Mexico City Earthquake 1957

Mexico 1957

To this day I have not decided, which is worse, sitting helplessly in a flimsy shelter waiting for the bombs to hit you or experiencing an earthquake. In any case, the earthquake which I had the “privilege “ to encounter was, though the strongest Mexico City had had in thirty or so years, only frightening as far as I was concerned, since I was in no way harmed. Looking back, it was almost funny.

I had been to a movie with a friend, a Peruvian who was studying in Mexico and we had come to his place for a late cup of coffee.He shared an apartment with two American students in a residential section of the city. Two rooms, one with three beds and the other,really a large, kitchen.The entrance to this apartment ran along the outside wall to the top of the garage.

It was about midnight when we arrived. One of the Americans was awake and the three of us settled around the kitchen table with our coffee. Slowly the Peruvian emerged as a story teller.At first he just told us about his country but slowly he started telling ghost stories. One after the other. This way we spent the next two hours. Drinking coffee and listening to ghost stories. Until,all of a sudden we just sat,not speaking, not asking any more questions, just staring in front of us.

I was sitting at the outside corner of the table, looking at nothing in particular, when my glance went to the opposite corner and it seemed to lift.I said, very calmly, “Fico,look the corner.” It seemed to have lifted. He looked up and over to the corner to which I was pointing, rose, said “earth quake, get out, don’t run” and moved to the bedroom behind me to wake the sleeping room mate,Mike.Big,burly, Ken, to my right, jumped up,almost pushed me against the table and ran to the outside door,stumbling all the way to the ground, dashing to a parked car in the driveway, crawled into it, head first but immediately backed out of it since his big body didn’t fit into the car and huffed to the front gate which was locked. I had tried not to run but nearly fell over a thin wire fence in the front yard and arrived at the same time at the gate as Ken did. So did Fico who calmly started putting the key to the chain lock into the keyhole, unlock the chain and open the gate to let us out onto the street.

The world around us was totally dark except for the light of a taxi which slowly drove toward us. As a child I had seen the movie “San Francisco” and remember the earth shaking and breaking open. I stood next to Fico, holding on to his jacket for protection, looking around and expecting the ground to open up. Fico also just stood, calmly looking at the pavement, waiting for something to happen while the earth around us groaned and grumbled and Mexico City remained dark and the hills around us had become visible.

After a bit life had quieted down. All we could hear was the noise of the cars roaring out of the city. Fico and I started walking toward Insurgentes, the artery which bisects the city all the way into the country and finally into the water in Acapulco. Essentially, this road is built on a fault, which I learned a few weeks later, taking the bus to Acapulco.There you can see how the earth ripped apart millions of years ago. Today it was not as bad as that. The first damage we saw was the statue of “El Angel” which had toppled off its very high pole. We managed to grab a taxi which took us to my side of town. We slowly drove down my short street past the inhabitants clad in varying modes of night attire. Arriving at the top floor of my small apartment building I encountered my neighbor Sam groping through his apartment for candles. “Don’t even bother to go and disturb Catinka. She didn’t make a sound and is fine.” Obviously, I did not follow his well meaning advice and quietly opened the door. Out of the dark came Catinka’s voice. “Mammi, what was that shaking? I took my pillow and pretended I was sitting on the swings. And the lamp fell over.”.

So I dressed her and we went outside to reconnoiter.Not far from our short street on Insurgentes our feet crunched on glass as we passed the modern Sears Roebuck building. Across the street a six story Automobile showroom had completely collapsed, burying the care taker family. Slowly, as we made our way into town we encountered more destruction. As far as I was concerned. this was enough to frighten me to the core. Lying in bed at night I was never sure if I just imagined an aftershock or if the world around me had again moved.

I am sure one can get used to everything, even the constant threat of earthquakes.
Personally, I would prefer not to have to adjust to either. The difference,though, is, we humans can do something about bombs but are helpless when faced with the movement of the tectonic plates or the fiery discharges of volcanoes.

Music

       What is this sensation we call “music"? According to my Oxford dictionary it is one of the arts of the Greek Muses, the one which is concerned with the combination of sounds with a view to beauty of form and the expression of  thought or feelings; also, the science of the laws or principles by which this art is regulated. So much for  inspiring words of the dictionary. It is amazing that from such a dry explanation can spring such a plethora of research into the influence of music onto the human soul or spirit. This influence can stretch from the hymn-singing parishioner to politics in Israel or Nazi Germany. When I hear even just the beginnings of a composition of Richard Wagner I immediately think of the Nazis. But not because I associate the music with the Holocaust.

          I remember having to  sit through boring hours listening  to records of the opera The Meistersinger, including very boring lecturing by our well meaning music teacher. But that was not enough: he also described  the person of the great master, the composer Richard Wagner. How he always had to wear his velvet cap while working. How he could not work unless his heavy velvet drapes were closed and other such details concerning  his personal habits. To this day I shudder just to think of that man. To me then and to this day I think of pomp when hearing even just strains of his music. Having been raised to the delicate sounds of music of  an earlier period this dislike is probably quite understandable. Though my attempts to learn more about Wagner’s music were not helped by having to stand through the entire first Act of the opera Lohengrin because I was a minute late and the doors had closed. The usher would not let me go to my seat. The music, to my ears, was excruciatingly long-winded and my hurting feet did not help my willingness to learn about this, to many people, so admired composer and his music.

             On and off over the years I would make a somewhat critical remark to a conductor friend who invariably corrected me in telling me how important Wagner’s music was. Since these men were  accomplished and sometimes even famous musicians I have accepted the fact that Wagner’s music is important, but just not for me.

          But what now about those Israelis who are upset that the conductor of the  multi-ethnic  West-Eastern –Divan orchestra which consists of young Jews, Muslims and Christians, Daniel Barenboim, wants to play Wagner in Israel?  Barenboim thinks that Wagner is too important a composer in spite of the fact that he was a raving  anti-semite, not to be performed. Clearly this is not a controversy easily resolved. I can fully understand the sentiments of those Jews who object to Wagner’s music being played in Israel. On the other hand I find Barenboim’s explanation and aim to build bridges inspiring and commendable.

         This is just one example which shows, in a very blunt way, how music can influence the sensibilities and psyches of beings and not just us humans. Animals too, react to the strains of music, though I doubt they would appreciate the importance of the musical output of Richard Wagner.         

Wars then and now

There is just no way not to think about war these days. Blissfully, here in the U.S. it affects only what seems to be a handful of people in relation to the size of the population. I, for example, do not know a single  person who has a friend or relative in the service. One reads and watches news-casts and politicians talk about the war and praise the soldiers who are actually fighting but that is about as far as it goes for most people I know. This state of affairs is certainly different in my case and every European of my age, whether we fought in the war or had relatives or friends in uniform. One way or another we were all affected. At the same time one talked about the “war-machine.” Industrialists became rich producing arms.

          Before the industrial age wars were no less dangerous to the populations, their cities or farmlands. Just more primitive. An army would gather on a hill-side. The soldier sitting high on his horse, covering his body behind his shield, swinging his sword, charging forward when the leader gave the command, and if he did not survive the onslaught he died the death of a hero. A hero at least in the eyes of those dear to him who were left behind and needed solace. Some comforting memory to cling to.

          Though the implements of war were simpler they were no less destructive. Fire is a mighty  destroyer. Entire towns could be set aflame by shooting burning arrows from a horse. Nowadays you have to have a big  tank or airplanes to throw bombs from the sky. The war-machine is simply tremendous. No matter which side you are on or if you are on anybody’s side. Having been in some harrowing situations myself many years ago I know at least what it is like to have gone through an ordeal. I cannot even begin to imagine  how the inhabitants of any of the Arab countries who are now experiencing the current turmoil are supposed to deal with their day to day lives.

         The people least knowledgeable concerning  war are the younger generation, though they may be very much against war in general. On one hand it is, of course, wonderful if people don’t have to suffer. On the other hand, life is just not like that. It deals you hands. Anybody who is out of a job and can’t find one knows that. Now just imagine we were thrown into a full-blown war with rockets hitting us. Here in New York all we really know is the attack on the Twin Towers from which we have to this day emotionally not recovered.

        For some of us a big disaster constitutes the absence of hot water just when I want to wash my hair. Horrors. Where is the super? Thinking of hot water. I remember the first  winter of the war in Hamburg, 1939-40. All of a sudden the house had run out of coal for heat and hot water. How horrified my mother and we two girls were that we had to sit in the kitchen wrapped in our coats, the oven door wide open and the gas flames burning full-blast.We NEVER ate in the kitchen. My mother actually tried to convince us that it was healthy to stand in the cold bathroom, taking a cold shower and scrubbing your body vigorously to stimulate the blood circulation. I have to confess, I never learned to accept that philosophy though I had to learn to live with the cold or any other deprivation the war imposed on us just as everybody else did. Having lofty beliefs is very laudable. Acting upon them when circumstances push events to the limit will be quite another  matter.

