, London, Luxembourg and Andorra. Luckily we had a post-master who was a) not a Nazi and b) very courageous.Just before noon, if one watched him, which at that time nobody did because it was time to prepare meals to feed the family, one could see him crossing the field on which the transformer, of which he was in charge, stood. Those of us, who knew of his activity, were already hunkered around the radio to listen to the latest reports of the front. For example, the citizens of Breslau, where I had studied for a year, had made the naive decision to fight the Russians with pitiful ancient weapons they had found in old closets. There were no more men around, just boys and grandfathers. Able-bodied men were either on the front, in Russian prison-camps or dead. On Radio Moskau we could follow the advance of the Russians block by block even the one on which I had lived. I must confess, I felt quite hardened thinking about the population there.
Somebody recently asked me how I felt when I was young. This is navel-contemplating time for many young and not so young people, specially the ones who are experiencing their mid-life crisis. I obviously do not wish anything we had to go through on anybody but have a hard time identifying with all these emotions and then be told, sometimes self-righteously.that we suppressed our emotions.And it is true, we did not have the luxury to display our fears or other anxieties. Everybody had reasons to worry- about a husband, father or brother at the front or lost. Just a few problems we dealt with every day and night.
So here we were in the winter of '44-'45. freezing and trying to stay sane, forget about warm, just snuggle into a cozy armchair and read?. My mother and I had tried to make some candles with some was we had found at the beach but did not have the right material for the wicks. An old Frisian woman had taught my mother to spin. While she was spinning, the wool on her lap, which kept her somewhat warm , I would read to her by this ridiculous candle-light. I would balance the book,one was "Le Rouge et le Noire" by Stendahl, with one hand and sit on the other hand to keep it warm. After a while I would change my position to thaw out the free hand. This way we got two tomes read.At midnight, when the lights went on again, we could listen to the BBC. After that, to bed, under the huge down-covers. One night I heard my mother whisper and asked her what she was doing. We are not church-goers and nobody talks about praying, but that is what my mother was doing. She was praying that the Americans, who had had some trouble in Normandy, would succeed with their advance. Needless to say, we were not good Germans.
Somebody recently asked me how I felt when I was young. This is navel-contemplating time for many young and not so young people, specially the ones who are experiencing their mid-life crisis. I obviously do not wish anything we had to go through on anybody but have a hard time identifying with all these emotions and then be told, sometimes self-righteously.that we suppressed our emotions.And it is true, we did not have the luxury to display our fears or other anxieties. Everybody had reasons to worry- about a husband, father or brother at the front or lost. Just a few problems we dealt with every day and night.
So here we were in the winter of '44-'45. freezing and trying to stay sane, forget about warm, just snuggle into a cozy armchair and read?. My mother and I had tried to make some candles with some was we had found at the beach but did not have the right material for the wicks. An old Frisian woman had taught my mother to spin. While she was spinning, the wool on her lap, which kept her somewhat warm , I would read to her by this ridiculous candle-light. I would balance the book,one was "Le Rouge et le Noire" by Stendahl, with one hand and sit on the other hand to keep it warm. After a while I would change my position to thaw out the free hand. This way we got two tomes read.At midnight, when the lights went on again, we could listen to the BBC. After that, to bed, under the huge down-covers. One night I heard my mother whisper and asked her what she was doing. We are not church-goers and nobody talks about praying, but that is what my mother was doing. She was praying that the Americans, who had had some trouble in Normandy, would succeed with their advance. Needless to say, we were not good Germans.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Eiderstedt II
We knew we were lucky abd settled into our new life sorting through our few possessions. Summering in St. Peter always meant taking clothes for warm weather and cooler weather since we could experience quite chilly and wet days. Sometimes the rain would settle in for days, the so-called Landregen-or country rain, which meant it could get quite chilly besides being wet. Since my mother cooked our meals as did the other guest, and of course, Mrs. Tetens, we brought along our own eating utensils, in our case personal knives, forks and spoons. Until today I have my own soup-spoon and use it regularly. The fork, unfortunately, got lost some years ago.
