Tante Hanna’s Memories
Memories: from Moschin to Boll
(1997-1998)
( The Flight 1989)
Johanna Hoffmann
(9/2/1910 – 11/21/2000)
Memories
from Moschin to Boll
(1997-1998)
Moschin [Mosina] p. 1 (English)
(pages)
Grünberg [Zielona Góra] p. 31 (21)
[Grünberg] p. 49 (32)
Seppau (by Grogan) p. 62 (39)
Marriage p. 96 (58)
Wolfsdorf (by Goldberg) p. 99 (60)
The Flight I in 1945
(in the Stenography Notebook) p. 123 (73)
Haldensleben p. 1-19 (appendix)
Süplingen and Flight II 1956 p. 123 (88)
Schlierbach / Langstadt p. 135 (94)
Westerburg p. 135 (105)
Boll p. 171 (114)
Ulrich Hoffmann’s Letter 7th Feb 2005 to Hanna and Tirzah (129)
On receiving the announcement of Gertrude Behrens Krey’s death.
A translator’s Note by Peter D.S. Krey (130)
Ulrich Reinhold Kurt Hoffmann (8/3/1938-4/30/2024), family notes
Memories of Moschin
My father was the first to build a house in the settlement of Moschin, which is 4 stations after Posen. It was intended to be a place for when he grew old and a dwelling for his family.
Tante (Aunt) Trudel had already been born on March 1st 1908 and on the moving day, the 23rd of March 1909, while still in Posen, Tante Wally came into the world, so that my mother could not immediately move into the new house.
In front of the house there was a small flower garden, in which my mother, when we celebrated Easter, hid eggs; then in the living room, as well; and even in my father’s briefcase, where we would find some. On the other side [of the front] of the house was the entrance and a long yard that was paved by bricks stretched along before [the house]. In that yard there was a pretty green pump with a long handle. On the right side of the yard began the garden, which stretched out at quite a length and it was bordered with a half-high fence. Behind the house there was the chicken yard with a stall in which there was a pig. When it was butchered, we children often watched it from the window of our bedroom. It was terrible when it squealed that way.
Opposite the chicken yard in the garden there was a beautiful large green arbor. It had a bench on three sides and a firm table in the middle. Its windows had wooden slats on two sides. In front of the arbor, on the side, there stood a great apple tree with little red Christmas apples. From the yard and then along the chicken yard and past the arbor there was a wide path into the lower garden. Right at the entrance on the left stood a large doghouse, in which Ajax slept. When Uncle Ludwig and I were still small, he pulled us around in our little garden cart. Evenings my father liked to stand at the fence and gaze over the fields, and neighbors would come by with whom my father had conversations. Then Ajax would always accompany him, and placing his two front paws on the fence, he was as tall as my father.
The settlement was quickly built up with three rows of houses with six houses in each [row], all having large gardens. It was easy to feel really good there. My father wanted to continue building later, because there were only two rooms and smaller rooms upstairs.
First of all I remember my mother telling me, that when I sat in the baby stroller, Tante Wally let earth worms crawl on my naked back and I screamed terribly. Tante Wally was one and a half years older [than me]. She often sat in the kitchen at the coal box and licked the stone coals. The doctor thought that she perhaps lacked mineral nutrients.
Our toilet was in the chicken yard, which had a higher fence. One time when I had to go, my mother said, “Wally can sit you on it.” We ran to it and when I sat on top of it, she gave me a shove, and my body fell through the big hole. Under it was the huge cesspool. Wally was just able to hold me tight by my feet and screamed. My mother came running and just saved me. I only went back to our toilet when I could sit on it by myself. So I always ran over to the neighbor, who was a carpenter and who in his outhouse had also built a children’s toilet.
Opposite our row of houses there were fields and way behind them there was a brick factory. From there a track ran along the edge of the field to the [factory] works. Our property was on the corner, so on both sides of it, we had wide streets and large fields. On the track [to the factory] there often stood open lorries. We children always sat down on them and one child would push us.
At the beginning of the war, soldiers were quartered in one of the houses. They were having fun themselves pushing us. All of a sudden Wally screamed, “Hanna, get off! There are stones lying on the track.” She had already jumped off. A little boy and I were the only ones still up on it. When I jumped off, the lorry tipped over onto my right thigh. I got a long bloody wound and I still have the scar today. All the kids screamed, “Hanna is dead!” On his two arms a soldier carried me to my mother, who had also already come running. The doctor came and I had to stay in bed a long time; I was probably four years old. Wally said she saw how a soldier had laid stones on the track.
We had our help, Gertrude, until she was married; she wedded a widower, who had little children. We were also invited to her wedding. It was a rainy day and we were wearing pretty white clothes. My mother said, “When we drive to church, be sure to stay in the house, so that you do not get dirty.” As the carriages came back again, I was curious, stepped down outside a few stairs and slipped and fell down. Form the top to the bottom, my beautiful little dress got dirty. Now my mother had to go home with me to change my clothes. The same thing happened to me in Grünberg at Tante Trudel, (mother’s sister’s) wedding, when I was eleven years old. At the nursey, we bought beautiful flowerpots for the altar, went into the church, passed the sacristy, and one step was still left to go in the church. My mother said, “Hanna, watch out so that you don’t fall!” and right, I stumbled and lay half-way in and out of the church and the beautiful flowerpot broken in two. It was somehow pressed back together and still placed at the back of the altar.
I surely stumbled many times in Moschin; perhaps, because I was so small. When on the first day of school, I went to the school with Wally and Trudel, I was five and a half years old and we had to go past the school yard, which was fenced in. all at once an older girl came running out and carried me on her shoulders. Even at recess she often carried me around that way.
In the Schoolhouse we had two classrooms and also only two women teachers. The school was also the same house for the mayor’s office, in which my father worked every day. Through the whole war he worked voluntarily as mayor, because he, of course, received a pension at 74 years of age. On the 2nd of September, the day of [the Battle of] Sedan, it was always festively celebrated – (my father had participated in the battle). In a hall a speech was delivered, my sister Trudel and other girls recited poems. I was also lifted onto the stage and sang the verse of a song which was then sung by the choir. As a baptism sponsor I had a teacher Miss Stelzer from Posen; she was disabled. In the summer she often visited us and liked to sit in our large garden. In it were 80 fruit trees, red and yellow currant bushes but only one gooseberry shrub, because my father thought, only those berries had mildew. We noticed that at our neighbor’s, where we always helped the children scrape the mildew off the berries.
My mother had often invited the teachers [to our house] and from us they received a lot of fruit. Once she wanted to give them glorious egg-plums, but the tree was empty. Wally had climbed the tree beforehand, picked the plums, and had already shared them. She often climbed trees and came down with torn clothes. One day with my father we were picking apples and it was already starting to get dark. Then our old tailor, Miss Weber came into the garden and screamed, “Ouch!” She said, “The apples are already falling down.” Meanwhile Wally had thrown one down on her head.
One day in a black dress, Miss Weber, who was somewhat hard of hearing, came to my mother, who was cooking in the kitchen, and crying, gave my mother her condolence. “Little Wally just told me that your husband had died.” Mother was speechless.
Wally herself often liked to go and see dead people, who were lying in-state in a house. One time I had to go with her and see an old grandmother, but I never went along with her again. One time she lifted a little dead girl out of the casket, when she was alone in the viewing room. When she heard the woman coming in, she quickly put her back into the casket and went out. Because the woman noticed that it was not lying in the casket right, she went to my mother and complained. Wally also often went to funerals. The cemetery of the church was behind the settlement at the edge of the woods. When all the grieving people had left, she distributed the floral wreaths to other graves, which no longer had any blossoms.
For her, homework from school was taboo. My mother first sent her to the folk school and then with me she started in the higher girls’ school (Töchterschule), but she always stayed back. Before I was old enough to go to school, we often went to a land pit. There she and I would slide down the side into the pool of water and come home with dirty underwear, after which my mother would give us a spank on our bottom.
Before that Wally had already hit me, because I preferred to play in the arbor with Liesel Achmann.[1] With the ribbon in her hair, she once tore an earring out of my ear and then my mother had to take the one out of my other ear. I had received the earrings as a present at my baptism.
One time all four of us came home very late in a thunderstorm. We had gone swimming. A red stool already stood in the corridor with a stick on it. First Trudel had to bend down and lift up her dress and got some whacks on her bottom; then it was Wally’s turn; I only received two whacks and Ludwig only got one. I can remember that the stool stood there two times. One time after bathing an undershirt was gone. Trudel said, “Hanna, your shirt is gone.” In the evening, when my mother helped us get undressed, she saw that Trudel had my shirt on.
When I think about how much work my mother had, to feed the chickens, the ducks, the geese and pig; wash the clothes on the wooden wash board, haul the water from the pump, ironing, cooking, cleaning and straightening out the house, also helping with the vegetable garden; so it is no wonder that she reached for the stick, when we didn’t obey. My father did not hit us. In Grünberg I once received a valuable coin (Kopfstück). He went to the barber and I drove our cart to fetch little pieces of wood. He said that I should get off the sidewalk and down on the street, which had cobblestones[2] and so I drove faster and at home I got money for it. (Kopfstücke)[3] Later we girls went shopping in the city.
[In the garden] we also had many beds of asparagus. In the Autumn we often played hide and seek in them. To Trudel Mother had explained how to cut asparagus. So Trudel had to cut asparagus early in the morning before going to school. She often found that there were stems without heads. My parents wondered what animal could have done it. One morning my father said to my mother, “Now I can tell you who the rabbit is!” He saw how Wally crawled around through the beds and bit the heads off; they also tasted good when raw.
Once my mother took Wally to Posen to go to the dentist. Before it she had been crying for days because of a toothache. At the dentist she would not allow the dentist to pull her tooth; as the dentist became more energetic, she bit his finger. For days he could not work. But Wally cried even more at home. So my mother said to me, “Hanna, show me your teeth; that one is also no good anymore. So you can come along to Posen and let your tooth be pulled. Wally will watch, then she will surely allow her tooth to be pulled as well.” At the dentist I, of course, allowed my tooth to be pulled and then Wally did too. Mother bought us both tall laced shoes, mine black; Wally really wanted brown ones. Summers we of course went barefoot. Then I had to get a tooth pulled again because a new one was coming. My father went to the barber and said, “Come along and let him extract it.” The barber pulled my tooth and I went home.
When still a baby Ludwig became very sick and the old doctor came again and again to see him. As he lay dying, my mother took him out of his little bed and put him on her lap and breathed her breath into him for hours. The doctor who came back, shook his head and said, “Why don’t you let him die?” My mother did not listen to him. So he went to my father in the garden, saying, “She should let him die.” My father said, “Nothing I can do.” Later when the doctor entered the house again, he saw that Ludwig was lying in bed asleep. When he later saw him in the street, he said to him, “I did not bring you back to health; it was your mother.”
After Abendbrot (the evening meal) he often came to visit my father and also said “Good night” to us children. He liked to hear our songs and prayers. One time he even took me on his lap and let me hop up and down. My mother said, “Watch out! Hanna did not eat Abendbrot that long ago.” And she was right. He soon had my Abendbrot all over his shirt and suit.
Trudel told my mother, “A pupil stabbed himself in the finger with an ink pen and now he’s gotten blood poisoning. They want to amputate his hand, so I counseled him to come to you.” He came and my mother bathed his hand daily for a long time in soap water, and then put a salve on it, that my father swore by. The boy’s hand healed and his parents felt very thankful to my mother. We also had a black pill that we children had to swallow, when we had a cold. I could not make it go down, so I always had to take in tea. In the evening we also had go in bed with my father and sweat for an hour. Oh, when doing that I always cried.
On the back of my right hand I suddenly got a great many warts. “I promise to rid you of them” (die versprech ich Dir), said my father. He took me to the front door of the house and [in the light] of the waxing moon, I had to look at the moon with him, “What I am seeing grows and what I feel diminishes.” Meanwhile he stroked my warts with his hand, saying “In the name of God, etc.” In a few days my warts were gone. In that way he healed (versprochen) several sicknesses, even a woman with facial shingles (Gesichtsrose), after which he always had to lay down.
My mother wanted to change the bed sheets, so she went upstairs, to the bottom drawer of the dresser, where she had the laundry. As she bent down and pulled hard to open the drawer, she found herself sitting with her posterior on the floor; the drawer was empty. The door of our house was never locked, so a gypsy woman must have stealthily climbed up the stairs and stolen the laundry. From the neighbor she had even stolen the cooked laundry that was cooling and stood in a bucket at their front door. Gypsies often hung around and were always chased away. We put a birch broom in front of our house door thereafter so that they would not harm our animals.
When I was seven years old I went to piano lessons with Wally. Trudel, for one year, had already been with Miss Stobbe, who with her aunt, – the uncle, the head forester, had shot himself – lived close to the railway station. For us it was a long way through the whole city and over a wooden bridge. At our home in our living room, – we called it our good living room,[4] we had a big grand piano. Wally and I practiced every afternoon and I was proud when Miss Stobbe gave me the grade: very good. Wally always played more quickly and so one time she raced in a congregational celebration down through the [song] “Sled Ride” in descant (the high notes) and I had to play bass, and that, even though I had smaller hands. Out loud I said, “Don’t play so fast!” and everybody laughed.
On top of our grand piano, in back, was a bottle to which my mother went daily and took a swallow. We were curious and also took drinks from it. In order for mother not to notice anything, someone always had to be playing the piano. My mother wondered how the contents of the bottle could always diminish so fast. So once she surprised us during practice, while I was just taking a swallow. Then the bottle disappeared. My mother had cardiac asthma and my father always bought her good cognac; he said, “That will make you healthy!”
We only went into our special living room when visitors came or on holidays, otherwise we always hung out only in our big kitchen.[5] Next to it was the large bedroom in which there were four beds and one children’s bed and right on the left, when one entered, there was a beautiful red cockled stove. We often sat on the bench of the stove in the evenings while my mother read stories to us. In bad weather we wrote with white chalk on the bedroom walls, which my mother permitted.
Irene’s father, whom we called Uncle Gustav, came to us every Sunday during the war and with a full pack he drove back to Posen again in the evening. He had fruit, vegetables, eggs, sausages, chicken meat, bacon and pork. Our pig would mostly weigh 500 lbs. before it would be slaughtered.
One night my father heard the pig squealing and rushing out, he was just in time to chase the thief away. We did not have our [dog] Ajax anymore. He had gotten too weak, because at the end, he just lay chained all day.
Tante Meta and Irene visited us for longer periods of time in the summer. Once we took them along to pick blueberries; the forest was just behind the settlement. Irene picked a cup full for me and then she laid down in the grass. Together we had picked a whole bucket full, which my mother put together with Ludwig in the children’s wagon. Really pleased and with blue hands we went home again. In the forest it was always joyful, we looked and called for one another, and the butter bread and water tasted glorious. It was bad when the little pot sometimes tipped over.
All the siblings of my mother came to visit us, as well as grandmother. She was my baptism sponsor. Tante Trudel and Tante Meta were Wally’s. Tante Liesel, for Trudel and Uncle Erich, for Ludwig.[6] Grandfather was, of course, angry with my mother, because she left him in Grünberg and looked for work in Posen. She became a help in an officer’s family. Only when my father drove to the grandparents and asked for [my mother’s] hand in marriage, did they become reconciled again. The brother of [our] grandmother was a physician in Marienwerder; he and his wife liked my mother. They wanted her to come to Marienwerder and become a sales woman and work in the Wagner’s cleaning business. My grandfather did not let her go, because at home she had to do everything. Then Tante Liesel asked my mother if she could go [in her place] and there she married uncle Herrmann.
My father with uncle Gustav worked for customs in Posen and before that my father was a soldier for twenty years, finally a sergeant and master swimmer. When his first wife died, he spent some time living with his daughter, Elise Peschko (her husband was Johannes Peschko, who was killed in action as a soldier in the war). There [my father] became as poor as a church mouse along with their many children: Gottfried, Hilde, Gertrud, Toni, Ruth, and Bernhard. So he moved to Posen and looked for a place to live. On Wednesdays with uncle Gustav he went to Tante Meta to eat. They first had to peel potatoes when they came, so he soon stopped going there and looked for a place to eat the midday meal.[7] In the Lutheran church he got to know my mother, whom he married in October 1906.
In Posen they had a beautiful allotment garden (Schrebergarten).
After the war my father was still supposed to remain in Moschin as the mayor, but my father said, “I don’t know Polish and I don’t rightly trust the translator.” In 1920 he received the information from the German government that he would no longer receive his pension, because he had always gotten paid only in Polish currency.
Also the Congress Poles had now arrived and [fearful of them] many Germans had taken flight, especially the Jews, who had stores all around the market place.
The Poles took my father out of the front door of the house and wanted to shoot him, but the Polish inhabitants came on the scene and screamed, “He only helped us! He should not be shot.” So at that, we could wipe away our tears. When the neighborhood learned that we were going to leave Moschin, some came and wanted to buy the property; a farmer’s wife even brought 30,000 DM in gold. My father said, “I can’t take money like that, because I won’t be able to take it over the border.”
My mother said, “Take it already; I’ll hide it!”
“We will be searched to our skins, we can’t take it.” He said. So a Pole came out of Posen and said, “I’ll pay you 2,000 DM in Polish money and to Germany, I’ll send to you 43,000 DM in German money, which should arrive in Germany already today.” That my father believed him, even till today, I shake my head in disbelief.
The teachers had already left and crossed the border a half a year earlier and there was no school. A Polish teacher came later and I still only know, that with Wally, I sat in the school in the afternoon and I was supposed to read Polish. The school had really closed. All the children had left for Germany with their parents. The Polish children went to the Folk school.
My mother packed a travel basket; the official watching took some things out again.[8] The furniture was loaded up and many [pieces] arrived broken in Grünberg. We had to leave the grand piano there. On my birthday, the 2nd of September, 1920, we went to the train station and made it to Bentschen, where we spent the night in the hall of the railroad station. We children sat on a bench and laid our heads on a table in order to sleep. I could not sleep and watched as my mother rummaged through the travel basket. She probably had still hidden something that she saved. I was restless and she said, “Why don’t you sleep?” The hall was filled with people.
The next day we women had to go into a room, where we had to undress to our skin. Everyone was allowed one piece of jewelry. So I had a chain from Miss Stobbe. (She had come over to us and said that she had no relatives in Germany, and asked if she could also come to Grünberg with her aunt and then asked if each [of us] would take a piece of jewelry along, because she had so much jewelry.)
On the other side there was a room in which the men were checked [by officials]. My siblings dawdled around and I went with my mother to the officials’ table, where the basket was searched thoroughly. I looked at the official with big eyes and he asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?” So he only looked at the top of the basket, saw a whole loaf of bread, still lifted something up and said, “You can close it.” My mother was relieved and looked at me full of love. Then we traveled to our grandparents in Grünberg.
There is more [in Moschin] that I forgot. In the Spring my father had picked worms off the cherry tree and one kid stood under him and each of us had to take turns at the ladder and put the worms into the tin can. [When it was my turn] I was always unhappy; I could not be expected to touch a worm. So he had to throw them into the can. Oh, my, when they missed the can, it was thunder and lightning up there.[9]
On Sunday afternoons we went with him to the potato fields and pulled out saltbush and put it into a sack for the pig and we gathered chestnuts as well, which I liked doing. When he came home from Posen, we always ran to meet him and searched his packages and pockets, because he always had sweets for us. He also bought clothes for us which he bought from the Jew, Petersdorf. In those clothes we were once photographed by a soldier in the garden.
One time my father was taking the manure out of the pig stall and let the pig run around before it.[10] He stood with his legs wide apart in the door of the stall and the pig ran through his legs, riding him out of his stall into the chicken yard.
On vacations Trudel and I went to a farm of a woman who had been a neighbor of ours in the settlement. Besides small farm animals, she had three cows and among them a wild one and beyond that a servant. When I awoke one morning, she had gone to the city with Trudel, probably to sell butter. Now I had to herd the cows. The young wild cow naturally ran away from me and the servant had to capture it again, so I did not want to stay there any longer. We were so homesick anyway that we always went to the outhouse[11] and cried our hearts out. We still stayed there 14 more days.
One time my mother went with us to the circus in Posen. I myself remember how a dolphin with a petroleum lamp on its nose, as large as our lamp, wiggled itself up onto a podium and then slid back down on the other side. I was speechless. Uncle Gustav often brought us petroleum, because where we were you could not get it anymore. Later we used carbide which smelled horrible.
My parents needed passport pictures, so they let themselves be photographed by the house in front of the espalier pear tree, from which we harvested giant, juicy pears. In the picture my father looks wretched, but in contrast, in Grünberg, five years later, he looked much better.
Once in a while in the evening we were allowed to beat one egg in a cup. The egg white had not yet become stiff, when we already had eaten it. Only Wally did not get finished. When my mother went to her, she had beaten the bottom out of the cup and the fluid of the egg was all over her apron.
At Christmas Tante Meta always sent us a package and often there were meringues in them that tasted especially good. One time a real large one arrived, which my mother immediately carried into the special living room. We were naturally curious. When my mother was in the chicken yard, we girls snuck into the room and crawled under the table and under the sofa we found three beautiful dolls. Each of us said, “That one is mine!” and then we really received them on the gift table for presents.
