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.