From my year in Spandau ( I completed the requirements in two semesters rather than five,) I went to Breslau,now called Wroslow, in Silisia or Schlesien which now belongs to Poland. The year in Breslau was physically very difficult since it was very cold inside or out, lots of snow and not enough warm clothes or food. But musically it was more than rewarding. Instead of playing the organ I took harpsichord lessons which were given by the director of the school, Heinrich Boell who was a very good organist and conductor. I became his informal assistant, sang in the choir, pulled or pushed stops on the organ when he gave a concert,saw to it that the music did not land on the floor and fended off his verbal blows when he lost his temper which was often. During that year there was so much more going on emotionally that the temper tantrums of the professor were less than pinpricks in my consciouness than receiving the news that three of my friends had landed in concentration camp after distributing ant-Hitler leaflets in Munich. I had a lesson the day I received the news and simply could not concentrate. So the professor got angry and this time I started to cry, something I have never done much, not as child and not now. So he sat down, pulled me on his lap and wanted to know the reason for my distress. I did some quick thinking, not at all knowing whether he was a Nazi ( there seemed to be much more of those in Breslau than in Hamburg or Berlin) and decided to tell him the reason for my tears. This was when I found out that he had been banned to Breslau from his post in Cologne because he had had a fistfight with a high Nazi-official who had accused his wife of being Jewish.
Sometime during 1944 Goebbels declared what he called the "Total War" and ordered everybody to participate and help win it. This meant for us females to man searchlights or work in a munitions factory to make grenades but certainly not to make music. Though the more advanced students received permission to study half-days and I was tempted to take advantage of this privilege but the professor advised me to pack my belongings and go to St.Peter to my mother's since the Russians were steadily advancing and it became clear that the war would not last forever no matter what the propaganda machine was saying. I saw his point and since I had received a notice from the landarmy (Arbeitsdienst) to report to them, I decided to pack my bags and literally skip town. I made it to St. Peter via Berlin where I sat through a quite heavy attack which I watched from the balcony of my friends apartment. For some reason I felt no fear, though the bombs were hitting right and left and the ensuing fires lit up the night. Finally I made it to St. Peter and settled in with my mother in the cozy apartment.
Though we knew the war would eventually end, this was no time to relax. The Nazis were as active as ever The proprietess of the summer where I had stayed as a small child who had three small children and whose husband had gone AWOL was kicked out of her house to make room for German troops to be housed. They did find a small house for her and the children but not big enough to also place the grand piano. Somehow we managed to shove furniture together in our rather nice but over-furnished apartment and in installed the piano in the living-room. So now I had a piano to practice on and life was not so bad. But the authorities caught up with me and wanted me to help win this wretched war. The Tetens' had a brilliant idea. Th community needed a milk-controller and I was to be it. What was to be controlled? The amount of milk each cow gave and its fat content. This was so that the farmers could not keep any milk for themselves. It sounds easy and is easy specially if you know how to milk which I certainly did. The idea was that one watches the milking and then calmly sits down and tests if the udder is really empty. Needless to say, I never did any testing. All the farmers I knew cheated and saved the cream to churn butter. So I got the job of milk-controller and learned to get up at four in the morning which is no fun in the summer but much worse during the freezing winter-months. I had exactly one pair of warm pants which were made of some thick army blanket which kept me as warm as possible. Except when I stepped by accident into water which was hidden under a thick blanket of snow. So now I had a pair of wet shoes, not sturdy boots but a kind of elegant loafer which I had bought just before the war. he socks, made of scratchy wool, spun by my mother, were also wet. The only stove we had was in the living-room and gave adequate heat when lit. But here was the rub. We had very little wood, very little coal, very little kindling,very little paper and almost no matches. In other words, everything we needed was used with utmost care and a lot of huffing and puffing to get a meager fire going. There are very few trees in that region so that we spent a lot of time collecting driftwood at the beach. Driftwood burns nicely when dry, but, alas, it is usually not dry but soaked full of water from having floated in the North Sea for quite a while.
I must have had dome other garment to wear after these pants got wet but for the life of me, I don't remember what it was. I do remember developing frostbite and being advised by Mr. Tetens to step into fresh cow-dung Anything was better than this itching. And, of course, it helped. Just about immediately. What else did I learn that winter? How to ride my bike on the narrow, ice-covered pah, constantly looking into the sky for a lonely plane suddenly swooping out of the sky, looking for prey, such as me. These planed seemed to come from nowhere , swooping down and shoot. Many a time did I throw myself off the bike and luckily always managed not to roll down the embankment into the water of the ditch. Somebody told me that, if I stood stock-still I would be safe because the pilot could not make out the difference between a human and a lamp-post. But I must confess. I never tested the veracity of that advice. I was simply too chicken.