        

        

        

Nazis III

       I was about sixteen years old when I met the three Degckwitz brothers whose father was the most prominent pediatritian in Hamburg as well as a professor at the University. My mother had taken my sister for an examination and came home glowing with excitement: She had had such an interesting  conversation with the professor, all about politics.

      It turned out, he was a flaming Anti-Nazi. So, when I was invited to a meeting at their house I felt very grown-up since I was probably the youngest person there. Rudolph, the oldest Degckwitz, was actually already studying medicine. His brother, Peter, had been as a soldier in Poland but for some reason was out of uniform and the youngest, Richard was still in school working toward his Abitur.

        We sat around talking about how we, in our small, limited ways, defied the Nazis. Father D.,for example, would openly, before a lecture, wave dismissively toward the lecture hall, filled with students who had risen to raise their arms in the Hitler salute. “We won’t bother with this today!” he would say.  This kind of action put him on the black list of the authorities and they subjected him periodically to house-searches. Luckily, somebody on the staff at the university would always warn him in time so that he had time to buy some cheap Hitler photos which he then hung around the house. I remember the boys laughing at the stupidity of the searchers. “If they had only checked our garbage cans the next day. We never kept the photos and always dumped them as soon as the air was clear. I have no recollection how often I went to a meeting but one way or the other I was friends with all three sons. When I went to Munich the next summer I saw Rudolph, the oldest, quite a bit.

          We had long walks along the Isar river , talking about the state of the world. Rudolph told me how he, every time he got a draft notice, would go skiing and dislodge an arm out of its socket, thus rendering him incapable for service in the army. Two years later, in l944 , when I was studying in Breslau, now Wroslov, I received word that Rudolph and another friend from Hamburg had been incarcerated for having  distributed Anti-Nazi leaflets at the university in Munich. Both survived  incarceration.

         Richard, the youngest, was drafted into the army after his final exam at school. When  pressure was put on him that he should take an officer’s training course, because educated men were needed, he wrote to his father for advice. Since mail was inspected the Nazis used this exchange as an excuse to put the father into a concentration camp. But I have been  told that he was treated with kid-gloves since he was such a prominent physician.

         I often detect a condescending tone, here as well as in Germany, when the absence of dissent is mentioned. "After all, Dachau was just a suburb of Munich,” I have heard mention more then once. “Just a short subway-ride from downtown.” Maybe that is true today but it certainly was not the case in 1942 when I decided to take a look. At that time all I knew was that pastor Bonhoeffer, the known Anti-Nazi minister, was incarcerated in Dachau. I had a very pleasant ride on a train pulled by a steam-engine which deposited me in what I took for the center of Dachau. No sign of a concentration camp, nobody around other than a lone police man who looked at me with suspicion. Somehow I felt very uncomfortable and out of place. Without speaking to anyone I took the next train home.

       I have since asked my cousin, who lives in that area and knew Dachau since she was a child. It was a sleepy artists colony and quite separate from the concentration camp. No, one did not freely and openly step up to any person and ask direction to a concentration camp. Had I been a relative wanting to visit a prisoner I would have looked humble and maybe even afraid. In other words, I would have been suspected of something and probably subjected to quite unpleasant grilling and landed on one of their lists.

       Had I wished to be a heroine and immolate myself on a public square it might never have reached the public at large the way we are used to seeing  nowadays. Since I didn’t have access to a radio I have no idea what was reported other then victories from the front. I am not trying to deny any of the atrocities perpetrated under the Nazis but am just trying to show how different times were then.  

Nazi years part II

 Until we moved into the new apartment I had never seen people with the Star of David  on their coats. Hitler had ordered  so-called  Full-Jews to be identified in this way. Neither was it advisable to associate with them. In spite of these restrictions I went across the street and introduced myself to two the two girls who were playing hop-scotch. They were polite but shy and let me join the game. A few minutes after we had started their parents appeared at thefront door of the apartment building and called them inside. When I told my mother of this incident she explained that it was equally dangerous and forbidden for either of us to form a relationship.

       It was ordered that one had to greet with Heil Hitler when entering a store. We never did. If a store-owner or clerk admonished us: ”Here we greet with Heil Hitler!” We never went in again no matter how badly we wanted a sorely needed item. And then there was the woman who ran the green-grocer’s store. Whenever a very badly handicapped Jewish boy from our street limped into her store she would invariably call him ahead of every-body so that he could limp home sooner. Once, when there was nobody in the store I asked her where she got the courage and she huffed: "They should  dare say something to me. I have six brothers on the front, I have done by duty!”  have never forgotten her and was delighted to meet her again after the war in at my father’s green-grocer’s out in the suburb.

        One sunny day,coming home from school, I was walking absentmindedly along the rail embankment  to my left, vaguely noticing a freight-train standing above. Such trains rarly stopped there and if, then only a few minutes. The walk from the station exit to the intersection at which I would have to cross,is quite long and  whatever kind of train would stop above would long have moved on before I reached my crossing. I had to pay close attention to traffic, looking mostly left and straight ahead.When I had almost reached the other side I became aware of a small group of people huddled together with suitcases and bundles at their feet, not talking. In front of the group were the two girls from  my street. The group was being guarded by several females swinging clubs, ready to pounce if necessary.The school in front of which they stood was closed, behind them are the University grounds, in other words there is no everyday foot traffic. It now became clear to me that the freight train standing on the embankment was waiting for them.

        At home, my mother was sitting on the porch with one of her publishers who was a Swiss  citizen and therefore had better access to current news. They both looked very serious and knew about the transport but assured me that nothing could be done.

         We did know, that our phone was tapped and my mother knew that her mail was being  opened. In other words, we were under constant surveillance. All of our acquaintances had something “wrong” with them. Either one in the family was partly Jewish therefore could go certain places but I don’t remember what it was they were not able to do. I think my piano teacher, who was married to a Jew, was not allowed to teach but did anyway. In other words, I was surrounded by “Antis”and felt totally at home in that environment. Could we have done something? I once, after Hitler had marched into Austria, dreamt of  killing  him. I think I was about fourteen years old. But I couldn’t figure  out how to get near him. So I was certainly no heroine, nor was I a Nazi...

The Nazi years

I cannot remember a time that I was not disgusted with the man who ruled Germany for all of my formative years.True, I was influenced by both of my parents. By my father, who stormed through the apartment, fuming” That man means war” as well as by my mother though in a calmer fashion. Aside from the fact that my parent’s large circle of friends started to leave the country to settle in Sweden or Denmark or even Amerika, our childrens' lives were being invaded by urging us to join the Hitler Youth. At first just by trying to entice us:”Don’t you want to come to our meetings?” Once, I have to admit, for about one minute, I was tempted. I was walking with my mother and saw a group of my class mates in their uniforms standing around their leader listening to her attentively. When my mother noticed my curiosity she asked if I would like to join such a group. By the time she was done asking I had already decided that I didn’t want to.
      I certainly in no way want to give the impression that I was somewhere heroic by not joining the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mådchen), I was simply not a joiner. Every time we moved someone would come and extend an invitation to come to a meeting. So I went. I think in total it was about three or four times.Maybe I was simply too much of a snob sitting with a group of girls watching a slightly older girl (the leader) read from some sort of propaganda book, mispronouncing every foreign word. Since I had both English and French in school I shuddered when I heard her pronounce the airplane Spitfire “Spitfeere."
      Though I did like to sing I hated the kinds of songs they sang which glorified Blood and Soil. In other words, I did not fit. Also, I had a very good friend, for a while my best friend who had a Jewish parent which meant she was termed “half-Jewish” and excluded from all Nazi activities.Which made these girls somehow outcasts.Not that the other classmates did or said anything derogatory to her or people like her but the simple fact that they could not wear a uniform on days when it was required to do so, such as a national holiday, separated them from the rest of us. Somehow I managed to have enough of a uniform (black skirt,white blouse black triangular kerchief) to pass inspection.
      In History class I had started to talk about “non-arians“ instead of Jews because I detested the way the word was pronounced, always with a kind of sneer. Clearly I did not endear myself to the teacher who then proceeded to tell me the difference between Arians and Non-Arians. This aversion to just say the word Jew remained with me until quite a few years after the war. I learned to be at ease with it only after I had been in this country for a while and gotten to know and befriend American Jews.
      In the spring of 1935 my parents separated and my mother and my sister and I moved into town into a formerly mostly Jewish neighbourhood. As the train passed the synagogue my mother told me that it had been heavily damaged a few nights ago by Nazi rowdies.When I mentioned this to a classmate of mine,who I knew was and ardent admirer of Hitler she exclaimed, she wished she had known about it so that she could help When I tried to argue that I thought this was an awful way to treat people and that Hitler had people tortured,she vehemently denied that he would ever permit such a thing. There was clearly no point in having any discussions with people like her. And I never tried again.

