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.