From my year in Spandau ( I completed the requirements in two semesters rather than five,) I went to Breslau,now called Wroslow, in Silisia or Schlesien which now belongs to Poland. The year in Breslau was physically very difficult since it was very cold inside or out, lots of snow and not enough warm clothes or food. But musically it was more than rewarding. Instead of playing the organ I took harpsichord lessons which were given by the director of the school, Heinrich Boell who was a very good organist and conductor. I became his informal assistant, sang in the choir, pulled or pushed stops on the organ when he gave a concert,saw to it that the music did not land on the floor and fended off his verbal blows when he lost his temper which was often. During that year there was so much more going on emotionally that the temper tantrums of the professor were less than pinpricks in my consciouness than receiving the news that three of my friends had landed in concentration camp after distributing ant-Hitler leaflets in Munich. I had a lesson the day I received the news and simply could not concentrate. So the professor got angry and this time I started to cry, something I have never done much, not as child and not now. So he sat down, pulled me on his lap and wanted to know the reason for my distress. I did some quick thinking, not at all knowing whether he was a Nazi ( there seemed to be much more of those in Breslau than in Hamburg or Berlin) and decided to tell him the reason for my tears. This was when I found out that he had been banned to Breslau from his post in Cologne because he had had a fistfight with a high Nazi-official who had accused his wife of being Jewish.
Sometime during 1944 Goebbels declared what he called the "Total War" and ordered everybody to participate and help win it. This meant for us females to man searchlights or work in a munitions factory to make grenades but certainly not to make music. Though the more advanced students received permission to study half-days and I was tempted to take advantage of this privilege but the professor advised me to pack my belongings and go to St.Peter to my mother's since the Russians were steadily advancing and it became clear that the war would not last forever no matter what the propaganda machine was saying. I saw his point and since I had received a notice from the landarmy (Arbeitsdienst) to report to them, I decided to pack my bags and literally skip town. I made it to St. Peter via Berlin where I sat through a quite heavy attack which I watched from the balcony of my friends apartment. For some reason I felt no fear, though the bombs were hitting right and left and the ensuing fires lit up the night. Finally I made it to St. Peter and settled in with my mother in the cozy apartment.
Though we knew the war would eventually end, this was no time to relax. The Nazis were as active as ever The proprietess of the summer where I had stayed as a small child who had three small children and whose husband had gone AWOL was kicked out of her house to make room for German troops to be housed. They did find a small house for her and the children but not big enough to also place the grand piano. Somehow we managed to shove furniture together in our rather nice but over-furnished apartment and in installed the piano in the living-room. So now I had a piano to practice on and life was not so bad. But the authorities caught up with me and wanted me to help win this wretched war. The Tetens' had a brilliant idea. Th community needed a milk-controller and I was to be it. What was to be controlled? The amount of milk each cow gave and its fat content. This was so that the farmers could not keep any milk for themselves. It sounds easy and is easy specially if you know how to milk which I certainly did. The idea was that one watches the milking and then calmly sits down and tests if the udder is really empty. Needless to say, I never did any testing. All the farmers I knew cheated and saved the cream to churn butter. So I got the job of milk-controller and learned to get up at four in the morning which is no fun in the summer but much worse during the freezing winter-months. I had exactly one pair of warm pants which were made of some thick army blanket which kept me as warm as possible. Except when I stepped by accident into water which was hidden under a thick blanket of snow. So now I had a pair of wet shoes, not sturdy boots but a kind of elegant loafer which I had bought just before the war. he socks, made of scratchy wool, spun by my mother, were also wet. The only stove we had was in the living-room and gave adequate heat when lit. But here was the rub. We had very little wood, very little coal, very little kindling,very little paper and almost no matches. In other words, everything we needed was used with utmost care and a lot of huffing and puffing to get a meager fire going. There are very few trees in that region so that we spent a lot of time collecting driftwood at the beach. Driftwood burns nicely when dry, but, alas, it is usually not dry but soaked full of water from having floated in the North Sea for quite a while.
I must have had dome other garment to wear after these pants got wet but for the life of me, I don't remember what it was. I do remember developing frostbite and being advised by Mr. Tetens to step into fresh cow-dung Anything was better than this itching. And, of course, it helped. Just about immediately. What else did I learn that winter? How to ride my bike on the narrow, ice-covered pah, constantly looking into the sky for a lonely plane suddenly swooping out of the sky, looking for prey, such as me. These planed seemed to come from nowhere , swooping down and shoot. Many a time did I throw myself off the bike and luckily always managed not to roll down the embankment into the water of the ditch. Somebody told me that, if I stood stock-still I would be safe because the pilot could not make out the difference between a human and a lamp-post. But I must confess. I never tested the veracity of that advice. I was simply too chicken.
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