Picasso

The summer of 1951 my husband Tom who was a painter, our baby daughter Catinka and I spent in Paris staying in the apartment of friends in St. Germain.Tom’s hero among modern artists was Pablo Picasso about whom he knew everything at that time knowable. Every painting ever published, every sculpture, every book,every apartment or studio he had ever lived in in Paris, Tom knew them all. He also knew that Picasso had an apartment and studio not far from where we stayed, at the rue St.Augustin. While Tom painted in the dining room I played the piano in the living room and Catinka, age eight months,crawled on the floor,exploring. Every so often she arrived at the piano,tickling my toes. When Tom needed a breather he would go for a walk which inevitably led him to Picasso's building. One day he came home excitedly. Picasso was in Paris. His car was in his courtyard. Now there was no holding Tom.He knew that the woman who took care of the building was the former flower girl whom Picasso had dis-covered by the roadside somewhere in the south and whose name was Inez. So he went up to her apartment, introduced himself in broken Spanish and asked if he could meet the maestro. Of course he could not.The maestro wasn’t in. So he went back the next day, and the next and so on.Once I even went with him. Then, one day, when Inez had delivered her friendly but firm denial, a voice behind her said:yes, he was here and asked Tom to come with him up to his apartment.Tom spent about thirty minutes with Picasso who kept asking him questions about his student years in Nazi Germany when “entartete Kunst” was forbidden.Later Tom complained that he really had not wanted to talk about himself, he wanted to talk to Picasso about painting. Nevertheless he was in seventh heaven, specially since Picasso asked him to come back again and bring his wife and child.So one day we went to visit the great man. Upstairs Picasso greeted us with a big smile and an even bigger one for Catinka whom I carried, riding on my hip. Then he opened a door behind which was a spiral staircase which led to the top floor. Slowly walking up the stairs we passed assorted sculptures such as the cows head fashioned from a bicycle saddle and the handlebars photos of which had been published. None of these items were displayed. They were just standing there in storage. After negotiating the narrow stairs we arrived at the top and entered a very large room without any furniture, just an easel. All around the wall were paintings, three and four deep with the face toward the wall. Picasso invited Tom to turn over any painting he wanted and as many as he wanted. Since I am not a painter, do not speak Spanish and had a child sitting on my hip I have no idea what they were talking about.But clearly both of them got along very well, Picasso as the maestro and teacher and Tom as the pupil At one point Picasso turned to me and told me that his wife,Paloma,carried their child the same way I did.When we were leaving he patted Catinka's cheeks lightly and gave her a small kiss. This is, what I have taken away from our visit with the giant of the modern art world.I have no profound in-sights but neither do I regret having had the experience. To me Picasso was a warm and friendly man,full of energy.Though Catinka has become an artist she has stayed away from any abstract art.Neither has her father ever followed the abstract style.

My childhood part III

Other than having flashbacks at seeing myself on the floor in our entrance hall I remember my red coat with an attached cape which reached just to my wrists. I also had an invisible friend. That is, invisible to other people but very real to me. This person was Little Red Riding hood. Walking with my mother there always had to be space between her and me each of us reaching toward the invisible person between us. I have no idea how long I kept this up, maybe only during a few weeks in spring since I do not associate really cold weather with this memory.

Though of equal importance was the telephone tree on Elm St. the one block of shops which served our area. This tree stood ,and maybe still stands,close to the curb opposite the row of shops.It occupies almost half of the sidewalk. About twenty years ago, when I last visited that neighborhood it was still there and seemingly perfectly healthy.I would judge it to be at least a hundred years old since it’s trunk was about a meter in circumference, Whenever we approached the tree I would run ahead abandoning my mother and Little Red Riding Hood to make a phone call pretending to dial and then talking to someone though I don’t remember to whom.

When I was six years old I learned to ride a bike. Looking at the fancy bicycles in my neighborhood I marvel at the change in design and modernization. My first bicycle was positively primitive as were most bicycles the. For example there were no, and I mean no, pedal breaks. The tires were just half-inch thick rubber. Not filled with air to cushion the ride. I don’t think it took me long to learn to balance myself and ride on the sidewalk though I think I fell a few times. Scraped knees were par for the cause for all of us kids. We climbed trees and practiced who could climb highest and still jump down.

Another favorite game was: swinging as hard as one could and then jumping and seeing who could jump furthest. Or we would load the seat of the swing with as many who could possibly fit: at least two sitting and one or two standing sideways. When we were ready to swing we would sing some of our favorite songs of which we knew many. Mpst of these adventures were performed in the garden of our friends the Renners. Dr. and Dukka Renner were friends of my parents. They had five children of whom only the oldest,Willy, was a son. The middle child was my best friend ever since we were quite small. Her name was Barbara which was shortened to Bear.It seems to have been a custom generally to attach nicknames to people. I just now, as I am writing this remember that even later in school my classmates would complain that they couldn’t turn my name “Kirsten” into a proper nickname.Maybe, had we been speaking English we easily would have come up with “Kitty”.

Bår and I were just about inseparable. We had music lessons together, started school together ,played together and often slept over in each others house.Though it was much more fun staying at their place since we were all in the same room together except for the baby Marianne better known as Mücke which actually means “mosquito”, which meant, we could tell stories or chitchat or plot next day’s play we were enacting. These plays always centered around a king (Willy),a queen Hessa to oldest Renner daughter and Bår the princess. I had to play a prince because of my boyish haircut. It was already then evident I had no talent for acting because I always started to giggle when I was supposed to kiss the princess. This close friendship lasted throughout my early childhood.

My childhood part II

The first apartment which I remember was very old-fashioned.though at least it had running water but only cold. Neither did it have a bathroom. One had washstands in the bedrooms. I remember being bathed in a rubber tub which sat on the floor.The rooms, though, were large and ceilings were high. I have a photo of my father sitting at his desk and behind him in the next room my mother sitting by the window, the sun flooding in.As far as I remember the apartment buildings in that section of town were about a hundred years old when that section of town was under the jurisdiction of the state of Prussia. Unfortunately that part of town was totally destroyed in the last war.I can still smell the old wood in the staircase.

After my sister Jakobe was born we moved to the subburbs into a modern four-story apartment building. Not only was the apartment much larger but it had central heat,hot and cold water, three balconies, one to the street and two to the back and a few practical features such as a bell pull hanging from the wall of the bathtub.This bellpull had a large knob which fit neatly into the palm of a hand and was made of brass.Naturally the brass needed to be polished which the maid dutifully and regularly did.She or my mother also came running when I pulled the cord,which I often did just to see if it worked. Another practical feature was the garbage chute in the wall of the kitchen balcony though we were never able to use it since somebody had stuck an umbrella down which opened up between our apartment and the one below us and could not be reached to pull back up. So much for modern features in our new apartment.

My most favorite place in the new apartment was the entrance hall of which my father in a sense took possession. It wasn’t enough for him that it had nice mahogany panelling, he also had to decorate it. So he hung framed woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer depicting Jesus’ “walk to Golgatha” into the top row of panels. The floor was covered with an antique Persian rug.My father loved Persian rugs but always only had enough money to buy somewhat threadbare ones. On rainy days I would lie smack in the middle of the floor and gaze at the woodcuts.

This panelling went three quarter up the wall, interrupted by the doors which led to the front rooms. Everybody who went in an out of the rooms carefully stepped over me. Nobody ever complained that I was in the way. Above the panelling my father had designed a swirling pattern to break the monotony of pure cream color. I think the swirls were some sort of blue. Maybe they were supposed to give the impression of a busy sky. In any case, this was my domain at the age of four while my baby sister was asleep in the nursery.

In good weather my mother went on long walks with us. At least to me they seemed to be long. I remember being very jealous looking at my baby sister in the carriage lying comfortably looking at the sky whereas I had to walk.Nowadays I see mothers talking into cellphones while pushing their strollers. My mother told me stories while we walked,Every once in a while she would stop and maybe show me a leaf,pointing at the tree from which it came and telling me what sort of a tree it was. On these walks she was always there just for us, never doing any shopping or having long gossipy chitchats with other mothers.