We always celebrated Christmas beautifully. The forester always brought us an especially tall tree, which was placed into the red stool, which had a hole in the middle. The tree [was so large] it almost reached the ceiling. My mother always trimmed and decorated it and we were not allowed to see it beforehand. On Christmas Eve we children sat in the kitchen and waited for the ringing [of a bell]. When the door opened the shining lights of the many candles and the colored ornaments of the tree came over us, and nuts, apples and sweets also hung on it. My mother sat in her wicker chair with my father next to her, and then we first sang a song, after which we gave our parents our Christmas folders. In its pages we had written the poem and upon its first page, we had drawn something for Christmas. Each of us then recited their poem and then we sang again. We also played piano, and then we were at last allowed to go to our places. I no longer remember all the things I received, but I loved books with fairy tales. Then we were allowed to nosh [on sweets] and play; then last of all, we still had poppy seed dumplings.
During the war in the winter, the call came for all of us to flee. My mother had already packed the travel basket and we all stood around thickly dressed, when suddenly the news came that Hindenburg had won the Battle of Tannenberg.[12] All of us then could breathe a sigh of relief.
One night the brick factory was burning. My mother, who washed her feet late at night, heard screams, opened the kitchen door, and saw the factory burning through the hall window. She immediately called my father, who quickly got dressed and ran with the settlers to help put out the fire. We children also had to get up, because my mother was afraid that sparks could fly over to our house. So we went to see the fire. The owner ran around in the field like he was going crazy and the cook, who had been in her deepest sleep was so agitated that she couldn’t do anything, only her daughter helped with quenching the fire. After that there was no longer any work to be had there.
Memories from Grünberg
My grandparents lived in Grünberg, Lanwitzer St. 8. There they, [the Déus’s] had a small house, a large garden and many adjoining buildings. Before them, the grandparents Kleint lived there with my mother. The [Kleints] had only one daughter Christiane, who married my grandfather Déus and with him, gave birth to seven children. Grandfather was the business inspector for the district of Striese in Trebnitz. His wife died at 34 years of age, the first mother of my mother, and took her youngest son, who was one year old, with her into the grave; both had consumption.
The children Oscar, Gustav, Valeska, Gertrud, Liesel and Alfred received a stepmother, Magdalena Gessner, daughter of the [Church] Superintendent Gessner: she was an evil stepmother. A son Erich also still came into the world.
For a short while we lived with our grandparents, all of us sleeping on the floor in the large room. After a short time we received a kitchen and a room on Green Street. Then my parents loaned money from the city and bought a little house in Neustadt Street. There we also had only a kitchen and a small room. It was a long house. On the other side of it there lived a worker-family, with four adult girls, who all went to the factory, and they had a boy. They often stole things from us. Above them was an attic and over us, there was a small room, in which an older worker lived, who always came home drunk. After five years he finally moved away.
Trudel and I went to the Lyceum, but demoted by one grade, because for a long time we had not gone to school. My class-mates were the same age as me, because I had already started in school when I was five and a half years old. I had one pair of high Polish shoes, so in the summer I went to school barefoot. My mother said, “You certainly will not be allowed in[to the school] that way!” But I went. All the women teachers stared, but said nothing. Director Hartmann was also a refuge from Posen, so he knew what we were going through. The next day, half of my class came in barefoot, as well as the pupils, the girls from the lower grades; they, then came in barefoot, too. But on the sidewalk one always had to walk fast. [Probably because the pavement was hot.] Later I received shoes from the refugee association.
I had many girl friends: Henny Starke, Gisella Becker, Marianne Hirthe, Marianne Baum, Ursel Lange; they always invited me to their birthday [parties]. They also came to mine; my mother always baked beautiful crumcakes (Streuselkuchen). Afterwards we always played in the side street, which was very wide.
G. Becker, the daughter of a veterinarian, always sat beside me in school. In recess, for a long while, we would bring me a sausage sandwich and she took my sandwich with margarine. In our class we got along well together. At recess we all played dodge ball. One team[13] had Lotte Vitensa and I had the other. I was very good in gymnastics. One morning Miss Boehm wanted to know when our fathers were born. When I said 1841, the whole class howled, but Miss Boehm quieted them down quickly.
Miss Stobbe with her aunt had found a residence right opposite the church. Because we had no piano, only Wally was allowed to play at her place. She often visited us with her aunt. One Advent Sunday the refugee association had a Christmas celebration. She practiced a piece from the theater with me, in which I played her daughter and I had the leading role. I played the role in a wholly natural way. I was not at all afraid, so I got lots of applause.
Every once in a while the school physician came to school. Examining Trudel and me, he discovered that we had enlarged thyroid glands. We had had them a long time and we always smeared iodine on them. The physician gave the counsel for us to have an operation. Trudel was fourteen and a half and I was twelve. The first night after the operation was terrible. I tortured the night-nurse constantly to give me something to drink, but she was not allowed to. Trudel had a cold and coughed continually and because of that she kept a thick scar. The Helping-Preacher Rudolf Krey (Hilfsprediger) came to visit her daily, and, of course, a half a year later they were engaged.
One time my mother brought five girls, who all came along to visit me [in the hospital]. Marianne Baum could not take ether and she fell over [i.e., fainted]. In the beginning, when I went home, I did not do well. My German teacher, Miss Böhm, the daughter of Pastor Böhm, visited me and brought along butter and eggs. Now she also saw how little space we had. In the religion-hour everyone prayed for me. I found that out later from Hilde Meinhardt.
Tante Trudel married the stout (der dicke) Henry, who was employed at Beuchelt; Tante Liesel, Uncle Hermann, Tante Lina and Uncle Erich came to the wedding. Uncle Oscar had taken his own life. He was an employee at a bank and had often loaned money to Uncle Gustav, who was a soldier, and who could never repay him. When the bank noticed it, Uncle Oscar had made a quick exit(Kurzschluss gemacht).[14] In World War I, Uncle Gustav had lost a leg, divorced his first wife, with whom he had a son, and married a capable woman, who in Breslau had a milk store in the hall of the market. Evenings she often had to look for Uncle Gustav in a bar.
Our family was also invited to Tante Trudel’s wedding. Just as well, my mother had to pre-cook and pre-bake everything for it anyway. Tante Trudel had a miscarriage, so they went and got Horst out of an orphanage. The mother, a tailor’s daughter from Berlin, was not allowed to keep Horst. After the war, he married a woman from Holland and became a physician. Later Tante Trudel also adopted Hans, with whom she fled to Uncle Erich. Later Hans married and lives in the G.D.R. Horst did not concern himself about him. He received Uncle Erich’s inheritance, the house and property, which uncle Erich had received from his grandparents and then [Erich] bought a practice in Cologne. Naturally, Tante Trudel was behind it.
Years earlier, Grandfather had divided the land behind the garden among the other children. For very little money, fat Henry (der dicke Heinrich) begged my mother out of her land. Later the city bought it and developed it and he received far more for it. But that money did not bring him any luck. Beuchelt had fired him so he wandered off to Australia in order to make big money there. Afterward, when Tante Trudel continually had to send him money, he came back with sacks full of furs, which already stank. They lived in Bergel, in a small house, which stood off and somewhat higher in the yard of their grandparents.
One day Tante Marie with Trudel and Lene[15] came to us. Uncle Alfred had died. They had no money and Grandfather did not like them. Uncle Alfred with his family had also fled from the region of Posen. There he was the rent collector (Rentemeister) for a estate(Gut) and things went well for him, as Trudel in Überlingen told me. So they went to Sorau and Uncle Alfred found work in an office. Hans was a gardener and he drowned in the Oder [River] in the beginning of the 30’s. Gerhard also learned to be a gardener. Both little ones, Marianne and Alfred were in the orphanage in Freystadt.
For a while the three stayed with us. We four girls slept in one bed and each one of us yelled when the legs of another struck her in the face. Thank God, my mother soon found them a room and a kitchen, where they could all live together again. Trude and Lene earned money as house maids and Hans probably also helped. Trude married Harry Pohl and had Orla, who also had a daughter, who is still studying. Alfred married Lotte and they had Heidrun, who has two children. Gerhard had a garden-nursery in Frankfurt, On the Oder, but never returned to it after the war. His wife did not come to the West, so he married Alfred’s wife, who was a widow, because Alfred [a soldier] was killed during the war. Gerhard’s son often comes to his Tante Trudel. Marianne, who is also dead, has a daughter who lives in Ludwigsburg. The siblings of Trudel have all died.
Wally entered the Folk school [going to the class] according to her age, which was the second; the class, she was supposed to attend for two years in order to attend the first class for two years. But she stayed all four years in the second class. She did not understand, “What that old teacher taught,” so she took little dolls along to school and played with them under a tree. Her neighbor, Gertrud, who lived behind the cemetery, had to do her homework there in the cemetery for her; and woe to her, if she didn’t do it. In the evenings my mother practiced the poem [she was to recite] with her and meanwhile I was supposed to be able to do my homework. The only good thing: I could at least do all my writing homework on my father’s desk. In the test [given] before her Confirmation, for her turn, she only had the first commandment.
After her time at school, she stayed for a year with Uncle Erich, who was the Inspector of an estate (Gut) in Laubsky near Namslau. In the long vacation, I was allowed to visit her. Uncle Erich and Tante Lena were very nice; they had no children. Wally was also with the Peschkos at Rothenburg 10 for a time. The elderly clergy [couple] (Pfarrersleute) had four boys and two girls. Their mother still lives with her youngest son, Philipp, in the parsonage; he plays the organ. He was a little too grownup and once wanted a kiss from Wally, so she painted her lips with thick red lipstick and planted a hefty kiss on his cheek. When his mother saw the mark on his cheek, she was shocked [and angry].
Johannes, her oldest son, had married Father’s daughter Elise and [as a soldier] in 1914 he had fallen in action. Karin Strobel is a daughter of Ruth, who is the youngest daughter of Elise. Adelheid is a daughter of Peschko’s daughter. It was still later that Adelheid married Karin’s Father, Edwin Löwenhaupt. Ruth died of cancer. All the other siblings have also already died. Rosemarie is a daughter of Gertrud. She is the second daughter of Elise, was a nurse, and married a physician.
Before their confirmation, all the confirmands had to go to Freystadt for four weeks of instruction, which took place in the room of the superintendent. When Trudel had to travel there, my mother awoke me in the morning and said, “Hanna, you have not yet finished knitting Trudel’s stocking.” I still had to knit the toe. Neither Trudel or Wally knew how to knit. For Christmas my father, my mother, and the grandparents received wristlets, gloves, and socks. For twelve years already I have been knitting a long, dark red jacket, which I unraveled in Seppau, and from it I am knitting a small [jacket] for skiing. I also knit warm cloaks for my mother and Anna Hoffmann. “That is the first handmade work that I have received,” she said, so in Wolfsdorf I knit her a pajama top (Bettjäckchen).
The gathering of children who came to the confirmation instructions were from Freystadt, Neusalz, Grünberg and the immediate surroundings. Counting me, it was about 20 children. The test took place in Freystadt and I was confirmed in Neusalz, because we were only three confirmands out of Grünberg and with the Neuzälzers we were seven. At home there was only coffee and cake. Grandmother and Tante Trudel came, and Trudel also came back from Hamburg. She had seen off Rudolf, who had departed on a steamship for America. Without money, he was instructed [in the seminary] for America, because his parents – his father was a baker, had no money for his studies. In two years Trudel was to follow him. [Without being a bride] she would have had to wait seven years. So they had a civil marriage in Hamburg.[16] Rudolf needed only a half a year to pass his exam, so he asked my father to send Trudel earlier. She received mail from him on a daily basis.
A huge send-off for her took place at the railroad station with relatives, friends, and acquaintances and tears; only I had none. I was carrying a pot with plum pudding for Grandmother Krey, which I only gave her, when she was already in the train, and thought, “You will of course come right back.” In 14 days she was on a steamship for America.
The summer after I finished with school I traveled with Grandmother Déus to Marienwerder. Going through the Polish corridor, the [doors] of the trains were locked. Uncle Hermann had a factory for cleaning, dyeing, washing and knitting. More than a hundred workers were employed. I helped Peter and Dieter with their homework [school assignments], dusted in the mornings, and helped Tante Liesel in the kitchen. The maid did everything else. On Saturdays we went to the market with Grandmother Wagner to buy vegetables and meat, which the girls carried home. We three still continued to the confectionery for a cup of coffee and cake.
Tante Liesel had tea parties (Kaffeekränzel) with some ladies and in that way I got to know Ruth Falk and Erika Weyer. With Klaus and Jochen they attended a dancing school and I was always allowed [to go] with them to a little dancing party (Tanzkränzchen), but sat with the parents, but I was also asked to dance. There in Grünberg the superintendent had forbidden attending the dancing school. When a dance party took place without the parents it really frolicked.
Klaus wanted to kiss me on the stairs, so I screamed, “Jochen, help me.” About that he was so angry, that on the next day, he told Tante Liesel that I had not behaved well. Ruth Falk, who learned about it, told Tante Liesel, that everyone was just having fun. From that time on I let Klaus stay on the left; he was the favorite of Tante Liesel. At the office party of the Wagners, he danced a lot with me and commented that we should try to get along again. Later Klaus became an agriculturist and acquired an estate (Gut) in Danzig. He married a teacher from Berlin, from whom he got a girl. He was killed in Berlin as the city was being defended.
Jochen, who had a glass eye, still survived and made it out of Stalingrad. After the war, with his father, he again rebuilt the old cleaning factory. When they started making a profit, the owner took [the factory] back. So they came to Hamburg and arranged a cleaning and laundry business in old abandoned barracks. When they were torn down, Jochen bought a new factory – Uncle Hermann had already died, indebted himself and died of cancer. His marriage was not a happy one, but in spite of that they had three children.
Peter, who became a big and strong boy, would seat himself in an easy chair (Lehnsessel), after every Midday meal (Mittagessen), drink a mug of milk and with it, eat one bar of chocolate; and was a pilot, like he had always dreamt of being one. He was shot down in France and could still jump into the water, but he was still hit by a bullet. The French buried him. One time, Klaus visited his grave.
Dieter married a daughter of a hotel owner from Bavaria. When my mother died in December 1949 in Haldensleben, he had just returned from Russia as a prisoner of war. In the beginning he helped Jochen, but then left for Bavaria with his wife and three children, where he soon died. For Christmas I wanted to leave Marienwerder and go home, but then Grandmother Wagner asked me to stay with her for another half year. Grandfather was a diabetic and had to get one leg amputated. Now he always stayed in bed. Two nurses cared for him. I did many small jobs and sometimes I went shopping with Grandmother or we did handicrafts. She was the third wife and played the gracious lady. Grandfather soon died. He had a big funeral; now we often went to the cemetery.
In the summer, when I wanted to go home, I still travelled to Paulshof to the Weyers. Erika had invited me. Her sister Annemarie had a home[school] teacher; she did not want to go to school in the city. Gottfried directed the factory, which was indebted. I never saw Mr. Weyer outside, but only at his desk. But his wife was diligent. I slept in one room with Annemarie.
I became active right away in that I took the fresh milk on a cart with an old horse on strings, they did not have ropes, and rode to the dairy. One had to ride through a gorge, which I could not find on the first day, so I rode down the long avenue and arrived with sour milk. The good folks only then showed me the way through the gorge. I always got angry when the string broke and before I noticed it, the horse went around in circles. In spite of it, I drove [even] further on a daily basis. One morning I drove Mrs. Weyer to the railway station in Allenstein, and I was supposed to also go shopping in the city. She gave me a list and on it I read one hundred pounds of potatoes, among other things. Was I also supposed to take along 100 pounds of potato flour? The merchant called at the house, but no one knew anything about it, so I took him along. When Mrs. Weyer came home, she said, “I wanted to take along 100 pounds of potatoes for the homemakers’ association;[17] I had forgotten them.
In front of the manor-house (Gutshaus) there was a big lake and we daily swam around in it. In one corner of the lake there were many clinging vines,[18] in which I once caught my foot. I had a hard time disentangling myself. I also helped with the harvest. It was a hot summer.
They were good friends with the owners of the landed estate (Gut) next to them. The wife was dead and the son and the daughter with her husband ran the business. Once in a while they themselves visited.
I often went into the woods with Annemarie to look for cranberries, on the way back we often passed the Schlüters. One evening we saw a white spot in front of us. We were afraid but we continued on bravely, and then we recognized a white horse. In eastern Prussia, I was always awe-struck by the tall trees.
In Marienwerder there was Pastor Schulz, whom Grandmother liked to invite over to eat. He was always very friendly to me. Irene told me that he previously had been in Düsseldorf and had wanted to marry her, but because everyone in the church started whispering, she did not marry him. When Ruth and Priscilla visited Pastor Schulz in Berlin, – he was the baptismal sponsor of Matthias, I was just visiting Rieke, who was studying there. So I still wanted to say goodbye to Ruth and Priscilla and I was astonished, when Pastor Schulz opened the door. He greeted me heartily and showed me photos of Marienwerder, where we both, with the singing club, had been photographed together. He married a daughter of a Peschko son.
Grünberg
My father often went to the Grandparents to help out in the garden. In the long vacation we children had to pick currents and gooseberries. There were long rows of red and yellow berries. The yellow ones were at least sweet. Then in large tubs on a farm cart we took them to the winery, which was nearby, where it was all uphill. Later the plums had their turn, as well as apples and pears, and last of all, the nuts were knocked down, which we had to gather. Doing it made our hands hideously brown.
In the evenings my father read the evening blessing and later I had to read it. Wally, who never listened, always laughed. She sat pretty next to my mother. It was terrible in church, which we attended very Sunday, especially when Uncle Erich came to visit. Her laughter was contagious for him and the whole pew shook; could the Grandparents never have noticed it? In any case, they never said anything. Wally probably always thought about what mischief she could always do again. Once she put an ear worm in Marianne Hirthe ear; she never came over again. She beat up a schoolgirl comrade of Trudel, and [that friend] was speechless, when she learned [Wally] was Trudel’s sister.
On Sundays [Wally] would often go to the cinema and listen to the music, which at home she would practice on the piano. Trudel, who was now already engaged, always quarreled with her. In the cinema a [fellow] engaged to the Hannusches’ girl played the violin, because at the time they were silent films. One time with his violin case under his arm he had to disappear [once] again. He went into the yard, behind the toilet onto the boards over the cesspool and fell in. He just barely saved his violin. He screamed loudly [for help] and everyone ran over and pulled him out. So naturally he had to totally change his clothes and that made him come late to the cinema.
Ludwig played the harmonica wonderfully. In the evenings he would sit down opposite us in the garden and play the most beautiful songs and operettas. Then in all the houses, they opened their windows [to hear him playing]. A wife of a professor once told me, “Since you have lived here, we can once again go through the alley to the Railway Street. Before [you came] we were always spit on.”
One evening my mother said, “I’m just always hearing steps at our window.” She opened the door and she saw an old man standing outside.
“I am always [eavesdropping] on your beautiful evening blessing and listening to your beautiful songs.” he said as he excused himself. My mother could not, however, bring him inside, because my father was now jealous of every man, even of Rudolf, until Trudel told him that he came for her sake.
When for Easter [Rudolf] came back to us for their engagement – he had been again in Hamburg, because our vicars were exchanged each year, he slept at Mr. Reiskidhen. At night there was suddenly a shaking of our house door and an intense knocking at our window and someone screamed, “Your roof truss[19] is on fire!” My mother got up immediately, opened the kitchen door and screamed, “Yes, I smell smoke! Trudel, get up; wake up Rudolf. Get him to put out the fire!” Rudolf investigated the attic thoroughly and said, “Nothing is burning here. The chimney is completely cold.” When my mother went outside, the Hannusches were also outside and more people were also out in the street. Then we read in the newspapers, that two young men also tricked[20] the Catholic Parson and the midwife in the retreat center Lübtenz, that lay on a hillside (Anhöhe). Both met each other when they were on their way. Half of the city had been tricked by an Easter lark.[21]
Here they also carry out Easter larks, garden doors and ladders are dragged away, and masses of toilet paper are trailed through the streets.
I looked for a job in an office and I found one by representative Fröhn. There I learned to type and [learn] the Latin handwriting, because in the cash account books everything had to be recorded in Latin [handwriting]. In school we wrote only in the German [old Sütterlin] handwriting.
The Fröhns had three sons: Horst, Hans, and Heinz. The two year old came into my office every day, so I laid him on a sofa cushion on the carpet and he went to sleep. Sometimes I looked out of the window with him, too. Mr. Fröhn was out-and-about all day, and in the evenings he would always tell me what I had to do the next day. I was there for seven months. I wanted to learn the double entry book-keeping and stenography. So I served in the print shop of a weekly newspaper, where I could sometimes work mornings, and learned from Teacher Stark double entry book keeping and stenography along with it. Grandfather said, “Also go and learn the agricultural business bookkeeping, you are so anemic that you need country air.” So I drove to Breslau and learned it in fourteen days. Almost all of those taking the course there were sons and daughters of propertied estates.[22] As we ended one class, I said, “We forgot to take one foal out of the record book.”
“That’s right,” said the professor, “that one croaked. One day you will be a good secretary.”
I was friends with Lotte Ehricht. Her father had a bicycle shop in which she helped out. There I got to know Kurt Gerlach. Lotte also had a friend, so on Sundays we took a walk together. Sometimes Kurt also visited us in the evenings, but then he didn’t go home, but went to a bar. From his mother I also learned that he also befriended himself with someone else, whom he later married, but was not faithful to her, as Wally told me, so we separated.
Lotte visited us very often; she had no siblings. On Sundays we often went to a confectionary shop, where there was also dancing. It was always a lot of fun.