Times are often dangerous nowadays and cellphones can be very useful helping to keeping track of your child, for example specially if you are a mother at work.I guess there are two sides to every story. More about me next time.

My childhood

The news, both here and in Germany is full of information about child development. The experts talk about too much stimulus, too many activities, too anxious parents among the middle and upper middle classes. The poor, of course, as usual are losing out. Since I have spent the last few weeks writing and remembering  events and periods of my past I think I will  delve a bit into my own childhood which by now seems to belong to the dark ages.

Not only am I now eighty eight years old but my father was an old father,born in 1876, which meant that all his references, experiences, ideas about children  and their development belonged to another age.Though his family was financially comfortably off but  by no means rich. So were we.

My father was Baurat Dr. Jakstein.“Baurat “or Building Inspector though he never became“Ober-Baurat” But basically he was an architect.So  much for my “official” father.Aside fom being to much older than the fathers of my classmates he was an enormously creative person.

He came from a very creative family on his mother’s side. My great-grandfather was a writer and educator, his daughter, my grandmother, was a painter. Her specialty was as copyist. I have several copies of Rembrandt's on my walls which greatly impress visitors because they think they are originals.

Aside from all this creativity both my parents made music. My father played the violin and my mother accompanied herself singing Schubert songs. As a small child I loved listening to here while waiting to fall asleep. Needless to say, my sister and I were exposed to everything that furthered creativity. Except I don’t think anybody ever called it that. It was simply a way of life. I don’t think I was ever bored, or at least never for long. I simply had to figure out what to do next.And then, there were the books.Obviously when I was small they were picture books with just a few lines of text. I remember bragging I could read the two lines above the picture which I simply had memorized.At that time I was four years old.But I grew older and our children's library grew with us. Both our parents had writer and publisher friends who, when visiting, brought a recently published book which was not always suitable for a child.

One such book was written by the explorer Sven Hedin who had climbed the Himalays. It had wonderful photos and a lot of grown-up text.I have to confess, I did not bother much with that text but loved looking at those photos. I also was very glad that it was not I who had to climb those mountains.Maybe I was an early version of a couch-potato.

From early childhood on we were encouraged to make things. We did not just go out and buy a present. After all, anybody with money could go and buy something but not everybody could make something. At least, I think that was the thought behind this philosophy. One year I made my father a pouch in which he could store his starched collars. I think he really used it. Though it was the ironing woman who did the starching.

I remember my mother as being busy, but never frantic. She was working at home,translating as well as doing the cooking but not cleaning. For that we had a maid. My father,after coming home from the office , would disappear into his study to work on any of his multitudinous hobbies or writing.I often fell asleep to the sound of clacking typewriters, one from above and one next door.

Balkan III

Balkan III

While I was encouraged to eat something Oleg’s sister prepared a bath for me and  put a clean sheet on her own be so that I could sleep. Meanwhile they caught up on news about their own family who was scattered all over the Balkans.I gratefully, went to sleep only to be awakened by the sister.”Hurry up, your train is leaving in a few minutes. Oleg will take you and we have to pack and leave here tonight, the Russians are close.So  Oleg and I dashed to the station where the train was ready to leave with or without me. I was handed through a window just as the train started pulling out heading north toward Hungary.

By daylight we were in Hungary where the sun was beating down on us. But looking toward the Austrian border we saw clouds and rain. All day long the train zigzagged toward the border-away from the border, toward it and again away.Somewhere behind us and further north lay Budapest which we could only see from a distance. It was burning.

So we  sloly reached the Austrian border and temporary safety,whatever that meant in those days. We were deposited at a Vienna  station which now does not exist anymore, somewhere in he south of the city.

The station was deserted and we had the large center hall to ourselves. Since there were only a few benches I simply layed down on the stone floor using my small leather bag which contained all the essentials, such as documents and toothbrush etc. ,as pillow.Next to me was my suitcase whose broken handle I kept in my hand so that I would know if someone was trying to take it. I was so exhausted that I actually slept, uncomfortable as the situation was  Early in the morning I woke up, looking not at the ceiling but at hundreds of legs. I was surrounded by people who had come to the station over night to flee the city which had again been hit by bombs.Somehow our guide found a train for us and we started on our final leg home to Breslau.

The trip north through Austria was totally uneventful The landsape appeared peacful. No sign  of war or any kind of unrest. We passed Prag and I waved longingly at the Hradchin up on the hill. It took me fifty years to finally be able to visit Prag.

Back in Breslau it was another story. At the school the outer office was filled  with very young  boys and old men who had armed themselves with any kind of gun or rifle they had been able to find. They were getting ready to fight the Russians who were coming closer and closer. It was a truly pityful sight watching these males  preparing to defend their city.By the time the city was actually beleaguered I was back at my mother’s and followed the defense of Breslau  via Radio Moskau. Amazingly, it took days, if not even a few weeks. for the Russian army to take the city.

I have never been back in that part of the world. Breslau is now called Wroslov and belongs  to Poland,so does the entire State of Silesia. It still took a bit more than half a year for this war to be finally over.During this time more and  more  my trip to  Greece and the Balkan receded into the background to be cherished as a beautiful memory.Though I knew then that I would never want to go back to that region. Partly because I  knew that nothing would be as it had been and I didn’t want to be disapointed.

Balkan 1944 II

Balkan 1944 II

Once my cardboard suitcase and I were  safe  the young man who had rescued me introduced himself with a big smile, in German. His name was Oleg, Oleg Rodzianko. He belonged  to a group of Russians who had  been on tour in Albania for the past three months. His people were comfortably settled on straw at one side of the wagon, our girls occupied the opposite side and were equally  glad to be safe ashore. As usual I was standing, leaning against the doorframe and the big iron bar  which was pushed waisthigh across the opening. Slowly the train started to move as night fell. Once in a while the Russians  started singing  one of their hauntingly beautiful  songs of  longing for Russia. These were  White Russians who had fled  Stalins regime and  who fervently hoped to one day go back home. All this I learned  over the next few days from Oleg  who had calmly  stretched out his arm across my chest as I was about to pitch forward falling asleep standing .

The next few days we slowly chugged  north, more often than not stopping for hours-waiting. Oleg and I spent much time sitting in the shade when the train  stopped for whatever reason,-talking. He, mostly about going back  to Russia without Stalin  and I about my dread going back to Germany with Hitler and all the bombing. Finally we made it to Belgrade  where  we had hotel rooms and baths I explored the town a bit until there was an air raid warning. A few bombs fell, somewhere, nothing major, and  after a few hours I sauntered back to the hotel where I found  a few of the other girls   sitting in the lobby in a state of shock. “Kirsten, wasn’ t it awful” ?  I had no idea what they were talking about. They meant  the air raid and the few bombs.This was September  1944 , most major cities in Germany were  in ruins , some of them  already since several years, and these girls  had never heard a bomb drop.

Looking  back Istill marvel at the naivitée  of these girls. Though there was no such thing as television we did have radios and, of course, newspapers.But they were all from Breslau in Silisia which  was quite different from  the western regions of Germany.

Several  times, the next few days, we were told to get ready to be taken to a train  which was supposedly waiting  for us on the other side of the river. The bombs had hit the bridges and alternate routes had to be found. Each time it was false alarm. Finally we were off.Just as the trucks started rolling Oleg ,whom I had not seen for a few days, came to be taken across also.We arrived at a train station and were deposited on the platform. No train. So everybody settled on the ground and waited. After a while Oleg  suggested I come with him to see his parents who lived near by. We took the suitcase and  walked about five minutes to a very neat and modern apartment house.

On the third floor Oleg rang  a door bell. After a few minutes the door was opened by a tall slender elderly gentleman,clad  in a white suit and a small woman, also not young anymore.Oleg immediately started talking in Russian, pointing at me.They looked at me,started smiling and pulled me inside.Only after they had embraced  me and deposited me  at a table in the entrance hall did they embrace Oleg, their son, whom they had not seen  or heard from in  three months.I thought I knew hospitality but never quite like this.

Balkan

        Balkan  1944

With Greece so much in the news I keep thinking about  our return trip through the Balkan in the early fall of ’44. I must confess, I didn’t know much about the Balkans other than that the Archduke had been murdered at Sarajevo and that Belgrade was the capital of Serbia. Neither did I pay much attention to anything concerning the Balkans until the U.S, and Western countries decided to “save” the region. To me the Balkans were  the weeks of the end of my trip out of Greece. The world was steadily collapsing around me and I somehow lived in my coccoon  of blissful ignorance.

Our train left  early in the morning from Salonika. During the evening someone had sent a messenger  into town to get the two guards with whom we had chatted through the night on the way to Athens a few months ago. It is a total mystery to me to remember  about what we talked, but talk we did. Finally the night was over  and it was time to leave. Slowly the train  began to move. We girls  were relieved to be on our way and waved a cheerful  “Good by” to the two soldiers who clung to the steps at the end of our carriage until it was almost too late for them to jump  off. It seemed a bit strange the way they clung  to the train but then, life was anything but normal.

Much of the way I stood in the aisle  outside our compartment looking at the peaceful and sundrenched landscape. Next to me sat a peasant on his haunches, every once in a while smiling at me.  At one point he opened his sack and pulled out a huge loaf of bread  of which  he started to carve a slice with a huge  knife. With a big smile he offered me a slice which I accepted smiling back at him.Now he pulled out a slab of bacon and started to carve off  a slice which in turn he offered to me. I knew about trichinosis but decided to throw caution to the wind and accepted a slice of the fat.Somehow it seemed more important to me to bask in the friendly atmosphere in a strange land than worrying about future health.

All of a sudden the train stopped at a small local station with a small station house and a pump in the yard and we were told to get out.A rather pompous officer shouted somehting about enemy planes as we tried to hide under trees nearby, Sure enough, all of a sudden two little planes came swooping down from the back of the train and as they neared the engine they shot ferociously at it but hit nothing. We ended up sitting at that station all day long.I had decided to join two soldiers who hunkered very cheerfully in a dugout nearby chewing on green  corn. One of them was able to identify the origin of any plane by the sound of the engine. Very often the pompous officer was wrong when he shouted “enemy plane”.From this soldier I also learned that last nights train had been hit and many people were killed inside the compartments. This is what the boys in Salonika knew and why they were so reluctant to see us go.

We stayed several days in that village until it was finally safe enough to continue  until we had to cross a small river  without a bridge. A train, this time a cattle car, was waiting for us on the other shore and  we were ordered to take our belongings  and  negogiate ourselves  across  a narrow but rather wild river on  pontoons which were anything but steady. Half way acoss a helping hand reached out to me and pulled me ashore.

Education II

Though  the school system in Germany has changed since I went to school,it still has the institution called  “Abitur”. The Abitur is the final exam  at the end of the high sschool years. Not everyone goes to a school which offers a curriculum that enables one to pass the exams but that does not mean that children who don’t go to such a school don’t get an education. The Abitur is essential, though, if one wants to go to university and work toward a doctorate.At my time girls went to the lycée and boys to the gymnasium,though this name had no connection with sports.In both schools the subjects were similar.

Definitely a foreign  language  which in my case was French. The following year a second language  was added. In my case English. After that Latin was added. Most boys also had Greek and my German father in law even had Hebrew. Why learn the ancient languages? In order  to be able to study ancient texts.As for modern languages  some children had the choice of Spanish or French. But you did not have the choice of not taking a language. Clearly  we did not have the various subjects all on one day since we also had  History,Geography,Math or Geometry plus Biology and. of course, Chemistry.We girls also  had  two periods back to back of needlework once a week.And music but no orchestra. And last but not least, sports. After Hitler came to power sports became of great importance.If I remember correctly we had sports five times a week as last period.

If this looks crowded  then I can only say, it was crowded. But for example  math became Algebra,Zoology became Biology. Nowadays these subjects would simply be called  science. For example  once a week we  had  a two period session of Art.For me, clearly, subjects like music, art, etc. even sports were sheer relaxation. My downfall were Math and the Sciences. I had simply no relation to these subjects and don’t to this very day. I am  in no way interested in going to the moon or anywhere else in the universe.Though I was not very good at languages, such as learning vocabulary and grammar  I am glad that I had to learn as much as I did. Also, as I have found out over the years, it is simply amazing what is still hidden in my brain and all of a sudden pops up when I need it.

No, we did not learn to speak French or English but those of us who in grown up life needed to use these languages, either by migration or going into a profession such inter-

pretation benefited very much from our early training. I remember how I often marvelled  at my own ability to remember a long forgotten word or rule. On the other hand, I admit, it makes me  a  pedantic old woman when I shudder at careless usage of grammar such as “the woman that ...” A woman or any person is not a “that” but a “who”. Or the usage of  “who” and “whom”. Specially if such a person is earning  a living  with the use of language, such a politician or  media  person for example.So I apologize and try to keep my mouth shut next time someone says “For who is that?” After all, I can always turn the television off. Or switch to the German chanel.

Education

Coming  from a family of educators and having raised five children in this country my ears naturally perk up when I hear  education mentioned  which happens very often these days, here as well  as in Germany. Since I was born and raised in Germany and have not gone to school here I have no  qualifications  in this country other than having the right to have an opinion.And,of course, a lot of questions.For example, it took me quite a while to understand what it means “to teach to the test” just to mention one of them.The other word mentioned ,in this case with disdain is “rote” or “learning by rote”. Which is, how I was taught. So maybe I can explain why I think “rote” learning was not all that bad.

First I should maybe mention that the idea “school should be fun “never entered anybody’s head. At least I know I was never asked:”did you have fun today?”Neither did other Germans living in this country but having grown up over there. No ,school was serious business already before you had entered first grade. This was the first step toward becoming a more responsible person.I am not trying to convince  anybody,that that was the better way. It was just the way it was and we accepted it.Or had to accept it beause there was that cane with which some of the boys occasionally became acquainted  or standing in the corner as punishment for some misdemeanour, all of which sounds perfectly dreadful but strangely enough, it wasn’t.

Learning  rules by heart or poems ,or vocabulary, it was simply what you did. Learn.

And  what about creativity? Learning to read and write gave you the tools with which to be creative.Learning  grammatical  rules taught you to speak your language  correctly. Learning  a poem by heart it became part of your consciousness or even, your subconscious. Learning  songs opened up a whole new world, or old world  if the song was about some historical moment, such as a famous battle.Or a sad occurrence  such as the death or a comrad in battle. We all knew “Ich  hat einen  Kameraden,einen  bessern finds Du nicht.”I had  a comrad, you won’t find a better one.” Knowing this song nobody will have to  be told about the ravages of war. It is all in the melody and the text.

I realize, this all sounds very dilettantic, That is, because I am a dilettant.But I do know that I learned a lot in school right from the beginning.For e xample , geography. In my elementary school classsroom stood a large ,raised sandbox, about the size of a pingpong table. In our immediate region  two kinds of communities were common: the cluster village and the row village,all  the houses strung alongside the road running through the village.  The objective now was to recreate such a village.  In  art class we had all made little houses. All had gables and a pitched roof. First you drew the prototype, then cut it out, then folded  what needed to be folded and then glued  it. And ,of course, the doors and windows had to be drawn. After we had our houses we gathered around the sandbox  and shaped the actual  village.  And  there you had  a complete lesson  in local geography.

Of course it was no fun,learning  grammatical  rules. I always preferred to use my hands since I  was good making things. I had learned to crotchet at age four sitting on the step stool of  somebody’s  grandmother  whom  I was visiting. But if one wanted to go to Highschool  it was necessary since languages  were taught beginning  in Fifth grade .

Potsdam III

The following year,1991. things had changed completely when my friend Gabriele  Duvinage and I arrived in Potsdam, this time by car. The sleepy and rather dowdy little town of a year ago simply had exploded.  Cars were everywhere but no little  Trabis or Trabants. It seems everyone had dug deep into their savings and bought new cars. People in the streets smiled and even  laughed. And bought. It seemed they bought anything they could lay their hands on, just for the sake pf beong able to buy somehting. Whether they need ed it or not. But I may be wrong there.

We decided to stay in a bed and breakfast and were advised to go to Babelsberg, the parkland next to Potsdam which was now again  officially part of the town.After consult-ing  a map  we found the connecting streets, only to to be confronted with bumps in the road. The streets on one side were higher than on the other so that we ended up taking quite a few detours.But finally we arrived at the correct address where we were greeted by the couple who owned, and as it turned out, built the little house.Cement sack by cement sack, procured from his place of work.He told us that quite openly.. Legal or not legal seemed to make no difference to him.

But his pride was his large garden which he tended lovingly. And decorated. Smack  in the middle, more or less in front of the house, was a little pond in the center of which stood a small “Månneken Piss” a copy of the small sculpture attached to the corner  of a house in Brussles, right under he eaves which  spewed rainwater into the street. Somehow he had gotten hold of a copy and planted it right in the middle of his garden. His greatest worry, though, was: would the water department turn on the water for him? His second worry was, would the original owners of the property want the lot back?.This turned out to be the question number one all over Babelsberg. Would people be displaced again and have to move?