In the newspaper I read that in Berlin, Fleisch-Tresto (Meat-Tresto) was searching for an employee as bookkeeper for its agrarian business. I applied for the job and was accepted. The owners had a villa in Zehlendorf and an agricultural estate nearby. In the business association there was a young inspector; he had a little boy and his wife had died. We were three girls, who arrived at the villa and we were greeted by a niece of the owner; she was his secretary. On the next day she drove with us to the office in Wilmersdorf, where several employees sat in four rooms. The three of us had long sheets of paper with numbers placed before us, which we had to add up. In the evenings we slept in the villa, and there we learned that the wife had hanged herself. He was a colossus of a man. On the next day we rode in a streetcar to the office and again had to add numbers together. After three days both other girls had disappeared, and they did not tell me why.
On Sunday I drove to Tante Elise -(we called her Tante). She said, “You really don’t have to stay alone in the villa; come stay with us. We will make ready the guestroom, which had no window, and set up a bed for you in it.” With that, I preferred the villa.
On Saturdays an older employee went with me to the fields of the estate. For a quarter of an hour we walked through garden plots (Schrebergärten). She gave me the accounts for the amounts of the wages of the workers and I had to count out the cash to pay them. That was my whole job on the farmland of their estate. The inspector told me that the woman employee did the bookkeeping. I took a look at the horse barn and the fine riding track and learned everything from the housekeeper of the manor.
The office was in the city and everything proceeded noisily. In the streets you heard the streetcars and automobiles. One of the book keepers complained loudly, because she could not find a mistake [in her figures]. One yard was the yard used for butchering and a little farther away, there was the factory, that made sausages. We received our lunches (Mittagessen) in the office. Many a time I had to go into the yard to pass orders on [to the workers]. All of this did not please me, so I gave my notice. The woman manager was upset and said that the other girls were laid off because they made many mistakes, but I had done everything correctly. She herself also had started with a little job and had become the manager, and I should stay. I wanted to be on the land and not in a city office and so I let her give me my last wages and I drove to Tante Elise, who was not at home.
But Bernhard begged me out of fifty Marks. Tomorrow he had to pay his tuition for school and had no money and he really wanted to continue at school. At the baker’s and the grocery shop everything bought was recorded and had to be paid on the first of the month and again, it was from my money. Onetime Ruth did not get bread, “First pay up your debt!” the wife of the baker said. They kept a washerwoman for help and on that day there was meat for the midday meal, on other days Ruth made cabbage soup for me. Hilde, who worked in a bookstore earned only 90 Marks – ranted and railed that they still lived in such an expensive house, they could move into a smaller one, but Tante Elise needed a salon.
Erwin Löwenhaupt, who was an engineer, rented the little room, so a little money was there again; later he married Ruth.
Wally, who worked in a small guesthouse in Berlin – the guesthouse owners treated her like their daughter – was visited by my mother, who slept in Tante Elise house. She took along a great deal of groceries and wanted to eat the midday meal [at her home with her]. Tante Lise, however, drove into the city with [my mother] to eat and my mother had to pay for everything. On the next day, my mother already left. Tante Elise often went to Wally’s in the evenings and always got supper there (Abendbrot). Her children were, of course, already grown; they had to see how to fend for themselves. They lived in the most beautiful villa area in Lichterfelde.
Things for my father always became worse. He had water in his legs and was constantly cold, so he would sit with his legs at the oven. In the last days he always stayed in bed, with stertorous breathing.[23] A nurse constantly stayed with him and helped him. In the morning of the 13th of April, 1929 he went to sleep. He had become 88 years old. Those who came to his funeral were Irene’s father, Uncle Gustav and his sister; Tante Elise with Hilde, her oldest daughter; Uncle Gustav, the brother of my mother from Breslau; Tante Trudel and Grandmother, many acquaintances, as well as neighbors.
When we arrived at the cemetery, my mother was horrified: the cemetery gardener had prepared the grave site that Grandfather wanted to be buried in, wherein his first wife had already been laid. In the other grave sites were the great-grand parents, Kleint. It was a good thing that Grandfather was not at the cemetery, because he was not doing well. My father was in the Warrior Association, so a band played, “I had a Comrade” at the grave (Ich hatte einen Komeraden). A few days later my father’s grave was exchanged. After the coffee [reception] Uncle Gustav drove home with Tante Elise; my mother’s brother stayed for a few more days; he slept at the house of his grandparents, whom he had seldom visited.
In September I was again at home and right away helped in the garden: plums had to be picked. I climbed up the tree and threw them to my mother in her basket. Tante Trudel also stood down there. Then Grandmother came into the garden with a man: it was Arthur Schlüter. He said that he had come to us twice and asked the neighbors about us, so he learned that we were with our grandparents. He invited me to a pastry shop. He had business in Berlin, so he wanted to visit me there some time. Now, however, he asked me if I would like to become his wife. I was so perplexed, I only shook my shoulders. For my sake he had come to Paulshof so often; I always thought he came to see Gottfried. “You surely have a friend; so I don’t want to step in between you.” He said as we separated and he again drove home. I felt that I was still too young to marry. His mother was dead and his married sister did the housekeeping; his brother-in-law helped him, so he probably really needed a diligent wife. Tante Trudel said, “Hanna, I would have taken that one. He made such a good impression, an owner of an estate in East Prussia.”
Grandfather read in the newspapers, that a representative was sought after in Seppau. “Write [and apply],” he said. So I wrote [and applied] there and sent along my papers.
On Sunday, right while I was coming out of the church, Ludwig stood outside and said, “You have to telephone Seppau immediately. Before I went to the post office to make the call, I first went home and hesitated. Finally I did go to the post office and made the call. “Come on Tuesday. You will be picked up from the railway station Little Tschirne,”[24] said the director. I first had to take a deep breath.
Seppau
In Seppau I learned that over thirty people had applied. They had sought out the oldest and the youngest and whoever called first that one would be taken. I had called up five minutes before [another], even though I had really dallied. The other one cried on the telephone; she had to support her mother and she was unemployed.
Seppau belonged to Count Schlabrendorf and Seppau. He had four propertied estates (Güter): Seppau, Great Kauer, which was situated in the next village. Tschepplau,[25] which was leased, but the huge forest was managed by a head-forester and Eleven;[26] and Lankau, which was managed by an inspector. The old count lived in the castle of Seppau. He was a smallish man with a stately countess from Sevelgo. They got to know each other in the theater and their oldest son was Count Alfred. Because his estates were indebted, the old count had a major trustee from Neumannbosel, who communicated with him only in writing. For short intervals he came into Joachim’s office, in which I also had my desk. The major dictated a letter to me which I had to deliver to the castle and give to the old count. He ranted and railed and dictated his answer to me, which I brought to the major and in that way it always continued. One time the count [was so] filled with rage he threw himself onto the carpet and looked at me. I rang for the old servant, who was a fine man. He lifted him up. He didn’t throw himself down in front of me again.
At the side of the castle stood two houses for the squires. The director lived in one of them. Attached to it was the quarters of the Monsieur, the old servant, the servant girl and the assistant. Then came the archway, on one side of which, lived the night watchman.
On one side of the office there was a long shelf that was full of files. In the evenings, I stood before them and read the labels.[27] The writing of the officials had still been sown into them. That was my job on Saturday afternoons. The Seppau assistant came one evening and said, “I’ll help you, so that you will soon find out how to do this.” Was I ever glad! In Great Kauer, the assistant was Mende, who only came to eat and only with the director and we too ate with him. Mrs. Joachim was a quiet, nice woman. For the second breakfast, she always brought me a mug of warm milk, because I looked so pale. She had a 19 year old son and a ten year old daughter. The assistants kept the book-accounts of the workers’ wages and the livestock reports. I did the bookkeeping for the natural reports and the large main account book. From Joachim and from Lanhau and Tschepplau, I received the weekly cash reports, all of which I recorded in the main account book.
Next to the office I had my room which was heated together with the office, in which stood an iron furnace that Mrs. Künze heated up in the mornings and also tidied up the office.
Every fourteen days I had to get up at 4:00 O’clock in the morning to go into the cow stalls and record the amount of milk given by each cow. Afterwards I stank frightfully and immediately had to change my clothes. Then a 6:00am I sat at my desk.
It was October and so the sugar beats had been taken out and put into a large farm wagon and driven to the railroad station in Little Tschirne and sent to the sugar factory. They always drove past my window and the road was not paved and so slime covered the whole street. I could only go outside with high laced shoes.
One afternoon the young count came into the office to inquire about something. I was not allowed to tell him anything, so I only shrugged my shoulders. “You dumb goose, “ he said, “why did you even come here?” and left. The father and son had become enemies. After a month the director said, “I am giving the secretary another fourteen days of vacation, so you can still stay until then.” So I stayed there until 12/1/1929. “Never again will I [work] in the country.” I told my mother. “I’ve had enough of that muck!” In the weekly newspaper someone had already asked for me, so I was immediately re-employed.
In July the company Ratsch was looking for office help, so I went to Mr. Fröhn, who was the Ratsch representative and introduced myself and received the position. [That made it possible] for me to often get together with Lotte Ehricht again. In the winter we often went to social entertainment and masked balls together. It is there that I met Rudi Steinchen. He was studying surveying in Berlin. He still knew classmates from Grünberg and they often met. Together with Lotte we did bicycle tours and went swimming in the Oder and on Sunday afternoons we often went dancing in a café.
After three quarters of a year a message arrived from Seppau asking me if I wanted to come back, because the secretary was leaving permanently. I took a deep breath. My mother said, “What they have saved for you, you should not turn down.” So I drove back.
But now some things had changed. I had to take over receiving all the mail from Seppau and for it received 20DM more per month. Therefore 70DM for food[28] and expenses and lodging, so I could send my mother 30DM a month, which [amounted to] the interest and payments for the house. I did not have to go into the cow stall in the mornings anymore, only distribute the payments in kind for the milk. An auditor came around every 14 days.
Siegfried Joachim invited his school comrades to his birthday [party] and he also invited me. There someone greeted me with the words: “We know each other, of course; we sat together in the same class.” But I could not remember him. From the post office in Gergau an official called me on the telephone and asked, “Are you Miss Behrens from Moschin? My name is Koch and I am the son of the country farm where you always picked up your milk.” He was married and had two children and invited me on a Sunday. He told me that his parents had remained there, but had been able to harvest little, because so much was stolen. Siegfried often drove to parties in Omaritz, which was the place where we also purchased all our groceries. One time I drove along with him to a party and there was good food to eat, good drinks, and also dancing; and because it got so late, I only allowed myself this entertainment that one time.
The director only remained one more year; he wanted to move to Breslau with his family, where he had several houses, which I heard from the workers. He came really poor and now left rich. For that the grain dealers and livestock handlers had helped him.
Now a man, Mr. von Sochow came to introduce himself. He had been recommended by the Princess Carolath and they both knew each other from their military times. At the same time Mrs. von Echenbrecher came with Ulla. The Joachims were looking for a house daughter. While Ulla was upstairs with Mrs. Joachim, Mrs. von Echenbrecher came to me in the office and questioned me about the children. I said, “The little Ilse is quite spoiled and Siegfried likes to play hooky from school. He was always late riding his bicycle to the train.” The children would see him coming from the window, while he only saw the rear lights of the leaving train. Mrs. Joachim is a nice woman, just somewhat sickly.
After Abendbrot I often played evening songs on the piano and sang them as well, above all Mr. Joachim liked love[29] songs and listened and smoked a cigar while sitting on the sofa. Outside he hollered a lot, which he probably had to do.
Eschenbrechers and Mr. von Sochow together were driven to the train. – When the Joachims were away, their whole apartment upstairs was renovated. I received a room in the castle, but I always had to go over to my office. We ate with the countess and her son. Mr. Mende from Great Kauer always ate earlier in the store. He thought that in the castle he would never be filled. The countess allowed herself to be given very little of the soup, hors d’oeuvres, main dish, and desert (twice) by the servant; she said, however, “Give everyone else a goodly portion.” I smirked at Mende, because at the end [of the meal he was too full] and could not eat anymore. For 14 days he no longer went to the inn to eat beforehand.
I had become friends with the daughter of the innkeeper and I accompanied her in the singing club to Schönau. Now the Sochows moved in and brought Ulla along. On the trip to the railway station Mr. von Sochow asked, if she was going to the Joachims; she said, “no,” so he expressed the opinion that she should come to them; he had two little daughters. Ulla was five years younger than me. For me the Sochows yearly received one pig, weekly 1 lb. of butter and also milk. I never paid attention to that, so I only learned about that later. The assistants received the same. I was really treated in a friendly manner by all. The girls, Annerose and Rottraut, soon became attached to me. Miss Bumusler, who for Mrs. v. Sochow had earlier been their tutor also came along. When Hans-Ewald was born, she slept with him above my room. One night she walked around a lot, so I asked her the next day, why she had been so restless. “I fed the little mouse,” she answered, “so it would not crawl into the Hans-Ewald’s little bed.” Now I had enough, and I immediately set a mouse trap in my room, but never was there a mouse in it.
The meals were not so luxuriant as with the Joachims, but to me it always tasted good. After butchering there were always more robust meals. Ulla told me that a great deal of sausages were made that Mrs. v. Sochow sent away. At Joachims he came to me in the office with tongue meat. We ate it together and had a drink of Schnapps. In the winter I was invited by the Forester, the gardener, millwright, shepherd and coachman for the butchering of the pigs, and I always let them give me fried blood sausage. The others ate curd meat,[30] which was too fatty for me. Later there was still coffee and cake, so it always got late. The women knitted and the men told stories and in that way I learned a lot about earlier times.
The count died in 1932. The countess had me come to the castle on Sundays to write addresses on envelopes. Count Wilhelm, the second son, who was an engineer in Munich, also dictated addresses to me. Among them were many of the high nobility, so I learned how to write addresses for the nobility.
Before the count went to the crematorium, he was left in state in the vestibule, where the family, all the employees, and servanthood took leave of him with a brief devotion. Elizabeth, the daughter, cried a few tears, but was immediately stopped by a poke by the countess. Elizabeth was a librarian in Berlin. Her engagement did not work out and the furniture, which had already been purchased stood in the house of the squire on the left of the castle. The youngest son was learning agriculture on another estate. On the next day I sat next to the coachman and we were driving to the railway station to pick up funeral guests. Four coaches followed behind us. I bade the funeral guests to climb into the coaches and [those] from the vicinity came with their automobiles. In the crematorium, where there were already several caskets, the burial took place. That was in a little forest opposite my office.
Count Alfred inherited everything, because it was entailed in the estate that it could not be divided.[31] He had to pay off his siblings [for their portion]. The Major dictated a letter to me for him, that he was the heir, etc. I had to write all his forenames, I believe there were ten and I had to include them all. Now the major no longer came to us in the office, but drove right to the castle. But now I had to be more with them instead of being [at the office]; I had to explain so much to the count and also write [notifying] all the officials. He had a larger typewriter that I preferred to type on. Saturday at 11:00am he always called me on the telephone. He then told Mrs. v. Sochow that I would eat with him. The countess, to whom I always brought her mail at noon, was very friendly to me. One time on a Sunday afternoon I played the piano in the castle. A glorious grand piano was there. The door opened and suddenly the countess appeared. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Feel free to continue playing.” The Sochows had only a harmonium (a reed organ) which I played at the house.
Ewald’s baptism took place in the upper floor of the Sochows and when the pastor addressed the sponsors, saying, “Answer with yes.” Little Rottraut answered in a really loud voice, “Yes.” She was only four years old. We were all amused. Often I sang an evening song to both girls, when they could not go to sleep. Mrs. v. Sochow always asked me [for this help], because she could not sing. My father sang for each birthday child in the morning at their bedside, “Because I am Jesus’ little Sheep,” before he congratulated us.
On one day, Rottraut did not want to eat, because it did not taste good to her. Mrs. v. Sochow said, “Go to Miss Hanna.” She brought her plate with her, took a place beside me. I fed her and she ate it all up. Later both of them went to school in Schönau. Annerose was as delicate as her mother, so she was sent to school one year later. Daily at 10:00 I had to take all the items to the post office. Riding my bicycle on the avenue, I took both girls along on the bike, then set them down on the street where they then ran to the school in Schönau. On Sunday mornings they often came to my bed and I had to tell them stories. We would have breakfast at 9 O’clock. When they came home from school they first greeted me in my office. On Sundays I often went for a walk with Ulla and the children. Sadly Ulla was only with us for one year. She got a rash on her hands from primrose, which did not go away, so she drove home. But even until today I have remained connected with her. Every evening she came into my room; we smoked a women’s cigarette together, which her mother sent to us. Ulla also fell in love with Mende, who always went around properly dressed in riding pants and boots, was tall and slender and had black hair and eyes. He always had to come and eat from Great Kauer and always came earlier to have a conversation with me in the office. Mr. v. Sochow had left already earlier, into the inn to drink a Schnapps, as Frieda Walter told me. At the end of the month a larger bill had probably been run up together and that put the married couple into a dismal mood. Once in a while I was also invited, where I was always offered a cigarette and at 10:00 he always opened the window, and that meant, time to go to sleep.
Mrs. v. Sochow asked me if I did not know of anybody to replace Ulla. I thought of Anne Weyer, who had my position, so I wrote to her, and she then came right away. Sadly she was petulant like at home,[32] so after a quarter of a year she was laid off. Mrs. von Sochow talked with me beforehand. And I felt sorry about this let-down. Anne was ashamed to drive back home and asked me if she could drive to my house and [live there a while]. I told her, that Wally had a child and there was little room [for here there].
Lotte Ehricht came one Sunday to Seppau and told me that Wally had given birth to Heinz. I was shocked and angry that they had lied to me. When I was home the last time, I asked why Wally had become so fat. Upon that my mother said, “She gets pills from the physician, which make her fat.” and I believed her. Anne, who was jealous that I so often wrote to Rudi and also celebrated holidays with him in Schönau, went to Mrs. Steinchen, who lived in Grünberg one street away from where we lived, and told her about Wally, and that I was amusing myself in Seppau. She thought that Wally should have gone into the water[33] and wrote to Rudi, that he should give up on me.
For a long time I did not receive any mail and then [Rudi] wrote me that he was uncertain that he would pass his exam and he did not want to let me wait so long. I was very unhappy. Some letters were still shared back and forth and then the friendship was over. The Sochows certainly noticed how aggrieved I was, so Father,[34] who was, of course, the teacher of Annerose and Rottraut, often invited me, so we got to know each other.
I saw Rudi only one more time, as I came home on a Sunday evening with a large suitcase. Wally had gotten me from the railroad station and he stood there on the street. He came to us and wanted to take and hold the suitcase for us. I thanked him and left his standing there. My mother soon sent Anne Weyer back home; she had never written. If she had married Arthur Schlüter, even then she would not have been a good girlfriend.
After a year I told the count that the work had become too much for me. So he told me, “Then we will provide another office help for you.” I knew that Else Feller, a friend of Lotte Ehricht, was unemployed and I wrote to her and she came immediately, but stayed only one year. She did not like the work schedule. The count would first appear at 9:00, at 14:00 there was lunch (Mittagbrot), then [Else] could probably loaf, but that meant that she had to sit longer in the evening. He only dictated letters to her for the typewriter, which she had to finish, make carbon copies of them and then file them. We were together for some hours, did needlework together, and Sundays we often took walks.
Then Hilde Hirsch came from Glogau. She told me that the count had recently been with her and asked her, if she was also as good as I. I would do everything by myself. I had a good relationship with her. In the evenings she often came to me and taught me table tennis. On the one side of my office stood a long and low table, which had two extensions. We moved it into the hall and played. It did not take long and I was able to beat her. Father and Günther Franz, who was the home school teacher at the Jordans, sometimes came over on a Sunday afternoon and watched. It was too bad that Hilde Hirsch also only stayed for a year. Her friend was angry that she had left from Glogau. She then worked at a newspaper in Glogau. Every month, of course, I had to go to the Darmstädter Bank to get money for Schilter and Sons, so I visited Hilde Hirsch, if I still had more time. After Walsdorf, she wrote me, that she had given birth to a son.
Now the count again put out an advertisement, to which Else Feller responded. He did not want to hire her again and asked me to provide someone again. I knew that the Parson in Dalkau was looking for a woman teacher and he had several addresses. So I rode my bicycle to see him and let him give me some of the [names]. One name was Frederieke from Schweinfurt. We visited each other. Later she made up her diploma (Abitur) and became the teacher. We took a secretary, Agathe, from Berlin. She came from a good house and was not modest. She did not at all like the work with the count and stayed only a half a year. Then a Miss Hetzke answered the advertisement. She was one year younger than I, related with a married dentist, who often visited her in the evenings. I had not befriended her, but mornings she often came to me in the office, the castle was too lonely a place for her. She could not have stayed long, because when the war began, the count telephoned the post office in Walsdorf,[35] that I should come to the telephone.
I was astonished, but I went down to the telephone. I asked me to help him because the volunteer that he had, had been drafted. My son Ulrich was only one year old, and I should bring him along; his mother would take care of him. I, of course, [was pregnant] with Ekkehard, so I would not have been any great help to him. I answered him that I would first have to ask my husband. Father had already been drafted in August. A few days later a letter arrived from the countess. She bade me, please do come, she could not write any letters for her son and she would be glad to take care of my son. I answered her, that because I was now expecting another child, I would not be a great help to her. It seemed that no woman who succeeded me remained there very long and then I learned that the next one married the miller from Schönau, so the count had to take a volunteer.
Mende from Great Kauer had suddenly disappeared,[36] for what reason, I did not learn. A new assistant came, one that I saw at noon, whose name I do not remember. One day he asked me if I was satisfied with the meals. “I have no complaints.” I said. He had just been to the count and had complained. The evening meal (Abendbrot) that he always received was good in quantity, but its quality was miserable. When the count talked about it with the countess, she was horrified and quite fearful before the count. That afternoon the count came into my office. As he came in he looked at the table and saw a tray with a cup of coffee and a slice of bread next to it. The slice had bent and the syrup ran over on the plate and no butter was on the bread.
“Is that your coffee?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said, “but because I am just adding up all the figures, I have not yet had time to drink my coffee.” He went back out. The assistant did not stay long in Great Kauer and so Nietsche, who was with us in Seppau, had to go to Great Kauer. Thus I had to take over distributing the wages and livestock accounts and the foreman had to take over the supervision of the outside in addition. One evening the count called me over. The sheepherder was with him and complained that he did not have enough feed for his sheep.
“Yes,” I said. The director Joachim has given more to the sheep and Mr. von Sochow puts in more for the pigs, which are in Great Kauer. I can’t change that. Why don’t you speak directly to Mr. v. Sochow.” I said to the sheepherder, who said, “I told him that long ago.”
For a while the Sochows made faces of concern and then went on a 14 day vacation, handing over [the responsibility] for the small cash register to me. On Saturday I bundled the wage packets for the Seppauer workers, who would come to get their money. When Nietsche came I took his single packet and laid his exact amount of money on it and he put it in the packet. Because there was still enough time before the meal, I quickly counted the remaining money – 2 DM were missing. I was naturally unhappy, locked the cash register in the drawer of Mr. v. Sochow’s desk and went along up to eat. Nietsche put his briefcase on the side of the table. The key of the office got stuck, but had turned and locked.[37] Nietsche was the first to go back into the office after the meal. I still had a conversation with Mrs. v. Sochow: Mr. v. Sochow was supposed to return that evening. When I came into the office I saw Nietsche standing at the desk and tearing open wage packets. “What are you doing there?” I said.
“I am looking for the 2 DM that you are missing.”
“But you are not allowed to tear open the packets!” and I saw many packets lying aside with only small amounts in them. Now I knew what was going on. And I said, “Pack everything back and get out of here!”[38]
He now left addled (verwirrt) and now again had to change [the amounts] in the packets, the way he probably always had to do, on the street situated in the little Pheasant woods, [on the way] to Great Kauer. The [workers] always had to wait for their money, when he would arrive on his bicycle.
I was really upset. I did not like Nietsche very much. He always sat opposite me at the table and he often had fat puss-filled boils on his forehead. He would often wipe off the puss with his handkerchief. I could not look at it; otherwise my food would no longer taste good. He had the daughter of the Railroad master as his girlfriend and probably always came home late. The count caught him twice, not being with the workers. He was still home asleep. He even hid himself once in a cabinet. Precisely on that afternoon the count invited me with him to take a drive through the fields. I told him nothing about Nietsche. I first wanted to tell Mrs. v. Sochow in the evening. We also drove through the fields of Great Kauer, where we saw Nietsche running around alone. With big fearful eyes, he came toward us, first looked at me and then at the count, who had a few questions for him and we drove on.
When Mr. v. Sochow had returned and came into the office, I told him about it. “And now even that!” he said. “Now he is doing just what Mende did.” Now I realized why Mende had so quickly disappeared. He had a brother who was a high officer. He asked the count to keep silent; he would pay for it all. He did not want to be laid off.
When the count learned about Nietsche, he had him reported. Beforehand I drove to Great Kauer and let them give me their wage packets. Their amounts were always 1 or 2 DM lower than their wages in the register. Nietsche probably helped himself to about 60 DM more a month. His mother came to the count and pleaded with him not to report her son [to the police], and although she fell on her knees before him, he did not soften. She also came to me in the office. I said, “I could not in any way conceal it.” He knew that his predecessor had also carried out this deception and he copied him.
It came to a court case in Glogau. The count was naturally among the on-lookers and he said really loud, “Miss Behrens, don’t play down anything.” I then explained how everything had happened and how he had already carried out this deception for a longer time, about which I had been asked. Nietsche confessed to it all and was sentenced to two years in jail.
A new assistant came to Great Kauer, to whom Frieda Walter had befriended herself. She had a child with him, when I was away they married and Frieda’s father purchased a small farm (Landwirtschaft) for them.
In the summer I always got up at 5:00am, put on a bathing suit, ran to a little place in the park, did gymnastics, ran through the park to the Rabenmühlen pond, bathed; ouch! the water sometimes was cold, dried myself, and ran back home, dressed, and I would be sitting in the office at 6:00am.
Sometimes when Mr. v. Sochow was on vacation, down in the yard I had to ring the bell. In that way all the workers arrived and the foreman would then divide them up. For my last two birthdays, the workers presented me with a great many bouquets of flowers. So I had the innkeeper Walter cook a large cannister of milk and coffee. He was also the one who delivered our milk. And from Schönau I had the baker Kuppe, whom I knew well, bake a large pan of crumble cake, (Streuselkuchen) and both brought their items to a certain place where all the workers gathered and they enjoyed the taste of it. I asked them not to dally too long. The men naturally also drank a Schnapps with it after which they were a little tipsy. But neither the count nor the inspector said anything about it. When the time came for them to make hay, I always drove there each time, took a rake and participated for a short while. When the potatoes were harvested, I had to go together with the women to help and for every basket that they shook into the wagon, they received a mark.
In the summer mornings Father always ran long distance with the oldest son of the Jordans. They would pass by my window. A mailbox was in the archway and I would constantly find a folded note with a morning greeting. Before Jordan left, they wanted to celebrate my birthday with me, which I didn’t know. Over the weekend I was at home, but returned on my birthday that Sunday afternoon. Father was at the railway station and we went to his place in Schönau and had coffee together there. Leisurely we walked to Seppau and there we met our coachman. He was supposed to pick me up, but on the way he had been delayed and arrived at the train too late, so he drove back very slowly. We quickly sat down in his carriage. We were received with a “Hello” by the Sochows and Miss Bummler, who had waited for us a long time and we had coffee together. That we had already had coffee, we, of course, did not let on. As presents they gave me a beautiful table cloth with napkins, which I still have today, and a crystal bowl with children’s drawings. The count did not like Father and forbade inspector König, who came to Sochow, to invite him.
The Königs had married young and that secretly. In Dalkau there lived a young married forester couple, with whom we were often together. For the elections the mayor always had me come to the polling place to be the secretary (Schriftführerin). We knew each other well, because I often brought him the mail and I also had conversations with his wife and mother.
I always kept the window of my room open a little. One evening when I already lay in bed, I heard a noise. I turned on the night lamp and under the sofa I saw a porcupine. “That was Grenzer!” I said to myself. I could not, of course, step onto the floor. So I crawled onto the wash table, opened the door to the office, took a broom, which I happened to snatch, and with the broom handle I shooed the porcupine into the office. But an hour had passed before that was accomplished. When he came from the field and had to pass me, he often threw something in[to the room through the window]. I told him that one day I would take my revenge.
On April 1st I sent him to the railway station to pick up someone. He drove there and came back without him and I greeted him with “April fool!” He was mad, but never again did he throw critters into my room.
One Fall morning I opened my window and thought I was seeing things. A little distance from the window lay a huge tree and all the wires from the transformer house, along with a whole lot of branches. When I went into the office, Mr. v. Sochow soon came in and said, “We all waited [upstairs] and we thought because of this awful storm you would come up. We were all up there together.”
“I heard nothing,” I said, “because I was in a deep sleep.” He shook his head in astonishment. On Saturday night I always went to bed with a book, put on the lamp of the night table and read until 2:00am. Because I liked smelling stearin so much, I still lit a candle and let it burn a short while. One time the night watchman knocked on my window and shouted, “Miss Behrens, you’ve forgotten to put out your light!”
I shouted back, “On Saturdays I always read late into the night. You do not have to knock.”
On 3/3/35 we became engaged. It was a Sunday and we were at my mothers. She put the rings on our fingers and congratulated us. We went to church and afterward we celebrated. Wally and Ludwig were at home; Tante Trudel and Horst came for coffee. Our grandparents and Uncle Otto had already died. In the evening we drove back.
One day as I brought the mail to the gardener’s wife, – the gardener lived on the side at the end of the park, where he had his garden with vegetables and beans, I met Mrs. Heptner from Schönau. She was sitting on a bench and resting. She congratulated me for my engagement. She said, “Had I known, that you did not have a boyfriend, then I would have invited you to our house more often. Günter liked you so very much, but you were so reserved. Günter became acquainted with me in the singing club. We twice played in theatrical roles together in Schönau. For his birthday he had once invited the singing club and I was astonished to see how comfortably the Heptners lived. They owned the largest agricultural estate in Schönau. Mr. Heptner had died and Günter had two older brothers, who were inspectors on other estates. He managed the agriculture of the estate in Schönau. I of course noticed that he liked me, but I was poor and Wally had a child, which no one knew about, so I drew back. One day he visited us with the young master baker of Wolfsdorf. Father was still at instructions, but came up a half hour later. Good thing that he had Schnapps there. Father did not drink beer so there was none in the house. Günter and the baker Knappe were driving to Siegnitz, so they made detour to visit us. Both of them died [casualties] of the war.
The count was also the patriarch of the Catholic Church, so I drove to the old Parson at Great Kauer, because I had to take care of something there. I was shocked to see how dirty his black jacket was; even his housekeeper and the whole house looked awfully dirty. I would not have accepted a [communion] host from that parson.
I gave my notice on July 1st 1936; the count kept me at work, however, until July 16th. I still had to complete the agricultural year-end accounting, which was always due at the end of July. Beforehand, however, he drove with me to Breslau in a taxi, which he hired from Dalkau; he did not own a car. He allowed me to select a good carpet in a large store as a departing gift. At the same time I bought a small carpet for the little room and curtains for the windows as well. At Pentecost I visited Father, who had already been in Wolfsdorf since April and who had taken the measurements for the curtains and so I had everything sent to Wolfsdorf. The count still had dinner with me and then we drove back home.
I was often in Glogau with the count, when he had to go to a government office. He would then often discuss some matters with me while we ate together. Miss Hetzke once asked me, what kind of a fine meal did you buy yourself today? I answered, “I eat with the count, of course.” That made her angry and she said, “He plants 2 Mk into my hand and says, “Buy yourself something.” I appeased her and said, “The kind of questions that he always asks me, you could not, of course, answer.”
The Wedding
I wanted to take a course in cooking before my marriage. At that Grandfather Hoffmann became angry with me, having the opinion that I could not leave Father alone for so long a time. And so the wedding was scheduled for August 8th. I wrote to the Superintendent asking if he could marry us on the 8th of August. He bid me marry on August 9th because he was on vacation and would only return home on the evening of August 8th. He did have a wedding on August 8th in Freystadt: the orphan-father, Wolf’s twin sisters wanted to marry, but he would then marry them on the 10th of August. My guests were already leaving for home on August 9th, so I went to the Vicar. He let me know that he would be glad to perform the marriage, but the Superintendent would be angry and then, he certainly was! Magda Wolf once visited me in Wolfsdorf and said, “We had to wait for our marriage until August 10th!” But all her guests came directly from the vicinity.
In the morning of the Wedding Day, we went to the marriage registry office with Tante Trudel and Uncle Carl Marohn, who both were our marriage witnesses. Uncle Carl with Tante Dreschen, Werner and the grandparents Hoffmann, had already come on Friday evening. That Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, but only until the afternoon. When we came out of the church, it started to rain and [the temperature] also cooled down. We only needed to go to the church hall and there we celebrated with Tante Trudel, Horst and Hans, Wally, Heinz, a woman friend and an acquaintance, who brought along a phonograph, so we listened to beautiful music. I also invited the Vicar. My mother had already roasted the meat and baked the cake and brought it all to the lady who served at church. She lived [in an apartment] over the hall with her husband. We were not allowed to dance, so we played games in the evening, in a jovial (gemütlichen) comfortable atmosphere. On the next day the Berliners drove back home.
For the honeymoon we took an eight day vacation on Lake Constance, where we rested. I had sown my dress for the marriage registry and wedding at home with a tailor. I had already washed all the new clothes but it was too bad that it rained; so the neighbors said: “In your marriage every day for washing you will have good weather.” In their opinion that would happen to me, and they were precisely right.
In a furniture store Father and I chose our living room, bedroom, and kitchen [furniture] and the owner delivered it to Wolfsdorf. We had the furniture set made with mid-blue upholstery by the upholsterer in Goldberg. So everything was beautifully arranged when we came in. I received the living room furniture from my grandparents. It was a clothing cabinet and a dresser with an oval mirror, both of light birch; a table with four chairs, with woven cane and a sofa. From Uncle Carl, Father received a well preserved desk and book case, so the little room also had furniture. When I later lost all of this furniture, I really grieved. Every month for a year and a half [to cover payment], Father and I saved 100 Mk, so later we only had to make [one] remaining payment. From the state we borrowed 1,000 Mk, which, though [we had] five children we repaid. [But] with each child 200 Mk was crossed off our debt.
Wolfsdorf
Moving into Wolfsdorf gave us a lot to do; so for eight days we went to Fröhnbergs to eat. Then I heard that Wally had sent me a cookbook. I took the sewing machine from the school into my house and sewed all the curtains, and windows; there were enough [of them]! We now felt really well.
The Fischbachs were especially nice to us. He was the first teacher. In the afternoons we often went for walks in order to get to know our surroundings. Children were often in the street greeting us. One time a child who was just starting school, approached me and said, “Good day, Mrs. School!” I laughed and returned the greeting.
From the mayor I then received the requirement to make “Heil Hitler!” my greeting and then again to lift my arm.
Hiller, the farmer lived on the other side of the street. We had leased the little garden from him, so we got to know the Hillers, also the Löbels, who had a tailor shop and who lived next to our little garden. The other farmers whom we went to visit were the Neumanns, Hankes, Lienigs, Kabitzes, and Heptners. I always invited one couple for coffee. First the Neumanns and Hankes, who sadly did not get along together, because the Hankes were not in the party, which I only learned later. I often baked sand- and crumcakes. When I invited the Hillers and the Fischbachs, Mrs. Fischbach said to me, “Farmers like to stay for Abendbrot,” because “it’s [difficult] for them to make their afternoons free.” So I invited the others only to Abendbrot.
My Chippendale table was oval and I could extend it twice, so it became quite long. Then I invited Christa Hanke and Friedel Neumann to play table tennis. Friedel was so very enthusiastic that the Neumanns had to buy a table tennis set and then she always played with her brother Günter. In a theater Friedel and Hilde Lienig played a queen and princess and because they had no costumes, Father sent them to me and I gave them a long pink and a blue dress that fit them. The girls were excited. People thought, as they saw me, “But that teacher has taken himself a young wife. Do you think she is already 20?” I was 26 years old.
The Fischbachs moved to Goldberg. Mrs. Fischbach had a small circle of girls and young women, with whom she sang. I took over her circle and in the church festival, I also did theater [playing parts] with them and had them practice a dance to the piece Grossmütterchen (The Little Grandmother). The gentleman went in black suits and had cylinder hats on and the ladies went with long dresses. I borrowed everything from Father and he also played a gentleman. We danced in rows as couples while the gentlemen bowed and took off their cylinders and the ladies did courtly curtsies. Hertha Kabitz accompanied us on the piano. We received so much applause that we had to repeat the dance [for the audience]. Once Friedel told me in Mölln, “You first brought culture to us.”
At Easter Martens[39] and the Hoffmann Grandparents came to us. we took a trip with an automobile through the mountains. On the way back, I felt very sick. At home I sat down on the sofa and noticed that the child had moved and with that I felt a great deal of pain. After that I could no longer take long walks. Father had to go to Grünberg for military exercises. He said, “You are coming along with me and going to the hospital for your childbirth.” I also wanted that. My mother’s opinion, “We have such a good midwife here, you can save the money.” I let the midwife come; she was already older. She examined me and found everything in order. It was only Tante Dolly who was of the opinion, “If you are about to have your baby, then your belly (Leib) is still too high.” One evening when the contractions were starting, the midwife came and said, “It will still take a while, I will go back home.” I was in agony with pain the whole night.
On the next morning she came again and left and returned with a physician. He said, “I had a baby wrongly situated, posterior first.” He told the midwife, “Pay attention that she does not have long enduring contractions.” In the afternoon the physician returned with a nurse. I was placed on a table and received light anesthesia, but I noticed how hard they pressed down on my stomach. The body of the baby was out. But then I got a cramp in the opening of my uterus and the head did not come out. At that the physician took a scissor and made an incision. Wally was at my side and later told me everything. He was a big blond boy and only wailed and died after three hours. It was only 5:00 in the afternoon.
Father, who only returned in the evening, was very unhappy and cried a long time. On the next day he had to buy a coffin and go with the cemetery gardener to the cemetery. T. Wally took care of the grave for a long time. I comforted myself with the thought that someone I knew really well was in the hospital, received a caesarian, and the child also died. After an examination the physician was astonished how well the wound of the incision healed. He expressed the opinion: “Now you have to wait three years before having your next child.”
One year later, Ulrich was there. The water had broken. Right away Father ran to the telephone at the estate and called the midwife. She brought me to the hospital. Because I had no contractions, I received an injection. The hospital physician also came. Father asked him to come. Because the shot was not strong enough, I was supposed to get another, but the baby was already coming. He weighed 5 ½ Lb. and had black hair. It was naturally a boy. It was 3:00 in the afternoon. Father was already standing in the door of the house with a bouquet and was immensely happy about the boy. “What are we going to call him?” he asked me.
I said, “Ulrich.” We hadn’t even spoken about names. All we wanted was a healthy child. One day in Goldberg I had heard a woman call the name “Ulrich!” At that a big young man responded. At that I said to myself, I will name a child of mine Ulrich. I liked that name. Ulrich was the first child born in that new hospital. The physician’s opinion: “One day he’ll become a doctor.”
Because I was hungry, along with Father I was given a cup of coffee and cake. Then I let myself get stitches without anesthesia. The midwife thought that I should allow him to drink at night, which I did for a quarter of a year. Then he was supposed to sleep through the night. He lay in a bassinet that T. Else had lent me. The wagon was next to my bed in the bedroom. At night he would wake up and cry. So we took turns riding him in it, back and forth, and singing for him as well.
One time I sent Father into the little room where the water barrels stood. We always had to pump the water up from the ground floor. We had arranged the room for guests (Freunden-zimmer). Father, however, came back and said, “I can also hear him back there.” So I took the bassinet on the wagon to the small room, where for the night I also threw another briquette into the oven. It started to glow and the room became pleasant and warm. The bedroom, even if it did not have an outside wall, because a little room was still behind it, quickly became cold at night. I woke up at 6:00 O’clock with a fright and ran into room next to ours. Ulrich was asleep with red cheeks. Was I ever happy! Now we always took him into that room to sleep.
We daily went and took a walk with him. We soon got to know the three ladies of the estate. Miss Keller was the woman inspector for [horse] Riding-Master Kessler. Miss Hänel was the housekeeper and the secretary was Gertrude Kube, with whom we became friends. Friedel Neumann came for as much as she had the time, and played with Ulrich. As soon as it got warm, I set up a playpen on the grass in the back yard by the fence and Ulrich began to stand and make little steps in it. He also had toys. Once in a while I looked out of the living room window and soon Mrs. Löbel was with him. Also Herbert and other people who lived in the village that came by, spoke to him. That made it possible for me to tidy the house and cook. I also went on an eight day vacation with him in the mountains. We took the playpen along and soon a one year old girl accompanied him and they ran around in it. Ulrich was also one year old.
Ulrich was baptized on October 30th 1938 in Goldberg.[40] Both grandmothers, Urdena Knispel, Uncle Carl and Uncle Günter Franz were his baptismal sponsors. We took a taxi to the church and back. We could not yet afford to have a celebration, so in the afternoon with Ulrich, we drove to take a walk.
At home, we read the newspaper greatly worried. The war was announced and [that’s] right! At the end of August Father was drafted. Before that the Fischbachs had moved to Goldberg and Father endeavored to attain the head teacher position,[41] but because he was not a member of the party (Parteigenosse), he did not receive it. The school counsel even came to us and spoke with Father again, but he did not want to be in any party.
Then Zobel, who was a big member of the party, came to Wolfsdorf with his wife and two sons, 7 and 2 years old. By birth they derived from the neighboring village Konradswaldau. Clause often came up to see Ulrich and play with him.
For Christmas I was in Berlin with Ulrich. For it Grandpa (Opa) had extra bought a children’s bed. Both had really been very happy about Ulrich and [with them] there I could also daily drive away. There he could also eat bananas, which one could not get in Wolfsdorf.
Father had to take part in the military campaign through Poland. He wrote us that all they did was walk. And we were again in Berlin even on that next Christmas. Ulrich was now two and a half years old. One day Uncle Werner, Tante Erika and Henning came and they slept at Tante Dorchens. Henning was a quarter of a year older than Ulrich and also a healthy boy and both played together.
Grandma (Oma) asked me to cook the children’s meals. I cooked vegetable-carrots. When I set the meal on the table I sat Ulrich at the table, sat beside him, and watched as he ate. Tante Erika had Henning on her lap, Uncle Werner sat beside her and Tante Erika fed Henning. When she saw that Ulrich ate alone, she forgot to continue feeding Henning in astonishment. “How did you accomplish that?” she asked me. I explained that Ulrich sat in an open little folding chair with me opposite him and I fed him. Because he did not like to eat vegetables, I said, “I give you one spoon and then you can have one spoon of stewed fruit (compote).” First he did look schmeered, but with time he ate flawlessly, and soon he ate everything by himself. Grandmother was amused.