Our hosts were refugees themselves. Rural people from the Warthegau ,the strip of land between Poland and Germany,Hitler had annexed.  One of his first acts of enlarging  Germany’s  Lebensraum.(space to live)  The largest city of the Polish Corridor, as the area was called  then, was Danzig , now Gdansk.During the war one could hear sometimes a sarcastic remark when something unpleasant had happened, such as a bomb hitting nearby,” Heil Hitler, the main thing is, we have Danzig”.Sarcasm  certainly helps in times of stress and stress we all experienced  during many years

The next day we drove on an arterial road away from town, passing long rows of barracks originally built to house Prussian soldiers. Now they were occupied by soviet troupes who stood inside the fences, looking  longingly  at life now denied them, waiting to be transported back to Russia. Meanwhile citizens were busy planning to rebuild their city but first they had to rebury Frederick  to lie next to his beloved grayhounds which they had just done a day or two before we arrived. He now lies to the right of the castle on the top terrace where it is hoped he lies in peace.Now the town is completely restored and modernized. Now people come to see people rather than art or buildings which, of course displeases some people.

Potsdam II

       Potsdam II

The war did its share of destruction in Potsdam and the communist  administration of the East zone which was the Russian zone, did the rest. Not only was the Garnison church heavily bombed, but the ruins were removed leaving an empty space good for parking their funny little Trabis, the only car manufactured in East Germany. When I was a child we took a steam engine train which stopped just at the edge of town. From there we walked across the parade ground where more often than not a group of recruits were practicing  their goose stepping, past the Bittschriften Linde ( the Linden tree to which the subjects could pin their petitions) to Breitestrasse corner Breite(Broad)brücke to Nr. 27. When I came back the first time many years after the war, things had changed.

This time I had to take a bus from Berlin. The wall deviding Germany into two parts was still standing, but restrictions had eased and it was possible to go and visit. With me on the bus were mostly Berliners who were finally able to visit their relatives after all these years of separation. Nr. 27 was still standing, seemingly unharmed, but the canal was gone. Now Breitestrasse really was broad but totally drab. Walking into and around town and talking  to a few people, I encountered caution. As if people were constantly looking over their shoulders. The chancellery in which my grandfather had worked stood, un-harmed, and I decided to take a look inside, only to encounter total silence.

I walked up the stairs to the mezzanine. Nobody. Up and down the hall past closed office doors. Total silence. Until I found one slightly ajar . Just as I pushed it open a bit two people passed inside from one room to the next, bending  over  some papers. I think I only got as far as clearing  my throat when they literally flew apart , their faces registering  great  anxiety, if not real fright. Fright of having been caught  at some conspiracy I assume. All over town, when trying to talk to people, I met wth suspicion, sometimes out-right hostility. Passing two people standing together talking they would immediately pull apart as if afraid of being  overheard. Caution seemed  to be the order of the day.

Many street names had been changed  to honor communist politicians.Breitestrasse was now Wilhelm Külzstrasse, whoever he was. Though the ruins had been neatly removed,neglect  and poverty were evident. The street where my father grew up, once a not very long but elegant stretch just outside the original town now looked delapidated. All the enameled  plates with the housenumbers were chipped, sometimes barely readable

A disturbing moment, for me, was the view from the “deathstrip” on the opposite side of the  Havel river, the Russian side.

I had gone  to Sakrow across the river to look for my great grandfather’s  grave and just check out the area where my father and his two sisters had spent many holidays of their childhood.After passing a few houses I went to the edge of the river and started walking along it a bit on the narrow path. The Havel is not very wide there, even I, who never was a very good swimmer,  would be able to swim it. Though, should you try it, you would be  shot. Walking along it I still could feel the sinister purpose of the path.These days,thank God were now over, though not yet forgotten.                                                                             

Potsdam

Potsdam, the capital of the province of  Brandenburg, Germany, is celebrating it’s 300^th  Jubilee. Since my father and his two sisters were born and raised there and his sisters lived and worked all their lives in that town, I visited there at least once a year from early childhood on. Coming from the commercial hub and harbor town, Hamburg, I always had the feeling of stepping into another age. There are no castles in Hamburg, no king or emperor ever ruled it or built beautiful edifices there and when the kingdom of Denmark reached as far as the Elbe river it had to stop just outside of town.

My aunt Tutti lived in an apartment built by the king, Frederick the Great .for his subjects.She lived on the top floor of  Breitestrasse 27 which, of course, nowadays you would call a walk up. And walk up you did. First you pulled open a huge door and then started climbing. But only about two flights. Then you were stopped by a grated door and  pulled out a huge key with which you could open that door. Then you climbed some more until you reached the top floor, got out another huge key, or maybe the same, but in any case huge, and opened her apartment door. And stepped right into her kitchen. The kitchen was light and had a door leading onto a balcony from where you could look at and over many roofs of the town of Potsdam. Down below you would see the canal  running through the center of Breitestrasse, lined with Linden trees, the barges  letting off goods and people or just passing through the Breite Brücke.

Crossing the bridge, and very close by, stood the Garnison Kirche After all, Potsdam was a military town and the military had to have their own church. But that was not enough. In the  churchtower was a Glockenspiel  which played every fifteen minutes. Twice during the hour a folktune and the other two times a hymn. In bed, at night, I was slowly lulled  to sleep, waiting for the next song.

The aparment had two rooms, the large one was Tutti’s and the other the guest room. And, yes, there was no bathroom of any kind. I suppose there was running cold water in the kitchen but certainly no toilet. In order to use the toilet you took another huge key and descended one flight down in the staircase. There you would find the communal toilet for  the tenants of that  floor.

At least once a visit we would walk to Sanssouci the residence of the king’s. Turning left on Breitestrasse one would reach the huge park of Sanssouci. Sowly we would stroll down the lane leading up to the castle until we finally reached the goldfish pond at the very foot of the terraced stairs leading to the castle. I have heard people comment with slight disdain, "After all, it is not Versaille.” As far as I am concerned, thank God it isn’t. If I want to think of something beautiful I only need to imagine  the trellis leading up to the top of the castle.

My Mother, Part IV: Thyra Dohrenburg

       My mother was an extremely  principled woman, stern, when necessary and at the same time  fun-loving. She was very organized in everything she did. OnMonday mornings  she planned the menu for the week. One day a week was meatless. On Friday we ate fish. Not because we were Catholics but because the fishing boats came in with fresh fish. On Sundays we had roast as was the custom, with the left –overs served in some form or other during the week. She was very conscious about were she bought produce. She never bought  anything because it was cheaper somewhere but because it was better. On the other hand she was very frugal. When she traveled she stayed in small  hotels in order to save money. Whatever money she earned she put into a savings account where it was safe until one day she took a closer look and realized that she had accumulated  a goodly amount and thus decided she could afford to buy a piece of property. So she went to Denmark and ended up buying a two hundred year old cottage  surrounded by thirty acres of land.

         Here she spent the last fifteen years of her life, tending her garden, making  jams and jellies from the berries she had grown and entertaining  her guests during the summer. And, of course, sitting at the typewriter working on the latest translation.She was a sought after lector because she was able to translate straight from the page without having first to type a ew pages. So, if the publisher wanted to hear a bit more she just turned the page and continued to read in German, no hesitations no stumbling. As perfect as she was in eithr language she had absolutely no talent for dialegs. Though she was a true Berliner she was never able to speak with a Berlin accent.Neithr was she ever able to speak Platt-Deutsch, the language  spoken along the shores of Northern Germany and somewhat inland. Where-ever she moved she gained the respect of the locals who not only trusted her but came to her with their problems.

After the war, still at the seashore she became the refuge for some who were afraid of what the British might do to them since they were occupiers. I will never forget seing her still with her swollen leg propped up, trying her school- English  on the young officers who had come to tell us we had to evacuate.She, very quickly, was in charge of the situation inspite, or maybe because of her awkward English.Naturally everybody in the neighbourhood came to her for advice  or help such as the boy who stood one day in her room,dusty and tired, telling her who he was. His mother was a schoolfriend of hers in Berlin who had a baby with whom she was going to flee but wanted her son, maybe fourteen years old, as far away from the Russians as possible. So she told him to hitch hike about two hundred miles to St. Peter where he landed, tired but good spirits.She was able to enroll him in a makeshift Highschool, find housing and later connect him with his mother who had made it safely out of harms way.

After sh died of cancer in Denmark it was the locals who looked after me the first week after her death, waiting for my sister and her husband to come back from Italy.Every day someone would come and simply decide, now we will go here, or now we will see some-one else, and give them the message. Nobody wrung their hands,exclaiming   how sorry they were. Everybody very quickly came up with some story they remembered and  soon one had the feeling she was around the door waiting to come in.It certainly helped  me over the carkest time of the year, way uo in the North where it doesn’t get light until around  eight in the morning  and the sun sets around four.