In April Eckehardt was supposed to come, so in March we traveled to Grünberg. Ulrich up in his room was taking his midday knap. One day I heard him crying, so I went up and took him into my arms. I wanted to dress him downstairs. I slipped on the second stair and slipped down all the stairs; thank God all the way down on my posterior. Tante Wally had waxed and polished them too well. Now I sat at the bottom. Mother stood inside at the kitchen door, but did not open it, thinking, “What will I now see?” When I called her, she opened the door. When she saw me sitting on the floor with Ulrich in my arms, she helped me get up and we were both happy that nothing bad had happened. When Tante wally came back from work, we went to the hospital and I let the midwife examine me. She said, “All is well. Come back in 14 days.”
After 14 days I went to Bethesda, but I had only a few contractions. But on that day [in the hospital] I agonized all day with pain, walked back and forth, often stood at the window and looked at many babies there. The midwife thought the physician should give me an injection so that I did not have the torment of pain all night. That way I was brought to the birthing room and received an injection. A young nurse was with me and held my hand, which I didn’t let go, because the pain that followed was excruciatingly long. Only when the water broke, did I let go of her hand and she ran to get the doctor. The poor nurse could not work for days because I had squeezed her hand so tightly. The physician was speechless because Eckehardt’s head was so large. He said, “I thought you were getting twins.” As I held Eckehardt in my arms, I saw a swelling on his head. “That will soon go away.” The doctor said. And he was right. Ulrich also visited me and was happy about the little doll (Püppi). Father received a telegram in France and sent back a telegram with congratulations and with the addition: the next one will be a girl.
Again we had not chosen a name, but beforehand, I had been reading about the monk Eckehardt and I also heard the name in Marienwerder, and I liked it.
In Grünberg I bought a baby carriage made of wicker, and I left the one there that belonged to Heinz. I had bought that for him for his baptism. I then bought another children’s bed in Goldberg.
Only in August did Father get military leave, at which time we had Eckehardt baptized. With the Hankes and Tante Wally we drove together. Eckehardt’s baptismal sponsors were J. Wormen, J. Wang, Wally[42] Steinchen, Uncle Mille, and Uncle Ludwig. Mrs. v. Sochow as well. Eckehardt also got a pacifier. Ulrich didn’t have one anymore, after a half a year it was so used up that I said to him, “Look at it! It is so used up and ugly. I’m going to throw it away.” We went to the fireplace and threw it in and watched as it burned up. With that Ulrich was satisfied. With Eckehardt I should not have done that. He still needed the pacifier. I saw him stand at Riekchens[43] carriage; she spit out her pacifier and took to sucking here thumb. Eckehardt tried that as well with his thumb. All at once his thumb was in his mouth and then he did not stop. Riekchen only sucked her thumb to go to sleep.
Tante Sö now often came to us and carried Eckehardt around in the living room and even sang to him, before Riekchen was born. He had become too heavy for me. When he could walk, he crawled onto the stool, looked out of the window, and called a few times, “Tante Sö is coming! Ran to the door and lifted both his arms and Tante Sö picked him right up. Now Tante Sö came daily for one hour. For me walking with the carriage became too much, so I recruited a girl, who had to do a year of service. The older sister of Edith Linke came to me and said, “I still have a quarter of a year at school. But at 10 O’clock I am always free and I will come and help you until the evening.” Mrs. Zobel said, “I advise you against her. You will have little help. That is what I experienced.” So I didn’t take her.
Later I was angry that I had taken Mrs. Zobel’s advice. The girl that I then accepted had lice. After four weeks I saw a louse running on Eckehardt’s head. I was upset and now it dawned on me why my head always itched. I told it to Tante Sö who came and combed the nits out of my hair with a fine toothed comb. I immediately laid the girl off, but did not tell her why, and gave her the money for the whole month. Then the father came on another day and he had a lame leg and did not work. The mother had milked the cows at the Neumann’s. I just said to him, “I don’t need your daughter anymore.” If I had said that she had lice, then he would have told the village that we had lice and she had gotten it from us and that is why she left us.
From the settlement a girl called Helga came; she was really still a child and she only took walks with Eckehardt in the baby carriage and sometimes left him standing a long time while she gossiped with the boys. After that year passed, came Hedwig, who was 17 years old and came from the neighboring village and that is why she slept in the guest room (Freunden-zimmer). When my mother and Heinz came to visit, they also slept there. Heinz really liked coming to us. He played a lot with Ulrich, which he had also done in Grünberg.
Hedwig was diligent and loving to the children. Sadly she once fell down the stairs and sprained her foot. Until it healed, I asked a sister of a Kindergarten helper if she could help me. Her name was Maria; she was 18 and wanted to become a nurse. She could only start [training] in a quarter of a year, so she helped me. Both were such nice girls; but the mother had stolen [things] from me when we were in flight. She had two boys as old as Ulrich and Eckehardt and a niece like Riekchen. In the railway station in Goldberg, we had to put our baggage in a [baggage]wagon and go into the passenger car. The mother did not go, but sat on her travel basket alone in that wagon. When I went to get my things, Riekchen’s backpack was gone and so was a woolen blanket.
At the time Riekchen was born, Father came home for a quarter of a year and Zobel had to go off to the war. At night my contractions started and as they became stronger, Father ran to the estate and called the midwife, who was a good experienced woman. I had to stay at home because the hospital had become a military hospital and I did not want to go to the old one. The midwife washed her hands and Riekchen was there in 5 minutes. It was 11:27pm and Hedwig looked for the Father, who was downstairs sitting on the toilet.
Eckehardt had the chickenpox and the midwife found one on Riekchen’s bottom. We had again not chosen a name so Father rummaged through the papers of the ancestors and found that my ancestors and his had the same first names, but it took him three days to decide. The midwife said, “If you do not give me a name today, I will notify [the authorities] and give her a name myself.” My suggestion of Marie Louise, he did not like. Ulrich and Eckehardt got whooping cough and I was afraid that they would infect Riekchen. Eckehardt was tormented with it for a long time. They always caught it from the children in school. Later both caught the measles.
Riekchen was now three quarters of a year old and she now lay in a little bed that Grandfather sent for her from Berlin. I bathed her daily and laid her back in her little bed. She did not look good to me and not to Tante Sö as well, who often came over. I called a physician. The doctor who came was a Czech. When he saw Riekchen, he said, “Let lie there and rest. She will die anyway.” and left. Tante Sö came right over and shook her head, when she heard what the doctor said. She was, of course, a Red Cross nurse, so she said, “Make a really warm bath right away, wrap her in a large wet cloth and lay her in the wagon. And ride her in it as long as it takes for her to go to sleep. Before that she will really scream.” And she was right.
The next morning was covered with measles and she needed a lot of time before she recovered. Before that, Riekchen had been baptized on Ulrich’s birthday. Tante Sö and Christa Hanke, Tante Else, Werner Marohn and Tante Trudel were her baptismal sponsors. At the celebration, there were also Grandmother Hoffmann, Marianne Bärbel, and Tante Trudel who brought Esther and Mirjam along.
Uncle Rudolf with eight children came back to Germany out of America shortly before the war. Their house had been bombed in Hamburg and then they lived in Erfurt and last, with my mother in Grünberg. Some of the children slept in the houses of good friends. Before they were allowed to return to America in 1947 with 11 children, they spent several weeks in a camp. In America, four more children were born. Tante Trudel will be 90 years old in 1998 and they are all doing well.[44]
The midwife said, “If he does not open up his eyes, then we will have to get the doctor.” He opened his blue eyes and looked at me: was I happy! Christoph was four weeks early.[45] Hedwig left us so I went to the Linkes and asked for Edith, who gladly came to us. One evening at Abendbrot I said, “Edith, don’t we have four children?
“Yes,” she said. I quickly ran to the school yard. Christoph was blessedly asleep in his carriage. And we still had a warm Autumn.
When Riekchen still sat in the carriage and we ate Abendbrot, Eckehardt stuffed a teaspoon of salt in his mouth. Right away I gave him milk to drink. He stood up, went to Riekchen’s carriage, and threw it all up into it. Now I had quite some work cleaning it up. He also liked to run over to the smith. One time he came back with a bandaged hand, crying. He had touched a hot iron.
Christoph was baptized on November 29th 1942. Mr. Kabitz drove us to church. Mrs. Herta Kabitz, Friedel Neumann, Grandfather and Uncle Ludwig’s wife were the baptismal sponsors. We had a little celebration.
Uncle Ludwig had lost his right leg. He was in Grünberg for several days, so with three children I drove there to greet him. I gave Christoph to the Löbels for a few days. When we returned, Mr. Löbel did not want to give Christoph back, so dear had he become to him. The local superintendent once came to us and said, “In the settlement I could get a house with a bath, because our house was now too small.” I had all the children’s beds in the large room. Ulrich already had a spring bed (Drahtbett). The cabinets were moved into the back room, also the sofa. The desk was in front of the window in the bedroom. The bookcase was down on the main floor, which was quite large; and the tables and chairs were exchanged, so the children had a great place to play.
We then moved in April 1949 and Tante Sö and Friedel helped me. On Riekchen’s birthday we had already set up and arranged the house, because [her birthday] was celebrated with children. The godparents also came. Christa, Tante Sö, Herbert, Gerhard and the girls from the Förster castle. Ulrich, Eckehardt and Riekchen were often at the Scholzes and their girls with us. Mrs. Scholz had also lost her first child, a boy. The snow had been so deep that the physician from Goldberg could not make it with the auto. The young midwife was at a loss and didn’t know what to do. Because the birth took so long, the little one swallowed excrement and soon died.
Father was wounded in September. After Christmas he came as an ambulant to us; but at the end of January, he already had to join the military campaign again; Helmut Grimm as well, who had lost a leg. Father sent me a card. “We’re probably going to Carlsbad,”[46] he wrote.
In the summer we picked blueberries, which we ate with milk every day. Ulrich went to school and found playmates. From Upper Silesia came minors and employees, who worked in the [mining] pit that had been opened again. If I had known that we would have to leave Wolfsdorf, I would not, I would never have moved! The children, however, played day in and day out with the neighboring children, who were their same age. There we had a large, beautiful sunny corridor with a wall cabinet in which all the toys were stored. Christoph was 2 and 8 days old when he got sick with chickenpox and measles.
(The Flight to Haldensleben in the steno notebook.)
Flight 1945
Johanna Hoffmann
(1989)
Because Rieke recently asked me to show her on a map all the places we went on our flight, I will try as best as I can, to write about our flight.
At the end of 1945, refugees were permitted to travel farther. We had also taken in a woman with two children, who slept in our children’s room. In it stood a large bed and three children beds. We put Christoph’s bed in the bedroom, so I slept with Rieke and Ulrich and Eckehardt slept in Father’s bed.
Father had been with was ambulant for a short while, but had to go again to the hospital (Lazarett). He went to Bad Carlsbad in South Germany.
Beforehand we sent two suitcases with our best clothes, [sending them] along with a movement of soldiers. We delivered them to a physician who was to become the head doctor of a hospital. The name of the place has escaped me. In 1946 Father traveled there from Haldensleben and came back empty. The suitcases had disappeared. The physician felt sorry, he had had the suitcases put up in the attic.
When the Russian woman with her two children, who lived in Wolfsdorf next to us, was able to travel away, I went to the mayor, Mr. Hieltscher, an uncle of Tante Friedel, and asked for a permit (Bescheinigung) so that we could buy [train] tickets. He said, Mrs. Hoffmann, if you leave, the whole village will become rebellious. So we had to wait patiently for another eight days, at the end, without light and water. But I had packed a travel basket, two suitcases, and three children’s packs.
In the morning of the 9th of February, Friedel Neumann came and said to me, “My uncle sent me to you.” I am supposed to help you dress the children. A rack-wagon will take all the children to the railway station in Goldberg. “There will be only one more train leaving Goldberg.” So we hurried. Rieke still came to me with her doll and I was supposed to tie on its little hat. She laid the doll on the bed. At that moment Friedel shouted, “The wagon is already standing at our door.” We forgot the doll, for which I was so sorry. Anni who wanted to come with us was already at the door. So we two pulled the rack-cart with the travel basket and the suitcases behind us all the way to Goldberg. There we had to wait until noon before the train arrived. Refugees came from all the surrounding villages, many having walked for miles (kilometers).
Actually I wanted to travel together with Mrs. Schmidt, who lived over us and who had a small boy. She was from Joachimstal and that is where we wanted to go. But now I had had to leave beforehand.
We had to put our baggage into the baggage car and no one was allowed to stay with it. One woman remained anyway with her boy. It was the mother of Maria, who had stood-in for me a short while, when Hedwig was sick. She also had two little brothers and a big sister, who had a girl the same age as Rieke.
In the train we sat crowed closely together. I had my two little ones on my lap and down at my feet sat Eckehardt and Ulrich. In that way we rode until the next day till Gablonz. Rieke cried and was restless the whole night. In Gablonz I saw that her whole body was full of red pimples, which, however, again soon vanished. We arrived at a school, in which there were already many refugees. One could hardly step into the toilets. We lay on straw in a classroom with some neighbors from the settlement. Maria’s mother was also there. I had the suspicion that she had taken our woolen blanket and Riekchen’s pack, because she was the only one in the baggage car. But she denied [that she had taken them].
Every night we had to go into the cellar because of air raid alarms. This woman did not go along and then also stole Eckehardt’s training jacket on the last day.
On the evening of the eighth day we all had to assemble ourselves in the railway station. Each of us received a piece of bread with a sausage spread to take along. Then we were allowed into the train row by row and all of us received places to sit. We rode the whole night. During the day the train stopped at times and Red Cross nurses brought us tea. On the other side of the station stood a train for soldiers and I saw how many people went to it and came back with bread. So I also went over. An officer was in that compartment and he gave me his last piece of bread and said, “Give it to your children. I won’t be coming back anyway.” Tears came to my eyes and I did not want to take it, but he bade me take the bread, also because you all are so hungry.
We were already traveling for two days and having mothers oats and sugar that I had taken along from home; that is all I could give you. Many infants and old people died in the train and Rieke and Christoph also got fevers. So I disembarked in Komotau and drove with you [children] and Anni to Joachimsthal. The train was so full, that we had a really hard time (mit Mühe) getting ourselves and our baggage on it.
In Joachimsthal the refugee camp was in a castle and we landed there late in the evening and we went into a large hall where our night bedding (Nachtlager) was straw.
The next morning we all went to look up Mrs. Schmidt. As I discovered, she lived at the end of a street, which went up a hill. Half way up the hill we met our Father, who had already been with Mrs. Schmidt twice. When he learned that we all had to flee, he was in complete despair, because he assumed that we may have been killed in Dresden. Our happiness overflowed!
Father lay in the hospital in Bad Carlsbad, so he had himself immediately transferred to Joachimsthal. We now searched for a two room apartment, but no one wanted to accept us with four children. Finally we found a large room that an optician usually rented to vacationers (Urlauber). It was situated opposite the hospital, so every morning Ulrich and Eckehardt went over to it and had a second breakfast. With our ration cards we only received half of our groceries, so we often went to the villages and begged for potatoes and vegetables. For salad there was nettle and dandelions, and also sorrel. I baked cakes with ersatz coffee and marmalade.
Our physician from Goldberg who looked for his mother and daughter, and who had then also found them, came to us several times for coffee. My cake tasted particularly good to him. It was still possible to buy wool, so I knitted diligently. There were air raid alarms every night. At night in the cellar, when I was only allowed to stand in the corner with Anni and yourselves, I did not go down anymore. The landlord hollered profusely, but he and his wife and children sat on recliners and the others had chairs. We were of course refugees, but God had protected us.
Until the end of the war, we now remained there. From the clothing cabinet, Father brought us velvet and soldier cloth, which we had leave to the Czechs. The local people were very afraid of the Czechs, so all the inhabitants of our house had already fled, before we [ended up] leaving. But before they had left, they buried many things in their gardens.
I saw in the city how the Czechs went into every house and took out the members of the party and shoved them into a wagon (Leiterwagen).[47] Those poor men did not come back. From a miller, Father received an old suit and a small cart (Leiterwagen).
Quartered beside us was the horse-meat butcher from Goldberg; he took our baggage and Rieke and Christoph along on his wagon, which was drawn by one horse and in that way we walked till the border. There everything was thoroughly searched and a lot was taken away. Even the horse and wagon had to remain there. So we traveled further with our little cart straight through a forest, which was on fire in many places. We could only walk with cloth over our mouths. When we arrived in Kaaden, we waited for a train, which arrived hours later, but was filled over its capacity. We could only get on board the second train and we arrived in Dresden in the evening.
Father searched through the city, which was all in ruins, for a place to stay. With Anni we waited in the street. Christoph was crying. Then a woman saw us from a window and said, “You can all come to me.” Her husband, a master baker, had not yet come home, and because she was afraid of the Russians, time and again, she took in refugees. So we were able to sleep in her bedroom. We stayed with her for eight days and meanwhile Father and I looked into in what way we could proceed. Father of course wanted to go home; the Czechs had all gone back home. We heard that in another corner of Dresden, trucks arrived, driven by Russians, who were taking refugees back home.
The street was filled with refugees, who had already been sitting there day and night. We now also stood there with our baggage until the evening. Father looked for night accommodations once more. A couple allowed us to sleep on their living room floor. It was their opinion that we should not go on the trucks, because the Russians were really taking the people for work, and no one knew where.
So we went to the railroad station. A Russian sat in front [of the gate] and after much begging, he let us go through. With a freight train filled with refugees, we were also able to board. We cowered in one corner of [the freight car] and lived alone on raw potatoes and carrots, which like the other people, I took from a railroad car. One time a Russian wanted to shoot me; I showed him my four little children, so he lowered his rifle; but I had to go back to our train without any food.
At night when our train stopped, we always heard shouting and screaming. Then three or four Poles came into our car, plundering things; [thus the refugees’ screaming]. They also took one of our suitcases.
On the next morning Father went out with the big ones to take a leak. They saw papers scattered over the field. Father picked one up and read, “Kurt Hoffmann” and with that he discovered that all the papers belonged to him. The Poles had taken his briefcase and dumped out all his references and papers. What luck! He found them and gathered them together again. Thus he had all the papers he needed for getting his pension.
The Poles drove the train and they raced so fast that we at times thought the train would derail. The train stopped short with a jerk so that all the railroad cars banged together. They also drove back and forth (Kreuz und Quer). One day the train stopped in Sagan in order to allow [people] to beg for groceries and I ran into the city. It had completely died. Not one person was to be seen. So I hurriedly ran back to the train. Everyone had to get off the train in Giessmannsdorf.
Because so many Poles also came along with us, I asked a woman, where she was headed. “To Liegnitz,” she answered. Now I knew the Silesia had become Polish, but Father did not believe it.
A farmer woman allowed us to move into a reserved house (Ausgedingehaus). It was out by the street; the windows were broken, smashed in and we barricaded the door with a branch of a tree. Only bed frames with straw were in the second room.
Very few people still lived in that village. It was a long, beautiful village. The sister of the woman farmer also had four children and lived with her. In her house she was afraid, because the men had not yet returned home. There was still a goat, which was hidden in the haystack, so the children received milk soups.
Father on the next day drove home alone. Having a lot of luck, he even made it and met several Wolfsdorfer, also Anni’s mother and sister. The farmers had come back and tilled their fields.
Our house looked dreadful. In the back room a horse had stood and the manure was as high as the window. Father went and got Gerhard Löbel, who helped him shovel the manure out of the house. He left all the other rooms the way they were. After fourteen days Father came back. With Anni and with you-all, I already wanted to go further West.
I helped the woman farmer in the garden making hay, so we received something to eat. On a daily basis a train stopped and Russians and Poles stormed into and plundered the village. We always crawled under our bedsteads. Because the windows were broken and the door didn’t open, they drew past our little house. The woman farmer always crawled into bed and would scream, “Sick!” and that made them leave her in peace.
Father came back really confident and said, “We are all going back home; now we have to live under the Russians.” He had discovered a bricklayer’s cart which he fetched with Anni. We thus moved away on the next day. We still had the travel basket and the two suitcases and a small amount of baggage. Everything was piled onto the cart, and on top of it all, sat Rieke and Christoph. Eckehardt walked alongside it. Anni and I pushed the cart, which was very heavy, while Father and Ulrich pulled it with cords, which they had found in the yard. We still had to walk for three weeks before we made it home: on 1. July, 1945. We had overnighted in broken black smith forges, in empty houses and barns, and also even on open fields. We lived on whatever we could find.[48] We met several people in the villages, but they could give us nothing, they themselves had nothing.
We also passed the house of a forester. The woman was just about to leave to go to a doctor with her two daughters, who were 12 and 14 years old. Both of them had been raped by the Russians. I also had to deal with a lot of fear because of Anni. In every stream I had washed pants and panties. For Eckehardt everything ran down his legs. I was also completely distraught. All our shoes were broken.
Shortly before arriving in Goldberg, a Russian came with an empty wagon. (Leiterwagon). When he saw Eckehardt, he told us all to get it. “He also had a little blond boy like that at home.” Eckehardt had to sit next to him. Anni sat herself with them too and so we rode until shortly before Goldberg.
The last stretch felt particularly difficult for us, because it was all uphill. At the railroad station we saw upholstered furniture, even ours, and sewing machines, piled tower high, which were all supposed to go to Russia.