Because of her dread of any kind of a show she stipulated, she wanted no burial ceremony and not even a flower.  So she is buried  in a paupers grave  which sounds dreadful but is simply a massgrave, beautifully tended.

My Mother, Part III: Thyra Dohrenburg

         My mother's family’s background, compared to my father’s was rather humble. At least on  her father’s side. He came from a long line of linen weavers which was a respectable craft  With the introduction of the modern looms  financial  hardship became the norm among the weavers. My mother always told how poor her father’s family was when he was a boy. He walked  barefoot during the warmer months to save the money for shoes.

     

         Usually boys from such a background did not even think of going to the gymnasium ,the school for higher learning which prepared you for the entrance into university. At that time the two persons with “education” in that village were the school teacher and the minister. Since  my grandfather  was an eager and talented student the teacher asked the minister to instruct him in those subjects he need ed in order to enter the gymnasium. The long  and the short of it is that from then on he  moved out of his poverty stricken environment,ending up as a postal official  of some sort. He died when I was three years old so I have no memory of him. But judging from the photo of him and my Danish grandmother  he must have been a very stern parent. Though also quite modern  and above all  very concerned  about broadening the minds of his children.

       For example, my mother belonged  to a small sewing circle which met once a week in alternating homes. When my grandfather was free from work he would often sit and read to the girls  to introduce  them to some work of German literature. Certainly no pulp fiction  for him or his daughter and her friends.

        At the secretarial  school (the Lette House) in town my mother met with a  quite different group of young women. All  of them were eager to learn a skill with which they could earn their own living, Many of them were jewish. All of them had very independent minds. I remember some of them from my early childhood,when one of them came visiting in Hamburg. There was always an atmosphere of excitement surrounding their visits. One of them I remember particularly vividly, Julia Koppel, on her way to England  to excape Hitler and his henchmen. Of course, there was political talk but also  much laughter. I secretely  wished I could go with her.

        Until Hitler came to power I never knew there were people who were jewish or what that really meant. Most of my parents friends belonged to the class of people Hitler declared jewish, therefore undesirable. Luckily, all of my parent’s friends had the means and opportunities to leave the country. Sad as it was for them, at least all of them survived . albeit  not in Germany.I have to confess that at the age of ten or eleven I felt pangs or jealousy seeing  so many people of our acquaintance pack up and leave. Why couldn’t we go to some other country?. It took a while until I realized how bad the situation was and not only for the people now called Jews.My parents had many artist friends,of whom many all of a sudden were not permitted to persue their profession. Their  work was considered  “entarted” (degenerate). One of them, the sculptor Friedrich Wield, comitted suiced  rather than do the Nazis bidding, whatever  they had in store for him to do instead of working on a sculpture. Once Hitler was in power it seemed he would always be in charge and have a grip on everything. Specially since he started marching into other countries.

          Until about twenty years ago I always thought my parents split up because of the age  difference, after all, my father was 23 years older than my mother. But now I think it was the general upheaval of the times.So my mother, my sister and I moved into town and my mother threw herself full –time into her profession as a translator and lector.

My Mother Part II: Thyra Dohrenburg

            She also was probably a bit better informed about the background of some of the happenings. Such as someone being  ordered to report to the suthorities and never  returning.There  is the story of a wife going  to headquarters inquiring about her husband who had been ordered to report seven days earlier and not yet returned. The guard at the desk barely looked at her.Just consulted a piece of paper in front of him and after a moment said”You can pick up the urn in room so and so.” I don’t know if this story is just a story or really true and just circulated among  people who were anti Hitler. Not everybody read or even was able to read a foreign paper every Sunday. In our case the Copenhagen paper  “Politiken”. At that time Germany had not yet invaded Denmark and the paper arrived every Sunday uncensored at our door. If anybody wishes to know more about the danger of any kind of resistance they should inform themselves about the Geshwister Scholl  Sophie   and Hans and their professor who distributed “anti nazi “ leaflets at their university in Munich, were caught,condemned and subsequently hanged. A documentary of it has been made called “The white Rose” which has been shown in this country but few people seem to have seen it or even know about it.

           Every time we moved some girl from the local  BDM “Bund Deutshcer Mådchen” came and invited us girls to come to their next meeting . I did go to exactly three Hitler Youth meetings in my life, every time being horrified  a how stupid and boring these meetings were. We girls just sat around and the “leader” read from some Nazi propaganda book. We probably also sang some songs. In any case, I complained to my mother at the stupidity of these people who asked would I like her to get me excused?  Sure. By all means.So my mother went to headquarters to plead my case. As she told it,head shaking at the audacity of these people, there sat three girls ,maybe between fifteen and seventeen years of age. The leader in the middle flanked by her two witnesses. My mother calmly explained how she understood that Germany needed the young to be strong and loyal  citizens but she had a problem. Her daughter  was not exactly a very good student and needed all the spare time to work on her home-work plus practicing the piano.She never got flustered, just calmly looked  at these young “leaders” and waited for their response. The upshot always was.go the next higher “leader” until she reached the top and they had to give up and excused me from having to join the Hitler Youth. Other parents tried but often were so disgusted at those young people who lorded it over grown ups that they somehow showed  their contempt and had to leave without success.

       In those days, any kind of dissent was suspect and you most likely were now observed in secret. Your mail might be opened, telephone tapped into, a neighbour spying on you and certainly the super of your building spying on you or at least having orders to do so.

        Anybody visualizing Nazi-Germany crowds of cheering  young people in uniform lining  a thouroughfare, behind them apartment buildings festooned with swastikas hanging from windows come to mind. And that is, what it was like because it was ordered to look like that. If you did not hang out your flag on designated days, someone reported on you. When we moved into town all the windows in our new apartment faced into the gardens in back. I still see my mother stepping out on the porch exclaiming: “Thank god, now I don’t have to hang out the flag.”

        My mother always seems to have had an independent spirit. Part of her childhood  she lived in Denmark, went to school there and, of course, spoke Danish. When it was time to plan for her future she decided to go to secretarial school instead of learning how to run a household and cook.So  she learned to type, two fingers on either hand and shorthand. After the first World War she landed a job with the delegation which corrected the border between Germany and Denmark.I remember her telling me that she would never respond if any or the “excellencies” called “Miss”. She waited until they had remembered her name.The only person of authority she ever admired as the then Danish King, Kong Christian the 10^th. He was the one who guided his people through the German occupation.Denmark was the country she loved, with which she identified.

        Though we were German we  really grew up in a Danish household. We  thanked our parents for the meal when we rose from the table in Danish, though I have to admit we never bothered to learn much  more. We had a Danish ironing woman,our parents often spoke Danish with each other, though mostly when they didn’t want us to undertand what they were saying. And, of course,there were many Danish visitors ,friends and relatives.Each of my parents went to Copenhagen at least twice a year but not necessarily together. My moher, to meet with authors and my father to do his research  on Danish architecture.

       She had no respect for authority as such. The Nazis, of course, were The Authority at that time and it would have been suicide to proclaim your disdain out loud. So you worked in small ways such as helping a jewish neighbour whose husband had just been picked up in the middle of the night.We barely knew these people since we had just moved into the apartment.But she had heard the commotion and heard the wife cry so se woke me up to come with her to see what we could do. All w could do was commiserate but at least the woman was not quite alone. Luckily he came back two days later and took his wife to his family’s farm where she survived the war un- harmed.

       

My Mother: Thyra Dohrenburg

           It seems that of late there are more than usual discussions in the media about the Holocaust. The “why” and “how” of it and the resurgence of  antisemitism  not only in Germany. At least nowadays it is quite often acknowleged  that by no means all Germans were Nazis or even anti- semitic. But again and again I hear:” the Germans did nothing”: meaning, to prevent the final horror. Which, of course, is true. So I thought I would tell a bit about my mother who certainly was not a Nazi and somehow got herself on the black-list of the Gestapo. For those people who do not know, and there seem to be quite a few, Gestapo (Geheime Staats Polizei) was what the CIA is to Americans. So I shall start with the day our apartment was searched.

            For all intents and purposes it was an ordinary day. My mother, who was a translator of skandinavian languages, worked at her desk, the maid cleaned  and I was doing my homework or pretending to, in my room. Where  my sister was I don’t know. In any case, the doorbell rings and the maid goes to answer. The days of the door to door salesman were long gone, already before Hitler came to power. Having strangers roaming  all over the country had become too dangerous, so most buildings had notices posted: No soliciting. The maid, Ellie, who was a trusted part of the household, opens the door cautiously since nobody was expected and finds a rather ordinary lookimg  chap standing in front of her,smiling somewhat awkwardly and asking to see the lady of the house.Ellie just shut the door into his face and went to tell my mother that there was a strange man outside who did “not belong.”