Finally on the first of July, we arrived in Wolfsdorf. Boys came [running] toward us and screamed, “The Poles have come and are pundering!” I looked at Father and said, “Now I was right, of course, and we had to schlepp ourselves over here this long way!” Anni’s mother also came toward us and I was happy that I could give Anni back to her healthy. Sadly, when we were thrown out [of Wolfsdorf] by the Poles, for several weeks at the border, she was detained by the Russians and violated. Her mother told me that later in Hanover, when I looked her up in a meeting of people from Silesia.
We now moved farther into the settlement, were we had last lived. The children’s room was empty and stank like horse manure. Only the breakfront was still standing in the little living room and all the glass, porcelain and silverware was still in it – also even the sugar can with all the pieces of sugar. I turned around, looked back, and in a moment it was empty. [The children ate it.]
We could not go into the bedroom; it was full of feathers. The beds had been cut open. We couldn’t use the bath and nor the toilet. The latter overflowed with dirt and in the bathtub lay all manner of clothes, glasses, and dishes. And on top of that all the preserves[49] and juices from the cellar.
The kitchen was covered with dirt and grease. Huge frying pans that did not belong to me were on the floor. Only in the living room there was still a table and some little chairs. We lived in there for eight days. Father’s picture hanging on the wall was all torn up. Day in and out he went foraging (hamstern) among the farmers who had returned. I cooked turnip juice which we ate with potatoes. From the bunkers that were upholstered with carpets, he found leftover pieces of bread that I used to cook soup.
Only a few Russians were still in the village; one also came to me. I had Rieke and Christoph in my arms and Eckehardt and Ulrich at my side. When Christoph cried and screamed,[50] when he wanted to pull him away from me, he drove away again. But not without steeling a vest that hung over a chair.
After eight days the Poles drove everyone out who could not work. Father still had his shot-up arm in sling. We again loaded everything on our cart. The old neighbor, who had also come back again, came with us. From Goldberg and the surrounding villages, everyone was herded together, likewise many farmers’ wives, who had horses and wagons. Even Mrs. Hiller with her old Grandpa was among them. Along the way, her wagon broke down and she had to be left behind in a village. Much later I heard that she had received a beautiful dwelling place in the Harz and she was doing well. Now Mrs. Hartmann from Langstadt, the stepmother of Mr. Colmar, told me that Mrs. Hiller had died.
Our train of refugees was very long. We were over 2,000 people. Six Polish guys on motorcycles raced back and forth driving us forward. I often got a lash of their whip on my back, because we drove so slowly. But we were mostly on paths through fields. One time a day and one time a night we stopped in broken villages. There we searched through fields (Mieten) for potatoes and carrots. The farmers could still cook their chicken, which they had brought along, but we had to be happy only with the smell as we ate potatoes with syrup.
One time Ulrich came smiling broadly because of what he had found. But it was full of maggots, so we preferred our hunger. How many days we wandered, I don’t even know. In Landau people came to us, who had already arrived at home, and said to us that we should not go any further. Before Görlitz we were driven onto a field, plundered of everything and chased back into the field. That was the way it actually was. Later I heard from the Köbels, who were among those forced to return, that diphtheria and typhoid broke out in Wolfsdorf [on their return] and many died of it.
When the Polish guys (Burschen) once again rode at the head of the train, we pushed our cart behind a shed and hid ourselves. Two villages beyond us lay Geibsdorf. That is where Father had his first teaching position. We drove there and Mrs. Benesch, who had been his landlady, took us into her outlying cottage.[51] Upstairs we received a small room and a kitchen. Unlucky for us, the Headquarters of the Polish commandant moved into the large house. We still had a small suitcase with Father’s uniform, jewelry, and silverware and the medals of my father. Father hid it in the hay, which lay in one of the rooms. He took care of getting bread and cottage cheese, because he, of course, knew most of the farmers. Below us was the cow stall, so we could get some milk. Twice a week a cow was butchered. Ulrich and Eckehardt always watched and secretly the Pole always gave them some meat.
Two times more Father went back to Wolfsdorf. He could not grasp the fact that we had lost our homeland. Meanwhile the Poles plundered us again and found the suitcase. Father, shut in a cellar for fourteen days, was interrogated and beaten. I also got whipped, too. They thought we were Folk-Germans,[52] for whom they had an intense hatred. They took away our suitcase. We had to also give them our wedding rings. One of the Poles still rummaged through our travel basket, which mostly contained children’s clothes, and it still had one of my dresses. I said, “You can take it.” But because it was an old dress, he only looked at me angrily and left.
With you children I often went to the house in which Father was imprisoned and begged the Poles to set him free. They always drove me out of the yard with a whip. Then a Polish officer came into the village. I went to him and begged him to free Father. He made it happen, but every afternoon Father had to present himself.
One night Christoph called me. He had to go to the potty. When I woke up, I smelled smoke. I opened the door and the whole wall of the kitchen was on fire. The kitchen oven, which was for the refugees cemented into the wall, made of particle board[53] which had become rotten, had caught on fire. Father immediately ran to the woman farmer and the old overseer (Vogt) who brought water to quench the fire. We also called one Pole, who was supposed to come and watch, so that they wouldn’t think that we had started the fire. If Christoph had not awakened me we would have all suffocated in smoke. It was God’s will, however, that we should live longer.
Now I no longer wanted to remain in Geibsdorf, but head for Görlitz, over the border. Father always hesitated, but then went and got the permit to move further [West]. So now we packed our cart once more; our neighbor accompanied us a piece of the way. He wanted to remain there, hoping to find his wife and daughter. It was late in the evening when we got to the border, but we weren’t allowed to cross the bridge over the Oder/Niese [rivers]. Hundreds of people stood there waiting. So we also stood there one night and one day till the barriers went up again and we could cross the bridge. A woman asked me if I had always pushed that big cart and I only nodded, because I was too tired to talk. She just shook her head, because she had a very small cart.
On the other side we were received by the mayor, who led us into a hall, where we could, without fear, finally go to sleep on straw. Each one of us received a piece of bread; he could not give us more. On the next morning we had to board a freight train and go further. The crush of the crowd was terrible. We sat in a corner with our baggage and rode one day and one night to Rostock. There no one wanted to take us in, so with countless other refugees we stood on the railroad station platform again and waited for a train. Finally one came heading for Berlin and again it was filled way overcapacity. In spite of it we got on. You children were handed to us through the windows.
Again late in the evening we arrived at a station, which was in the proximity of Bojen Street. I said to Father, “Take the big ones and go to your parents and then come and get me with the little ones.” We sat on the travel basket and froze, because the railway station was destroyed by bombs. Not long after, the three came back and reported that “All that was left of the house was dust and ashes.” So we spent the night in the railroad station. In the morning we took the street car to Tante Dorchen to Weidmannslust. Now to get there we had to carry everything. In Rostock Father had given the cart away as a present. We could have never taken it along with us on the train.
Having reached Tante Dorchen’s house, a Frenchman came out and greeted us with, “Those dwellérs are opposite us.”[54] There the grandparents and Tante Dorchen and uncle Carl each had one room. We slept on the floor of the Grandparents. Because we did not receive ration cards, the Grandparents shared their white bread with us, which is all that was there.
Father attempted to land a teaching position, but it was hopeless. Berliners came first and many were not yet back home. When I once saw how Grandpa secretly opened a cabinet and took a bite of bread, I knew that we had to leave. The next day I rode [the train] until Mury before Magdeburg, I then had to walk a stretch, because the railroad station was broken, and then rode further to Haldensleben. Uncle Ludwig was the only one home. Grandma and Wally had driven with the Kreys to the West, when they heard that the Russians were coming. Because I had an I.D. card of the Sudetenland, we received the permit to live in Haldensleben.
I immediately rode back to Berlin and we immediately took leave that night. Uncle Carl still helped us take our baggage to the train station and everyone took a deep breath. On the next afternoon we arrived in Haldensleben and met Grandma, Heinz and Peter there. They came back from the West because Uncle Ludwig had asked them to come back. On the way back Tante Wally had broken her arm and lay in a hospital in Helmstadt. She actually wanted to remain in the West, but Uncle Ludwig wrote that the Russians weren’t doing anything, so Grandma wanted to return to her son.
Now Father again searched for a place to live and found a room and kitchen on Süplinger Street. It was shortly before Christmas. The woman neighbor lent us her bedroom till we received our room that went to the kitchen. The old woman lay in the hospital and died. Theuer Kauf![55] was her name. All six years that we lived there I went into the forest for berries, picked ears of corn and gleaned potatoes and carrots and sugar beets. We worked making syrup at night. I also hauled wood from the forest. There Russians in a car would have mugged and robbed me, if a German driver of his car had not stopped and waited on the street until the Russians moved on with their car. We woman were constantly afraid of them.
When I wanted to unload the wood in our yard, the Landlord Wenzel forbade it and wanted me to lay the wood down in the street. When I refused, he wanted to strike and kill me with an axe. Mr. Ksoll[56] tore open the window and screamed at him and so he lowered his axe.
In Wolfsdorf Father had the second teacher position. After two years the head teacher was transferred to Goldberg and Father made the effort to get the first position, which he did not get because he was not in the party. The school councilor came to us himself and regretted it. Mr. Zobel as a [party] contingent leader received the position. When in 1944 Father came back on leave, Mr. Zobel invited him to a meeting. I told Father that he should not go there, because Zobel said, “The party has opened once more and I recommend that Mr. Hoffmann should be admitted.” Father did not believe me and came back home as a party member. Because of that he was not allowed to serve in the schools of Haldensleben for six years.
I sold the ration cards for our clothes so that we had money to live on. Uncle Ludwig also gave me some money till Father got a position in an office.
As an after-thought I noticed that on our flight we met many columns of German soldiers, whom the Russians were taking into captivity [as prisoners of war]. When a soldier could not go any further, he received a blow to the head with the butt of a rifle and was thrown into the ditch beside the road. That is the gruesome way things went.
Süplingen
We celebrated Sylvester together with the Rahms, who were with us and who also came from Silesia. Ditta was a woman tailor. One time she embroidered a blue skirt for me that I had knitted for Riekchen. I embroidered the vest myself and Riekchen liked both very much. Hanne-Lore Büsse also often visited us. she didn’t have any siblings.
In the Spring of 1956 we traveled to Hamburg. Because I had not yet been to the West, I received the permit. Along the way in the train I had a conversation with a young girl. She told me that she wanted to stay in the West, so I told her that we also want to go over [to West Germany] and I told her about our family. The elder gentleman who sat opposite us, said, “I have heard some of what you said,” and, he himself was also a teacher, and continued, “If you want to come over, you should come right away, because teachers were now being sought. And look, because your children are also already old, in the school they would get into classes with one the grade level lower.” Before he disembarked from the train, he gave me his hand and [taking back my hand] I had a 5 DM coin in it.
The Frostes received me in a very friendly manner. Friedrich went to the harbor with me, because Eckehardt liked the idea of becoming a sailor, so we made an inquiry for information. They preferred, however, to take the boys of seafarers. While we were in the West Father also enquired in Hamburg about [becoming a sailor]. He was advised against it and how good [for us]. In 1957 the school-ship, the Paenir sank with 86 seafarers and only six sailors saved themselves on a [life] boat and it took a long time before even they could be found.
When I came back home from the West, Christoph had picked me up from the railroad station and I said, “We’re going to cross over.” In the train we were checked by [the authorities]. I only had herring, which I was allowed to keep. A woman had a large carton tightly fastened with string. She had to untie all the string [and open it]. She had clothing in it. The inspector felt and rummaged through the clothes. She was then allowed to tie the string back around the carton.
[Concerning the socialist consecration], Father and Ulrich first refused [to take part], even though Father had been looked at askance, because he had refused [to allowed Ulrich] to undergo the [socialist] consecration of youth.[57]
I started to send off small packages: one with the return address of T. Wally, one with the address of a neighbor in Haldensleben and one with my own return address. All three packages came back. Tante Wally and the neighbor came to us shocked and upset. On the package was written, only one item or only four meters of cloth were permitted to be sent. So I sent large packages to Tante Else to Fürstenwalde. She wrote to me that I should not send anything anymore, the neighbors were already looking at her. The mail carrier asked me if I was doing business? Thus I could not send anything anymore from Süplingen.
A farmer, also a refugee from Bodendorf, one who always brought me potatoes, told me that a teacher from Haldensleben also went to the West and his wife had sent packages all by mail from Bodendorf. And so I did the same and sent several packages to Ulla, T. Käte, T. Anne, T. Dorchen, and Grandpa. When Father was in Berlin, he had corresponded with Uncle Günther and received a positive answer.
T. Wally came to help us to till (hobeln) cabbage; she, of course, would receive it all, because she was supposed to close everything down [after we left]. The geese were already gone by Christmas. Till the end we kept two ducks, which the Trauts came and took and T. Wally got the chickens.
One day there was a big thunderstorm. Father with the boys was listening to the radio in one room. I had still gotten an old one in Haldensleben. Riekchen and I were in the kitchen preparing Abendbrot. All of a sudden there was a mighty thunder bolt. We bent over and Father and the boys came running out of their room. Right afterwards it poured rain. We ran up to the attic and there we saw a big black hole. The large chimney had been torn off and had fallen on Busse’s roof and broken it. We ran into the children’s room and saved the featherbeds and placed buckets all around. Until we showed ourselves at the window all the people thought we were dead.
After the rain, Father still went to the police. They looked at the damage and expressed the opinion, “That has to be repaired right away.” I was afraid that they might open a cabinet. They were all empty. [What did not give us away] was only [what they saw] on the steps to the attic: we still had all our garden shoes there. On the next day came Pastor Lachmund, who knew that we were leaving [for the West] and said, “Mrs. Hoffmann, that was a sign by the finger of God that you should go.” Otherwise none of the Süplingers noticed [we were about to leave].
From Uncle Rudolf I received many black pants and jackets, which I all gave to the Busses for work. When the [authorities] took away Mr. Busse’s land, he just made off. Hanne-Lore just still nabbed him at the railway station and brought him back.[58]
On “vacation,” as the first, Father, with one suitcase, travelled to a friend, who lived in Berlin. Then Riekchen went to Uncle Rudolf. On their bikes, then Eckehardt and Christoph drove to Neumanns to say goodbye, but then continued to Fürstenwalde. Each person had to take along a suitcase and his bed. Finally, Ulrich and I left; he, with his plaster bed (Gipsbett) [a cast] and I, with a suitcase. Beforehand I still went to the bank and took out all our money and I still sold a braid of Riekchen’s [hair] for 6 Mark.
In Süplingen Ulrich had already put everything into the wagon (Leiterwagen); only my handbag still lay on the steps. Because of the wind, the door slammed shut and the hook locked in. Then we could not reopen the door. So Ulrich stepped into the glass, [broke it] and opened the hook, so we could open the door. Without my handbag, I would not have been able to leave.
Then with the wagon (Leiterwagen) we went to the railroad station. Peter was supposed to retrieve it and was also supposed to feed the chickens. When [going to the house], he saw the broken glass, he ran home and said, “Thieves had gotten into the house!” But on the same day, the police had made everything secure. [When the police heard about it and that the house was empty, because we had fled,] T. Wally went to them in Haldensleben and said, “It was her fault. Ulrich would not have gotten healthy here! So they still let her shut down the house.
Early on the previous Sunday, I had gone to T. Wally and I was speechless. Eckehardt was sitting in her kitchen. He said, “I came to get the featherbed. T. Else said that you are no longer allowed to send it. This afternoon I will go and play soccer and then no one will suspect that we are going over [to the West].” After soccer, he rode his bike back to Fürstenwalde.
From Süplingen, Ulrich and I drove to Haldensleben and there we gave up our suitcase and plaster cast bed; and then we went further to East Berlin. I told Wally not to come to the station to say goodbye, but our old neighbor was there and cried. Good thing that no acquaintance of mine was nearby. When we arrived in Berlin, the suitcase and plaster cast bed were not there. Thus Eckehardt and Riekchen had to take the next train back. They were supposed to be in Berlin on that day; Father was, of course, still with his friend.
Grandpa hollered at me. He maintained that I had taken Father away from his work and now I had made everyone homeless. I answered him: Tomorrow we’re driving to the place for our registration and we will only stay tonight and sleep on your floor. The floor was full of the things that Eckehardt and Christoph had taken in suitcases and brought out of T. Else’s boxes. Christoph said, “Once he had had 19 pairs of long underwear in his suitcase. A good thing that he was not caught.” I was still afraid for Eckehardt and Riekchen and prayed to God that they would not get caught with the suitcase and plaster cast bed. Eckehardt said, “A police control was in the streetcar, but before they got to him, the bell in the streetcar rang and they had to get out.”
When we were now finally all together once again, I thanked God that through these [difficult] weeks, he had protected us.
When they started building the wall, Grandpa was happy that we were in the West.
In the receiving and recording camp, where we stayed for eight days, we learned that Württemberg was still accepting refugees. Then we were taken into an empty factory, where there were parents with children. Riekchen and I slept in a large hall with women in the upper bunks. Father and the boys were in another hall with the men. Because of the many small children it was really unhygienic. After a while we were allowed to take a plane flying to Hambrurg. It was already dark when we arrived. Tante Käte and Uncle Friedrich greeted us at the train station and we were able to have a long conversation. This flight was worse that the two from Silesia because if one of us been caught, we would have all had to return and be put in prison. That night we continued by train to Aurich.
It was the 7th of September, Christoph’s birthday; he was 14 years old. In Aurich we were placed in barracks. We had a room with six beds: one bed over the other in three bunkbeds and still in it, also one table and two chairs. Meals were served in the hall of another house. The walls of our room were made of cardboard, so each night we could hear our neighbor snoring. A couple from Hungary slept there.
Then friends came right away to help us. Riekchen was taken by the Franzes, so she could right away attend school in Umstadt and Milles had taken Christoph. Father looked for a position. We looked at a village school that stood empty, but I felt no pleasure staying in that area, because of a nasty wind. So I was happy when Uncle Günther wrote for us to come; he had two positions open in Hessen. So he drove there with Eckehardt, who was attending a vocational school in Aurich.
Ulrich mostly lay in bed and I had found work covering night lamp shades with cloth. Each day I could sew faster for 60 cents an hour. The neighbor’s wife could not keep up, so she went to a field to help hoe potatoes and sank to her ankles in manure. 1956 was a year of rain and because of the rain, part of the harvest remained in the fields.
T. Dorchen sent me all the things she had saved for us in her attic. She did not have to pay any shipping fee. I sewed a jacket for Father, because I could now buy wool and he has worn it till now. Father, Eckehardt, and Riekchen looked at schools and decided for those of Schlierbach. The houses and the surroundings there were better than in Kleestadt.
Schlierbach
In the beginning of November, Ulrich and I arrived at the station in Langstadt. The merchant Kling picked us up with his car. It was a beautiful school house with a large garden, a grape vine, a large schoolyard, which on the street side had chestnut trees and a stall. A few steps led up to the school house and along the schoolyard there was a small ditch. A beautifully decorated iron door was at the entrance and an iron gate led to a hilly children’s entrance. On the first floor there was the living quarters with four rooms and a large kitchen with a food pantry. The bathroom was half a flight of stairs lower and there was also room for a bath in the house, just that the previous teacher had taken the bathtub with him. So we had to wash ourselves in the kitchen. Later for ourselves we also purchased a bathtub, which we left behind, when after nine years we moved to Langstadt.
For the boys the Klings lent us two beds with wire frames. From Mrs. Nagel Riekchen received a short sofa, upon which she sadly could not sleep very well. Her room had three doors, so we put hooks into two of the door frames, put a rod in them to hang up her clothes and in front of them we hung curtains that I received from Irene.
Uncle Günther had a friend, who had a dark bedroom and an oak dining room [set] that he sold us for 700 DM, which we paid off monthly. In the same way, the labor union association loaned us 500 DM, Klinks 100 DM,[59] then Pastor Flöhring, Miss Nagel, and Mrs. Pfannbruch, 50 DM each. For a quarter of a year Father received no salary, so on loan I had all our coal and all our groceries at the Klinks. It took me a few years before I could repay all the money that we borrowed. I recorded everything in my cash account book. Because Father was instructing the higher grades, the mayor waived our rent for a few months.
Eckehardt had sought out work with a locksmith in Langstadt and received 70 cents an hour. He also applied for a job with the trains and post office, for which he took exams. Both wanted him and the post office official came one day earlier [than the other] and brought the news that he could become an apprentice there. He thought, if I attend school longer, we will all have nothing to eat (fressen) and no clothes to get dressed in.
With his plaster cast bed, Ulrich drove to the clinic in Heidelberg. The doctors said, “You can put the cast aside, do gymnastics, and you have to do some swimming daily.” Thus, because Umstadt had a swimming pool, he had go to school in Darmstadt. There he lived in a needy way and on Saturday he was already at our stairs and cried: “Hunger!” Rieke came home from the Franzes and Christoph from the Milles at Christmas.
Christoph was confirmed on Easter and when we came out of the church doors, Irene was standing outside. An acquaintance had driven her there with a car. They had come late and because of that, they had sat in the back [of the church]. We were very happy to see her again. She sent us 50 DM every month, so that way I could also buy an iron (Bügeleisen). When Ulrich studied, he received 50 DM a month, and I believe, Rieke did too. At the beginning Eckehardt trained in Schuhausen, where he had to find a room. When he was transferred to Dieburg, he saved his travel fare by getting up each morning at 5:00 by taking his bike. I always made breakfast for him, he did not want it, however. Rieke and Christoph went to school in Great Umstadt. Ulrich made his diploma (Abitur) first and studied Pedagogy, but only for two years, then he pivoted to medicine. After her diploma, Rieke also wanted to become a teacher, but failed in a boys’ class in Berlin and became a speech therapist.
Christoph, who helped with the turnips and beets, outside in the garden, was suddenly very tired, whenever he came home from school. At night he constantly got up and drank water. I sent him to Schaafheim to a doctor, who could find nothing; I also sent him to a former sheepherder (Schäfer), who made eye-sight diagnoses. One day I was speaking with Mrs. Klinke and told her that Christoph drank so much water at night. Her opinion: “Could he have diabetes?” So I again sent Christoph to the doctor, who gave him a blood test, and he discovered sugar in his blood. Now he had never had a young person with diabetes so he referred him to a professor in Dieburg, who prescribed tablets for him.
Christoph still received his diploma and then I sent him to a home for diabetics, so that he could learn how to deal with his sickness. There he had to give himself two injections a day. In that home he was astonished by how many little children had diabetes. Because diabetics needed to spend a lot of time in fresh air, he became a gardener and trained for three years in Michelstadt. Later I discovered that he could have also trained in Schaafheim, where it would have gone better for him.
Eckehardt continued studying in evening courses, receiving his diploma in the study of Law. Through Ursel Franz he had gotten to know Brigitte, who really saved his life. Eckehardt was playing soccer on Saturday and received a blow to his kidneys, which took a bad turn. Brigitte, who was studying in Frankfurt, went to visit him on Sunday morning and found him half-conscious in bed. Fearing for him, she ran to the pharmacy and they advised to get him right to the hospital and there they were just able to save him.
On that same day Christoph had a car accident. That night he had been with Alexander Gerlach, who was also a gardening apprentice, and early on the next morning, they had to be in the nursery. Through Kleestadt a steep grade went downhill and right at the bottom: a corner. Alexander hit the brakes too late, hit a fence and strafed a column. They got away with their lives, but although the car was damaged, slowly, they were still able to make it to Michelstadt. That day was actually Good Friday, and the way I remember it, we almost lost both of those sons. God had protected them once again.
Even while he was still in school, Christoph earned his allowance money during the vacation. Each day he went to Höreth, the farmer, and when he came home in the evening smelling of the cow stall, I immediately cried, “Change your clothes before you come for Abendbrot!” Later he went earlier already at 4:00am to the dairy and lugged (schlepte) the heavy milk cans, which was definitely not good for his pancreas.
I also became active in Schlierbach. I joined the singing club and soon was elected into the leadership. For a school festival I taught the children part of a theatrical play. Uncle Günther lent me only a few and with him I introduced brief dances. For Christmas we presented a manger play in the church and Rieke accompanied the songs with her flute.
Pastor Flöhring lived in Kleestadt and he was already getting old, so riding his bicycle, it was difficult for him in the evenings to make it to the women’s group. It did not take long for him to ask me if I would take it over. I first broke the ice with the women, in that I began a conversation with them. I read a Bible verse to them and its explanation from a book, The Continuation (die Fortsetzung). I also told the women about how scarce the groceries were in the G.D.R. So they brought me sugar, flour, margarine, cocoa, rice, oil, sausage and whatnot more, that then we sent over in packages. Every month we sent provisions over and to whom we sent all the packages I no longer even know.
Little Marianne from the butcher [shop] then also asked me for an address. I gave her Uncle Erich’s and said to her, “He loves to smoke a cigar.” He was always overjoyed when he received a small package. He did not get the last one I sent. He had died and the helper in the house wrote informing me and at the same time, asked if she could keep [the package].
When Mrs. Flöhring heard that we were sending packages, she also wanted an address, so I gave her that of the woman tailor. Her son had attended the same class as Rieke and her husband, a soldier, had been killed in Poland. When I visited T. Wally, I also went to see her. She told me that she had often received a small package from a wife of a pastor and she was always overjoyed to receive them. From whom she had gotten her address, she didn’t want to write [and tell her]. I laughed and told her, “They all first learned from me how few the groceries were that you received. Now cake is even available.”
Christoph brought home a little mongrel that a teacher gave him. We named him Bimbo. Before noon he was with me or in the schoolyard. The children played with him at recess and in the afternoon Father took him for his walk. In the winter Father brought him along to class and there he lay down behind the furnace and slept. One day the School Councilor arrived and Father thought Bimbo would bark at him. But thank God, he did not allow himself to be disturbed from his sleep. He often also lay on the windowsill of our ground floor and he would bark at the mail carriers and would not let them come in. I had to always go down and receive the mail from them.
When Ulrich came home at noon on Saturday, Bimbo would open the corridor door himself, ran down the stairs barking, already greeting him downstairs. When Fritz Mille came over for a visit, Father, Fritz and Christoph did a day trip. They did not take the dog along, so I had to confine him [indoors] for a long time. After a while I let him out and he was gone. I called him, but he didn’t come back. Tired and sad he did after a few hours.
Christoph asked if we would take in Englishman, [named] Richard, who was learning German in England and was supposed to go to school here for a few weeks. Christoph picked him up from the railway station with his bicycle. He arrived in a black suit, a long overcoat and black hat. He also rode a bike that way to school and it was the middle of the summer. He returned on the bicycle all full of sweat, took off his clothes and put on Christoph’s short pants and sports shirt. Then he rode that way to school. In the evening he was not satisfied with bread, so at midday, I cooked double as much and warmed up some of the midday meal for him. He adjusted to us very well and we all really like him.
That next year T. Christa came out of a [refugee] camp with her three children, Bettina, 6 years old, Christian, 4, and Andreas, 3. She said that Bettina should already have gone to school, but in the camp they didn’t have school and could Father take her for a time and help her make up everything. Even though Helmuth[60] had work, he still took part in a course for teachers. “We will come back and pick up the [children] again.” We naturally kept them. [It was] of course for all the children like that [with their parents] away.
After a quarter of a year Helmuth received a position as a teacher and a dwelling place and he came and got Bettina. On that day in our singing club we had a Christmas celebration and I also let Bettina recite a poem and she could also take a present out of Saint Nick’s sack.[61]
Continuation of Schlierbach
Over us upstairs there lived an elderly couple, who also came from Silesia. Mr. Pricks was on a pension and she still went into the forest to work. We got along with them very well. After a few years Mr. Pricks developed intestinal cancer and died. Afterward her son had gotten Mrs. Pricks and took her to Offenbach, where I later once visited her.
For Christmas before the vacation, the higher classes celebrated festivals, so the warrior club asked me to accompany their songs on the piano, which I really liked doing. Since I had left Grünberg, I seldom had a chance to play.
Those who were on a pension were allowed to move out of the G.D.R., so the Neumanns came to Munich as well as the von Wedelstedts. Mr. Neumann still earned some money as a street crossing guard and Mr. von Wedelstedt, as a night watchman. Both of them had huge farmsteads (Bauernhöfe) in Wolfsdorf. The Steinchens also came out of Erfurt and moved to Frankfurt on the Main. Tante Dolly visited us and soon the whole family came for a Sunday afternoon coffee. When I drove to Frankfurt to visit Eckehardt to bring him fresh laundary, I always took along vegetables and fruit from our garden for the Steinchens. Ulrich, Rieke, and Christoph always received their laundary by mail. One time they got mixed up. Ulrich got Rieke’s laundary and Rieke, Ulrich’s.
In my opinion, the mailman said,[62] “Since you have come here, it has been the first time I have had to send off packages.” We always continued to send packages addressed to T. Wally and Bärbel over there. I did not lead the women’s evening [circle] anymore. To our church had come a young clergy couple.
Ursula and Harald were the first to visit us for a few days in Schlierbach and soon thereafter, their parents, T. Käthe and Uncle Friedrich [Frost]. The Franzes invited us to every birthday and confirmation and they came to us for our birthdays as well. We were also often together with Brigitte’s parents. They liked to go along on school outings.
One time we visited a fortress. Descending from it, on the way through the forest, was a steep downhill grade. The children hopped around me on the way down. I said, “Watch out that you don’t fall!” And who slid and fell? Me. And I broke my ankle. Father ran into the village and brought a doctor along, who carried me to his car and drove me out of the forest and to the hospital. Although my leg was swollen, they put it in a plaster cast and I was driven back home in an ambulance.
So there I lay and I could not go along to the Tirol, where already earlier in the year, we had spent 14 days with the teachers and their wives. It was the place where their men had fallen in the war. Father, too, was supposed to have his vacation there, so Rieke, who was on her semester recess, went along.
On Saturday Eckehardt came from Frankfurt and tidied up the house and Mrs. Pricks brought me the midday meal and Brigitte put everything else in order for me. Her mother also visited me once. After 14 days, Christoph drove me to the hospital. Sadly I had to keep [my ankle] in the plaster cast another eight days. Then I received another walking cast, but I had to stay in the hospital another two days. When I stood up from my bed and wanted to go to the table, I got very dizzy and I was able to quickly sit in a chair. Then I always exercised so that I could go home, because T. Trudel and Uncle Rudolf had come from America. They were visiting all their relatives in Germany. They stayed with us a few days. Ruth and Priscilla had also visited us earlier for a few days.
We celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary in a little city on the Werra. Father was there for recovery and I visited him for a few days. Christoph surprised us with a bouquet of flowers. He had gotten there by hitchhiking. Ulrich, Eckehardt, and Reike wrote letters to us and sent plates of food.
In Little Umstadt they built a central school (Mittelpunktschule). All the children from the little villages had to attend it, so the school in Schlierbach was also one of those disbanded. The classrooms were now used by the community for get-togethers. Often it was very loud until late into the night, so we searched for a house in Langstadt and found one in a teachers’ house that was awfully cold.
Father found his garden there under the shade of Morello cherry [trees], but I regretted having lost the beautiful view that I had had in Schlierbach from the boys’ room. There was a glorious meadow and at the right a forest behind the street. Evenings at 7:00 deer always entered the meadow, which I often watched. I also missed the big cherry tree, although the cherries often had worms. But if you left them in cold water overnight, all the worms came out of them, which was our advice to the people.
I remember my 50th birthday. I had to preserve 30 one and a half liter glasses, which had all opened. I tried preserving them in the oven, but it only closed over one liter glasses which are lower. Father had also planted fruit trees, they began to bear fruit right in the year we had to leave. But the renter of the park sent us a basket of apples and pears.
It was an appalling day that we moved to Langstadt. There we had a coal furnace, but in Schlierbach we had already purchased an oil furnace. For the little room, we still bought a little oil furnace, too.
Eckehardt and Brigitte had married. They were wedded in Semd and we celebrated in Dieburg. After nine months Ingke was born. Because Brigitte was still attending a class in Frankfurt, her mother, for a few weeks, took care of Ingke for her. So each week I drove to Semd so that Ingke would also get to know me. Eckehardt and Brigitte soon found a house in Semd. When Brigitte had to write a work for her two teaching exams, she brought Ingke to me, so that she would not be distracted from [her writing] by her.
Ingke was two years old and Eckehardt came by each night to say good night to her, at which time we were always very happy. Throughout the days she played with Haike Colmar, who lived below us. One evening I noticed when Eckehardt had left, that Ingke was pushing back tears, so I said to her, “Now cry, why don’t you!” Right away her tears flowed and soon everything was all right. I always sang evening songs to here, gave her a little kiss, and she went to sleep peacefully.
Ulrich had also married in Munich at the city register. We celebrated in the studio of Bärbels brother Otto. We were with her parents, an aunt and the youngest brother at noon for coffee. In the evening Eckehardt and Brigitte, as well as Christoph came and a jovial time ensued (da ging es lustig zu). When Johannes was born after one year they came and visited us in Langstadt. He was learning to walk so we really had to watch him. Most of all he loved to play hide and seek with Grandpa behind my curtains, naturally, they broke. Grandpa also drove to him each day in the afternoon to take a walk. Those were happy weeks when we were together.
Eckehardt visited us every Saturday morning with Ingke. On afternoons Father would also have loved to have gone on an auto ride and because he also discontinuing at school, only working half days, I began to think about moving from there. The house was uncomfortable in any case; Colmars had built [a house] and moved away with Mrs. Hartmann, and Bimbo was also dead. Father had buried him in the garden. So Christoph helped us look for a house.
In Langstadt I did not join the singing club, although the mayor asked me to twice. The club would often sing in contests (Wirtungssingen) and that on Sunday mornings. We would come home late in the afternoon by bus and when there, the young people got drunk. I experienced that in Schlierbach a few times. I also did not want to leave Father alone. But I also took over the women’s evening [group], when Pastor Wick was ill. Why his wife did not do that, I do not know. In any case, she asked me to do it. It was in Langstadt that I decorated the Christmas tree for the last time. I hung all the decorations that I had on it. Then I gave it to Ingke as a gift. The children were also all there once again, so we again had a happy celebration.
With Christoph we then drove around through the region. I would have liked going to Bad König. For Father the dwellings there were 300 DM too expensive. Thus we drove further and landed by Rahms in Härtlingen. They were very happy when we arrived. They had had a small house built for them there. Siegfried and Ditta had married. Mrs. Rahm suggested moving to Westerburg right away, where there were always houses available.
We took a look at the beautiful city of Westerburg and drove back home. Mrs. Rahms wrote to us that houses were available there in Westerburg again, so we took the train and met the Rahms there. At the perimeter of the city new houses had been built. But I did not like them. A dwelling at the gravel factory Menk had become available. Mrs. Ludwig, who was a sister of Mr. Menk, had moved with her husband to a house next door that belonged to here husband. Between the houses was a huge garden.
I like the house. The living room and dining room were separated by a double door, which was, however, missing. A little room, a bedroom, bath, and toilet, kitchen and pantry [were there]. In the attic, there was still another room. [And it included] a large garden a big cherry tree and a huge lawn, as well as a yard in front of the house. Father again hesitated on account of the 300 DM. We were supposed to inform them of our decision in two hours, because Mr. Ludwig had a renter. We drove back to the Rahms and there Mr. Rahm said, “Listen up, Kurt. Let Hanna decide this time, because you do not have to clean the house and then look how you have the beautiful garden.” With that Father agreed. We called Mr. Ludwig and we got the dwelling.
Now it was time to start packing again. We gave the bedroom furniture to a Turkish family as a present and we bought ourselves a white set in Aschaffenburg. The community got the large oil furnace, about which the woman secretary was overjoyed, because she always froze in the office and I gave the small oil furnace[63] to the church sexton, Gross, and the combined washing machine, because he had numerous children. I bought ourselves a Zanker [washing machine] that, sad to say, was broken in two years. Monday work! So the company gave me a new one for half price. Because all the machines had broken, the company took a big loss. On Mondays the workers always came to work tired, because on Saturdays and Sundays they built their own houses at home, and because of that many companies took losses.
We felt good in Westerburg right away. I still had a chance to plant the garden in front of the house and Father mowed the lawn behind the house and cultivated a part of it for vegetables, so I had a lot to preserve, and cherries as well.
In Munich Elizabeth came into the world, so I drove there to be of help. Johannes had whooping cough so he could only touch Elizabeth with a tied up mouth. So he became angry when I took Elizabeth up in my arms. When I wanted to go home, I said, “Let me take Johannes along.” Ulrich said, “He won’t go with you. He is angry with you.” At breakfast Ulrich asked him, “Do you want to go along with Grandma?” He immediately said, “Yes.”
So two suitcases were packed right away: one with clothes and one with toys. On the next day we traveled until Frankfurt, where father met us and we ate the midday meal together. Then we traveled further to Lienburg. There the conductor cried, “Everyone out! The train will continue empty.”
Johannes got out first, ran out ahead and cried, “Conductor, don’t drive further. The suitcase of Johannes is still inside.” All the people laughed and even the conductor.
When we arrived in Westerburg, Father showed him a kiddy car[64] (cate car) which he had purchased. He bent down and looked it over and said, “Now I want to go back to Munich.” Father and I looked at each other.
Then I said, “First let me take off you little coat and eat Abendbrot.” He let that take place and after that I went into the little room with him, laid him in the little bed and let the door wide open. Before the good night kiss, I still sang him a little night song and still showed him where we slept. Early in the mornings Father always had to go to the toilet, which was next to the little room. Whenever he came out, Johannes would be standing in his little bed and [Father] would bring him to me, and then he continued sleeping right away.
After breakfast I brought him to the neighbor’s garden, to the little girl, who had a sandbox and there he played with her. Soon he went alone and he was allowed to go through Mr. Ludwig’s garden, because the street was too dangerous. Mr. Ludwig was usually digging in his garden and Johannes always greeted him with, “Good Morning, Mr. Ludwig!” He was always happy about that.
In the afternoons I would go with him to the playground, where he could go on the slide, the carousel, and play with the other children. In the evenings he was always allowed to see the little cartoon men [die Heinzelmännchen) on TV, and with that he was already eating his Abendbrot. He never even once asked about his Mom or Ulrich, who wanted to have him back already after 14 days. They were speechless that he liked being with us. With the Cate Car[65] he also drove in the cross street. Father was always with him. After six weeks, after he had overcome his whooping cough, we brought him back. Ulrich picked us up in Munich. He loaded the suitcases onto a dolly and Johannes walked beside him. He then looked up at Ulrich and said, “Ulrich, you have grown so tall!”
Twice Christoph brought T. Dorchen from Berlin to visit us. He was working in social services. Because she had a sick uterus, I went to a physician with her, who referred her to a hospital in Montahaus. It was Christmas and because we went to the hospital every day with the street car to visit her, we had a sorrowful Christmas. I no longer decorated a tree. In a floor pot we only had some beautiful green branches. When T. Dorchen was released from the hospital, Christoph came and brought her back to Berlin.
One time he came and took Father along to France; he wanted to visit Claude, whom he had once gotten to know in France. At that time, back then, he had long hair. When he rang the doorbell of the parents, her mother opened the door, inspected him from the top to bottom and said, “Claude will only come home tomorrow.” Christoph went to the barber and asked for his hair to be cut short. [The barber] did not want to cut off his hair, so they had a long debate. Claude liked him better with his long hair, because it was also curly. I told him when he came to me, “Now you at least look more masculine.”
Then he could not take Father along [to see Claude]. He was in Freiburg lying in the university clinic. He had slipped while in the military cemetery and hurt his kidney. An ambulance had taken him to a hospital in France and he was then transferred to Freiburg, where he had to stay quite a long time. I then brought him home by train.
We spent much time together with the Rahms and Kochs. Mr. Koch was a teacher in Haldensleben and there he had been the curator of its museum. Because he had relatives [here] in Westerburg, he was allowed with his wife to be admitted in a senior citizens’ home. She soon died and then he went to a senior citizens’ home in Wiesbaden, where a married daughter of his lived. Later, when I would travel to see the grave of Father, I always also saw his grave next to that of his wife. He died in 1976. Mrs. Zimmermann sent me the announcement. Beforehand he had written me a long letter and shared with me that he felt very well in Wiesbaden. He could not recover from his second heart attack.
On 7/27/1972 Christoph and Claude were married in Berlin. Before [marrying] they visited us once in Westerburg. When on 7/26 we wanted to go to the train to travel to Eckehardt, who was going to drive us to Berlin with his car, Father searched for his summer jacket, which always hung on the hook of his wardrobe. A few days prior he had called in the young guy, who always hung out in the street, to help with picking cherries. I was in the city. Father took him along into the kitchen searching for a little bucket. Right away, the guy stole a package of cigarettes, which lay on the kitchen cabinet. After his picking cherries, Father wanted to give him a cigarette. With that, he took the package out of his pants pocket and said, “I have one of my own.”
Father stored the cherries in the pantry. The guy left, unhung the jacket from the wardrobe hook, and took it along. He also had an older brother, a worker at Menks. He had helped us move in. He told us, “Watch out for that guy. He likes to steal.” So Father traveled to Berlin without a jacket and bought one there.
Because Claude was Catholic, we only went to the city register [for a civil marriage]. After that we went to a hotel to eat. There, Father delivered a speech in French, which made Claude’s parents happy. {Claude’s] brother had also come and Ulrich, Bärbel and Johannes; Eckehardt, Brigitte and Ingke; and Rieke came from London. We had coffee on a steamer, which sailed around the lake. Tante Dorchen also went along on the trip. We had Abendbrot in Christoph’s house. Mr. Saltel had brought along a good Champaign, which put us all into a good mood. On the next day we all drove back home. Ulrich then still had an accident in Munich that did not, however, turn our serious.
I still wanted to tell one story from Grünberg: that Uncle Otto, Tante Trudel’s husband, belonged to a Baptist sect. Every Sunday afternoon he had devotions in his home. Because only three to four women came, Tante Trudel asked my mother and us children to come. We hardly listened to the fat [man] and laughed behind the backs of the women. In spite of that we received coffee and cake from Tante Trudel. She was happy that the chairs did not stand empty.
Father had a big celebration for his 70th birthday. Already, although it was a weekday morning, all the teachers from Little Umstadt came and congratulated him and Ulrich with his children was also there. Father was very happy. We had the midday meal in a hotel and at home we still celebrated together with coffee and then Abendbrot. Then on Sunday all the children and grandchildren came. Uncle Ludwig and his wife also came, as well as Dieter. It was a beautiful sunny day, so we could sit outside on the lawn and the children could romp around. It was vacation, of course, so they only left for home on Monday. It was a good thing that the hotel was nearby, so some of the visitors could overnight there.