            My mother calmly went into the hall to meet this stranger. She had a way of looking at someone,straight into your eyes, no smile but also no frown. Just cool and detached. “Yes”? is all she said. The stranger introduced himself  smiling  somewhat ingratiatingly  and said he had just come from Copenhagen and was bringing  greetings from Manya Plivier. Manya was the divorced wife of Theodor Plivier, a communist writer who had left Germany to settle in Moscow.Manya had gone to Copenhagen and my mother had helped her by introducing her to her friends who might help her find work. She was not a friend, just someone my mother knew casually. Not only was there any reason why Manya would send greetings via a total stranger ,she would also know how dangerous that would be. On the other hand, my mother could not deny that she knew Manya.

          

           So she asked the man into the livingroom  and offered him a chair. He sat down and started to hem and haw a bit,shifting uncomfortably on the chair. He had probably not expected my mother to be so calm  But she just let him squirm a bit and then told him quietely that she thought that he was sent by the Gestapo. “Oh no, not at all” he assured her vehemently. To which my mother only replied:” Oh yes, and now I will tell you something else. You have orders to search this apartment.” He again  vehemently denied this and made an attempt to leave but my mother simply declared  that now he was going to do the searching and here,please, was her desk. He had no choice but to get up and follow her into her study adjoining the living room and  look at the papers on her desk which was littered with correspondence. She was an avid letter writer and so were her friends which meant there was much mail  on that desk on that particular morning. So he picked up a piece of paper here and an envelop there but not really seing anything as she stood there calmly watching him and then quickly left.

         

          But my mother was not done with the Gestapo. She went to headquarters in Hamburg and complained that she had been subjected to a search which they denied had been the case. But she persisted and declared that now she was on their list and wished to be taken off it. That, they replied was not possible. So now she knew where she stood. Somehow she later heard that they referred to her as “The road to Denmark”. I am not saying that my mother was any kind of a heroine, acting the way she did. She was simply totally contemptuous of the lot of them but realistic enough to know, that showing her contempt would only worsen the situation.

Greece 1944

In the summer or 1944 I belonged to a small group of students who were sent on tour to give performances for the soldiers. We had a singer, a violinist, one or two pianists,a young dancer and a 15 year old xylophonist, the only male in the group. At first we were supposed to go to Norway but since the German army constantly retreated our destination also constantly changed and we finally ended up being sent to Greece.These four months, in spite of the fact that it was still war time and we did not belong to the people who were exactly welcome since we could be considered as belonging to the occupation forces, have been for many years among the most wonderful time I had ever experienced.

Greece at that time was in dire straights. Not only had the country been overrun by a foreign force, us, the Germans, but it also suffered from hyper-inflation. This meant.for example, that there was no real “normal”trade. You did not just go into a store, put down some money and bought, whatever you wished to buy. You traded, or haggled, or “dealt”. Black market was the order of the day. At least as far as the Greek population was concerned with whom we had no connection. We were housed in a small hotel somewhere down town which,of course, was requisitioned by us, the occupation forces. I have to confess, I was simply not concerned with all the political “ins” and “outs”. I just accepted life as it came.

Yes, we girls had no worries. We were assigned our rooms, in my case, three to a room. A shared bathroom but, for example, not much water. We filled the bathtub whenever there was water and scooped a bit out of it to wash at least our faces. Usually a fine film of dust settled on the water in the tub. On the other hand the view from my bed was extraordinary. My bed stood parallel with a large window which was kept wide open to catch whatever breeze was coming into the room. This was simply pleasant and welcome but what was stunning was the view through the glassless window Out there, in the not too far distance,above the roofs of Athens stood the Acropolis. Just turning my head a bit to the right I was looking straight at this incredible landmark with which I was very familiar ever since I had doodled the columns in History class listening to a very boring lecture given by a very nice but very boring teacher. So I knew to draw the Doric column,the Ionian column and lastly the Korinthian column.I was very familiar with the Parthenon and the Erechtion etc., etc. There they all were, somewhat in the distance but very visible and distinct, with or without moonshine. Simply there. For me to look at while I was slowly drifting off to sleep.

I have to admit that I was very disappointed when I walked around the ruins and saw how crumbly the marble was. It did not look like what I thought I knew what marble should look like. Nice and polished even as a ruin. I thought the view from the Acropolis over the roofs of Athens was much more impressive.But the most magnificent view I experienced one evening when I went to a concert one night with a friend when we were sitting on a rock below the Acropolis but above the Ampitheatre which lies just below.We sat above the tiers of seats in the dark looking through the three arches out onto the Aegian sea which was barely distinguishable but for tiny dots of light here and there created by the night fishermen busy on the water watched over by a thin sickle of the moon way above the sky. A few stars also blinked. Way below, in the pit the Athens Philharmonic played Mozart. To this day this to me was pure magic. During all these years I have heard many concerts,played by great orchestras in wonderful halls many of them conducted by great conductors but never have I had this sense of pure magic as that night barely lit by a small sickle of moon and a few glittering stars blinking over the silent activities of night fishermen plying their trade.

Did I say it was hot in Athens? It was more than hot. No matter how tired we were we woke up early simply because we were getting hot. All around us you could see people rising from their cool night on the roof to get ready for work.

Not only was it hot during the day but much of the country was infested with bed bugs. One night we had performed on the peninsula Attica and were supposed to stay at a small hotel for the night. A few of the girls had contracted a three day malaria which we were told was called papadachi fever.This meant they had to stay in bed. As it turned out, the hotel was totally infested with the bugs which crawled over the beds even when the lights were turned on. I was lucky not to have contracted the fever thus was able to spend the night sitting on the stoop of the hotel all night long thus avoiding being stung by the pesky bugs.Yes, the bugs were a nuisance but to me, sitting on the grass one night on cape Sounion, looking down the slope onto the still and peaceful water and across onto the island of Salamis, trying to imagine the battle which was fought there in 480 BC these bugs were just a minor nuisance..Never mind the bed bugs, never mind the discomfort or black market, this was simply a different world to me.

Slowly I had learned a few words of Greek.I think the first time I was taught a word was when sitting on an open truck which transported our group to next nights performance as well as a refrigerator.At one point the young mechanic, in charge of the refrigerator smiled at me, pointed to a lone tree we were passing, telling me the name. So I repeated the word, it seems to his satisfaction and my delight. I love languages, though I only speak two plus a smattering of a few more. So I had a good time on top of that truck looking out at the landscape around me and learning a few words of Greek.

What I remember most about my stay in Greece is the kindness of ordinary citizens. For some reason I never was subjected to any taunts walking down the street or any kind of harassment such as being spat at with peach stones. I had set out on the tour with the resolve I would not be bothered by pettiness such as pushing for the best seat on the train, I would just accept what was available. Which meant,I did a lot of standing and probably was being considered very aloof. But never by the everyday Greeks.

One night I came back to the hotel after curfew Marshall law had been declared, the streets were blocked with barbed wire and I was late coming back from a jam session at the radio station playing four hand Mozart. The hotel was locked down for the night,the streets deserted.Very, very timidly I pressed the bell button at the only entrance to the hotel, hoping the German head honcho would not hear the bell.After a few minutes the heavy door was opened a crack by one of the concierges. He quickly pulled me inside and up the ten or so steps to his office. He and his colleague were just getting ready to have their meager supper. I wrung my hands in apology for having disturbed their meal and these two men in turn pulled a third chair to their little table motioning me to sit down and share their meal with them. All they had was a bit of bread and one tomato. In front of my eyes they made a great show how they had washed the tomato, turning it this way and that so I could see how clean it was. I ended up sharing the tomato and bread with these two concierges who would have felt very offended had I not eaten with them.

Every so often one of them checked if the German boss was still up so that I could sneak to my room on the top floor. Finally they declared the ascent safe and I made it into our room only to be received with great relief by my room mates since we had gotten orders while I was gone to pack and get ready to leave Athens. I was horrified. I wanted to stay in spite of all the danger, heat and bed bugs. In tears I started packing. After a while the maid with a sweet smile took over and packed my suitcase for me. Never in my life have I had such a beautifully packed suitcase.

We ended up leaving Athens with the last train and were lucky not to be killed on the way home.The journey or trek home took two weeks and how ever difficult and dangerous it was I have always thought of these three months in Greece as an enchanted time enhanced by the kindness of the simple people who so often were condescended to by the German GI. How do you keep your surroundings clean if you have but one cup of water the entire day for all your chores?