Having been required by the hospital, I allowed myself to be examined by a physician. So Father said, “Why shouldn’t I also do that?” So he went to the physician who after his examination, said, “You should go to a urologist.” So he drove to a urologist in Altenkirchen, who determined that he had a sick prostate and admitted him to a hospital. He lay there for a while and then they transferred him to a university hospital in Frankfurt. There they continued to treat him.
Whenever I visited him, he asked me for money. I wondered about that, but said nothing. Now I was supposed to pick him up. Beforehand, he called me and told me to bring his winter coat and hat along. I thought, “It is not that cold. His summer jacket would be enough.” When I arrived in the university clinic he told me that a street drifter lay next to him and always begged him for money, with which he bought himself beer. One morning while [Father] was still asleep, the guy vanished [and with him Father’s] summer jacket, hat, and gloves. Only his papers, he left for him. The nurses had not noticed when the guy left. “I first had to become 70 years old, to allow myself to be fooled that way.”
That summer Christoph invited us to Schwanheim. He and Claude were employed in Neckargmünd in the Reha-Center. All the thalidomide and physically handicapped children were there. Christoph undertook beautiful car trips with us, when he had the time. We also took walks in Schwanheim and its vicinity.
One night Father groaned in pain, so Christoph drove him the university hospital in Frankfurt. There they could not find anything wrong with him, so we drove back to Christoph and the pains went away.
Ulrich was in Munich in the Nymphenburger hospital. He called us one day and said, “You should come me so that Father can have a very thorough examination.” So we drove to Munich. In the mornings a few times, without eating or drinking anything, he had to go to the hospital for examinations. At the beginning they also found nothing. One afternoon we drove to Knothes and also once to Uncle Werner. On the way home, Father could hardly walk for pain. So he was admitted to the hospital for an operation. He had cancer of the pancreas, which could not be seen on the x-rays.
In the mornings I helped Bärbel in the household and with the children and in the afternoons I always drove [to see] Father. He wanted me to overnight with him, [because] he was alone in a room. But Bärbel had broken her arm, so I had to take care of Elizabeth in the evenings; she always approached me with open arms [to be lifted up].
When Ulrich told me that Father had cancer, I said, “We’re driving home and I will take care of him there.” An ambulance drove us to Westerburg. At the beginning Father always still stood up and sat at his desk and wrote letters to his friends. Then he could only sit in an armchair. The children visited us many times and the physician came each day. He prescribed morphine. When the pains became too severe, Father also asked for a pill. I asked the barber to come and shave Father and he came as well. A nurse brought me chamber pots; I could no longer lift Father out of bed. She said, “He now looks like Gandhi.” Father made big eyes and said, “I don’t want to see her anymore.” Mr. Koch and Mr. Ludwig visited him more often, even the pastor came one time.
Tante Trudel and Uncle Rudolf were also in Germany and also wanted to visit us, but Father did not want see them anymore, so I told Uncle Ludwig to cancel their trip to us. But in order for me to see them, Eckehardt drove me to Aachen and Christoph and Claude spent the day with Father. The doctor told me that Father had only eight more days to live. We were delayed in Aachen and on our trip back, Father died. It was on a Saturday. I was very sad that I was not with him in his hour of death. Christoph had, however, placed a candle on his little night table.
On the next day, Eckehardt and I went to order a casket and so Father was laid in state already on Sunday in the funeral home. Into Father’s hand I put orchids, which Friedel Rahms had given him when she visited. Christoph and Claude drove home, so Brigitte came. Eckehardt ordered cards announcing his death that they both sent to our acquaintances. They helped me very much and I was very thankful to all of them.
Rottraut and Lochaw came to the funeral, from Little Umstadt a teacher, who delivered a talk at the grave, as well as a representative of the military club. Many acquaintances from Westerburg, the Colmars from Langstadt and former neighbors, Uncle Ludwig and family and all the children. Four teachers from Westerburg carried the casket and they then came to us for coffee, as well as all those who came from out of town.
For a long time I felt connected with Father. When a telephone call came, I always ran to the bedroom to share with Father what was said and then stood in front of the empty bed. Twice I dreamt of him: that he was walking around in the house. One time I was afraid that in my bedroom he was opening up the cabinet, but he didn’t do it. I gave almost all of his clothes to Claude for her uncle, who had the same figure, and her brother received his shoes as well. In the same night Friedel Rahm dreamt that Father sat at the table next to an older woman, who had a child on her lap. I said to her, “My mother with our first child.”
Eckehardt sent Ingke to me with a girl friend of hers so that I would not be alone. They helped me take the wilted wreaths from the grave and replant [the grave] anew. At Christmas Rieke and Daniel visited me. Rieke told me that she wanted to make herself independent in Boll as a speech therapist and asked if I didn’t want to move to Boll. Father had told her that she shouldn’t leave me alone.
Daniel now endeavored to find a house. Höraufs announced that they had a house available at 10 Erlengrund. [Daniel] went to Hörauf right away and asked him to keep the house available for us until we were able to see it. After a telephone conversation, I drove there right away. The old nurse who lived there had to go into a senior citizen center, which the father of Höraufhad founded. When I inspected the house, I thought about it a long while. Mr. Hörauf said, “You cannot get all your furniture down [in the house].” Then he showed me the room in the cellar and the big attic. Rieke also came from Stuttgart and took a look at the house and advised me to take it, considering the balcony on the East side.
In fourteen days, I had packed everything in Westerburg. I had gotten empty cardboard boxes from the stores, which I did not have to tie up with binds. I put the back garden into order and cleaned out the stall. The weather was wonderful in April. On the last day Christoph came and tied the boxes with binds anyway. On the next day the packers and movers said that binding them had not been necessary.
It was April 29th 1976. Eckehardt came and took the big writing desk. In two hours the movers had already loaded everything. “It has never taken us so little time.” they said. The bookcase, Christopher had already taken earlier. Because the moving truck was not full, they drove to another city to made it a full load. On April 30th Christoph drove me to Boll. During the night it had gone below freezing and the plants froze in the moving wagon. It also arrived [in Boll] late. It came in the evening and Rieke and Daniel could no longer help, so Christoph helped until it was very late. The room in the cellar and the attic became filled with furniture.
Ulrich came and took the dining room table and its chairs. Christoph took the cabinet, the blue sofa, and the wall-bed to Hanau. I put the bedroom set into the cellar and in it all the children have slept one time [or another]. With Rieke’s furniture I arranged the little room and the television is also in there, while the big piano is in the large room.
Mrs. Petrisch, who is as old as I am, took me along to gymnastics each week and to her Thursday circle once a month. She lived on the ground floor opposite me. After nine years, I’m sad to say, she died of a heart attack. We got along very well. Three times an elderly couple came to the social hall of the congregation and showed us folk dancing. Because I liked to dance with them, Mrs. Utz and Mrs. Bilkenroth asked me take over these dances for seniors. There was a record player and records were provided, so I started small. Five couples came, also Höraufs and their wives; we were 20 at the beginning.
In Esslingen an elder offered a four day course for women dance leaders. Mrs. Petrisch and I drove to it. The leader, who was my size, always used me to demonstrate a dance, but was of the opinion that the women leaders should not be over 60 years old. At the end of the four days I told him that I was going to be 70, he did not want to believe me. The dances that already sounded melodic are the ones I bought and I practiced the dances [beforehand] myself. We danced many Quadrilles, Française, and for Christmas, the dance of the lights (Lichtertanz). We very often also danced in the Thursday’s circle and in the Advent festival, in the gymnasium, where four villages came together and where they wanted to see many kinds of dances and at the end the Dance of the Lights. We got together to dance every Monday from 2:30pm to 5:00, made a recess for coffee and were very happy.
On Rose Monday we only had happy jovial dances and I always treated every one with Berliners, because for my birthday the dancers gave me a book and flowers and sweets as gifts. To Mrs. Schweitzer, who brought us the coffee and Mrs. Kern, who always rinsed the dishes, I always gave a Christmas star for Christmas. Numerous women came to watch and had coffee with us and once in a while I read short stories to them. Ilse once gave me the present of two booklets, “Grandma Hüpf and Grandpa Hüpf.” These and various other books I gave to Mrs. Mühlhäuser, who every 14 days helped me tidy the place up for her elderly people.
In any case, things were jovial and continued to be happy at the dances. New dancers also joined us and others became sick and had to stop. After eleven years, after I had already had my second heart attack, I stopped. My hips also hurt a lot. Now a director from the Red Cross has been employed and each person pays 2 DM. None of my dancers are still among them; they’re too old or have died. In the Thursday circle no dances are exhibited anymore.
Tante Wally came to me each year for four weeks. We always went on trips. We went to America three times. We also visited Hilde Meinhardt in Bernkastel for a week and usually we visited the Stuttgart Zoo, where there were also many flower settings and displays. When I visited Tante Wally for her 70th birthday, I also wanted to see the zoo in Magdeburg, which, when we lived in Rahm, had newly been built, and was bordered with flowers and had some animals. In the school vacation I also took all the children there for an outing; Woe is me! (O weh!) How wretched it looked now. The paths were all full of weeds. Only in the entrance they had a round, a circle (Roudell) of flowers. Only a few animals could be seen; it looked very sad.
Eckehardt also came for [Tante Wally’s] 70th birthday. We celebrated with the women of the Kindergarten in a barrack on Hunters’ Place (Schützenplatz). Peter had hired a few musicians and so there was also dancing. For her 80th birthday Ingke also came along and Heinz was there as well. The neighbors were also invited and the women from the Kindergarten. This one was a big celebration in the hall of the Hunters’ House (Schützenhaus). Peter had made sure to get asparagus before the midday [meal]. Although ration cards for groceries (no longer) existed, some specialties were scarce.
Tante Wally now lived in a settlement of new houses and with Peter had two and a half rooms, a kitchen and bath. Ingke and I slept in the bedroom and Eckehardt above us upstairs with a renter. Tante Wally only tidied up what was necessary and otherwise only looked off into space.[66] Peter was employed in a bakery and lived at home. Tante Wally complained, to be sure, that he was cooking with too much fat, but that changed nothing. And then she still went shopping.
When Tante Wally could no longer walk a distance, she did not like it at my place anymore; it was too lonely. On her balcony she could see people and cars go by. She did not want to play canasta with Mrs. Hunger anymore, so Heinz had to drive her home again.
When she had still come to me by train, she experienced some things. One time her hat rolled down the stairs in front of her and it was so windy on the station platform that when the train pulled in, the hat flew onto the tracks and under the train. She had to transfer in Magdeburg and an corpulent man wanted to help her. First he helped her with her suitcase. Then she wanted to get off the train steps backwards and he said, “Why don’t you jump? I’ll catch you.” He did not consider her weight. Tante Wally took a little running start and jumped and laid on the platform on top of the fat man, who held her tightly. His wife had already stepped out of the train and said, “Justaf, what are you doing?”
“Why, would you please help us?” he said. Two policemen came by and said, “Je oller, desto toller!” and didn’t help. (The older they are the crazier!) I would have loved to have seen how Tante Wally crawled away from the fat man.[67]
When she told this story in America, one night, for laughing, Tante Trudel could get little sleep; she could not get picture out of her mind. I still laugh[68] little now, when I think about it. When in July we flew to Suzie’s wedding, In the Frankfurt train station Tante Wally fell backwards on the escalator, her suitcase and handbag on top of her. I had just arrived with my suitcase and handbag, turned around and heard really quiet, “Hanna.”
“Pick up your legs!” I screamed. But I could not pull her away. Behind her a man with a baggage carrier filled with luggage was riding up the escalator. A wall was in front of us, around which we had to go. From around it two men came and helped us right away. They took the suitcase off her and both men pulled at her legs. Was I ever thankful to those men! Now I thought, we have to go back home and then told her so. Tante Wally said, “We’re flying to America.” She had no pain.
We had just arrived at the airport, and beforehand, I had already said to her, “Don’t we want to go up these stairs slowly?” Now carrying both suitcases had become too heavy for me. She said, “We’ll take the escalator.” Because we had bags and suitcases, we could not hold on. As we started up, I had to bend forward to keep my balance. I cried to her, “Don’t get on!” But she had already gotten on. Because of the pressure of the suitcase she later got breast cancer, for which she had to have an operation.
One time she forgot her handbag with all her papers in the car of the train. We immediately reported it on the station platform and two days later a train official brought the bag to us; nothing was missing from it! Sometimes she would start laughing in the train and for me that was always embarrassing. “Look outside!” I would say quickly, because the people looked at us with astonishment. She did not have a long sick bed. Peter could not take care of her alone anymore, so she had to go to the hospital for a few weeks and then into a senior citizen home, where for her 85th birthday Ulrich, Rieke, I, Shem and Alice celebrated with her. She went to sleep peacefully on the day upon which my father died: April 13th. She was buried in the cemetery by Heinz.
Tante Dorchen in Waidemannlust could no longer care for herself alone, so she was taken into a senior citizen center. Christoph helped me move her. Twice a year I drove to her, in the Spring and for her birthday in July. When there I stayed with Gretel Millmann. Before her time to eat, I was already with her. [Even though] the bus trip always took an hour.
“You! – you come so late!” she always said. She was on a diet for eating and was never satisfied with the food. I always brought her a bottle of corn [Schnapps], which she drank on a daily basis and hid the bottle in her clothing cabinet.
T. Dorchen had trouble walking, but in spite of that, we took walks. We also went to the cemetery and visited the graves. Each time I always stayed for a few days. It was in the evenings that I returned to Gretel. One time I stayed a day longer, because we undertook a trip on a steamer (Dampferfahrt) together. A year later I said to T. Dorchen: “Next year you will be 80 years old, so I will come with all the children and she was happy already anticipating that. Shortly afterward she stumbled in her room and fell down. She went to the hospital and had broken her hip[69] and needed an operation. Now she knew she would have to go to a nursing home about which she was very afraid. So she ate very little and at the end she ate nothing anymore and she died on September 24th 1978.
I dreamt that I was with my mother, and then, the way we children always knocked, because the house door was locked, we heard a knock on the window. I said to my mother, “Wally is coming.”
She answered, “Wally is not yet coming, that is certainly someone else.” And soon afterward the telephone rang. The nurse with whom I often telephoned, called and said, “Just now your Tante died.” It was in the morning about 7:00 O’clock.
I immediately called T. Erika, who had planned to go on an outing with Ilse, because it was Ilse’s birthday. I immediately drove to the senior center in Frohnau and Christoph came as well and we moved everything out of her room. The cabinet, bed, table and chairs we were able to leave in her room. I gave her clothes to social help. For myself I took two tablecloths, a few towels, one bedsheet and a summer blanket, and also the picture of fishers. The latter Eckehardt can have someday, because she was his baptismal sponsor.
Christoph took the little wall clock. Her money was administered by Mr. Noll from Spandau. He had so much that we could pay for the grave, the stone, and the funeral. T. Dorchen lies in the cemetery in Spandau, because Nolls wanted to take care of her grave. They did that for many years and at the end they planted ivy on it. Now both have died of cancer.
To the funeral of T. Dorchen, came Eckehardt and I, who lived with Gretel for those days. Of the relatives of Uncle Karl, still alive was only a niece, who also came to the funeral but who had not even known that T. Dorchen was still alive. I then drove home with Eckehardt. 1,600 DM were left over and I gave 200 DM to each of her nieces and nephews: Marianne and Bärbel, Ilse and Henning, Ulrich, Eckehardt, Rieke and Christoph.
A few years later T. Irene died. Beforehand she had written [asking] Eckehardt and me to remove everything from here apartment [thereafter]. The renter downstairs wondered why Sunday’s newspaper was still stuffed in her mailbox, so he called the police, who found her dead in the kitchen. The physician expressed the opinion that she had died on Saturday. She was in her nightgown. A funeral institute had put her in a casket. The gardener called Eckehardt right away. He had gotten her garden. He always brought her vegetables and fruit and provided for her by going shopping for her groceries many times.
Eckehardt called me immediately, so we both drove there. First we went to the bank to pick up her will. But in it there were only postage stamps. So I looked into the will she had made herself, which she had saved in the laundry cabinet. It was not there. Then I found it in a little suitcase under her bed. We brought it to the institute and right away bought a middle-brown oaken casket. On March, 1986 she was buried in the grave of her father in Godesberg.
We still had to rent her apartment for a quarter of a year, because we needed that much time to clear everything out. Next the will had to be found[70] and helping to find it were Brigitte, Claude, Rieke and Christoph. Almost all her books were paged through. Christoph, who was only looking for picture postcards, found it in the kitchen under books in a notebook. Weeks had, however, passed. I slept there on a couch in the living room. Under me was a box full of pieces of writing, which could still be used for writing on the blank side in back, as T. Irene explained in writing.
I had to schlep 11 sacks of paper and rags down the stairs. Eckehardt always came over the weekends. The garbage was always picked up on Mondays, and because it often rained, I usually lugged the sacks down in the morning. The gardener’s people helped me clear out the cellar. I found 50 Kaba (cocoa drink) cans among dead mice. Half of the street was filled with all kinds of junk. The neighbor who knew T. Irene very well, gave the garbage men beer, so that they would take all the garbage away. The gardener had even carried garbage out of the cellar before us. Eckehardt said to me, “Mother, please don’t collect garbage.”
T. Irene wished that I distribute her furniture. Eckehardt received the chest and the cabinet, in which she had saved all her pieces of writing. Brigitte wanted the piano. Rieke got the children’s cabinet, that had belonged to her parents. The bedroom set, I gave to the gardening people. Rieke also received the armchair and the chair of the writing desk for Daniel. Christoph received a little [one top drawer], two door cabinet (Vertiko) with a carpet and a kitchen bench. Ingke took the old kitchen cabinet and sewing machine and then the refrigerator and clock, because Ulrich did not want any furniture. He brought me the furniture wagon that drove all around [distributing it].
T. Irene was a lecturer in a Catholic High School (Gymnasium). During week days, living with her, she had three farmer sons, whom she promoted and sponsored. On the weekends they drove home and brought groceries along, so she was always provided for at the war’s end. One of them, whom she supported, became a pastor. The second became an attorney. He married and his wife and daughter were allowed to take a whole lot of her books. Brigitte, Claude, and Rieke had already selected books beforehand. I also have some. The third student became a representative, also married and had two children. Later he went abroad and deserted his family, so Irene took them in.
The wife was a nurse and because T. Irene made many of the decisions, she left with her children and went to look for another apartment. Her son received a writing desk and book case. An old writing desk, which T. Irene had purchased, Eckehardt took for himself, because the husband of a niece did not want it. But she received six beautiful porcelain cups. T. Irene scarcely had any silverware: Brigitte, Rieke and Claude shared it among themselves.
With the remaining money Eckehardt had hard work, because no instructions about her money was in the will. It was distributed according the degree of relationship. T. Trudel, T. Wally and I and the niece received the largest amounts, 2,000 DM. Then Toni Peschko, Karin Strobel and her brother, relatives of T. Irene’s father, about 500 DM, and the same amount to the sister of Toni, Trude Puppe.
The mother of T. Irene had seven siblings, who were all dead but who had many children, so Eckehardt divided up the remaining money and sent each 200 DM. It made the relatives who lived in the Zone [i.e., the G.D.R.] very happy. Some of them did not even know her. For all that work Eckehardt did not take a penny.
When I met T. Irene in Aachen at Uncle Ludwigs in 1970, she asked me if I would disperse her house when she died and to divide up her furniture among my children; but that I would once have that kind of work 16 years later, when I was 76 years old, I never believed or imagined.
With Ulrich I drove to Shem in Berlin. On the way there we already had a flat. It was a car only a year old and he had bought it new. So for a long time I had to sit on a stone beside the Autobahn until the service mechanic could put the car back in order. In Berlin we met Rieke and Daniel and then all six of us wanted to travel to Grünberg. On the next morning we drove off in two cars. We had to wait three hours at the border, so we only arrived in the evening and searched for a hotel, which Ulrich had reserved. It was already dark so we found it with the help of [a local] man.
I could not recognize where we were. We received two double rooms and two single ones. On the next morning I got up early and wanted to discover where our hotel was located: everything was new to me and unclear. So I had breakfast and the children were not yet there. After a while a man who was an officer came in. he greeted me with, “Good morning!” Wait! I said to myself, I have to ask him where we are.
When after his breakfast he lit a cigarette, I went to his table. He introduced himself by the name Thiele. Thiele! I shared with him that a [long] time ago, I had congratulated him for his birthday and, that in a festival of the Lutheran Church, I had carried him on my arm when he was two years old!
He lived in Marienstadt and [had been] visited by Christoph and he had written to me, that when I again came to Marienstadt that I should visit him. When I later went there, sad to say, he had moved. He had one son, who was a pastor and who did not want him to have a girlfriend, so he married her and moved into her house, a neighbor told us. And now we met in this hotel in Grünberg.
He had come with a tour party to Silesia, was staying in a place in Neusalz, and had driven to Grünberg for the day. I heard noise behind me at another table, turned around and there were all the children together eating breakfast. So now Mr. Thiele could explain to us where we were.
The hotel had been built at the side of the railroad station, but quite a distance away. To get to Bahnhof Street, one had to drive a stretch. Along the street the houses looked very decent, then we drove past Redeemer Church and continued to Bismark Square.[71] The park was maintained nicely and at the side stood our church beautifully preserved. It was now Evangelical Polish and the pastor from Upper Silesia was just having Sunday worship. I had taken along a photo of the church and the congregational house: the place was empty.
Then a woman came toward us and introduced herself as the wife of the pastor and with interest looked at my pictures. “We have always asked ourselves, what could have been there.” [The Congregation’s House?] We went into the worship service and I received communion along with them. After the worship service we had a long conversation with the pastor and we sat down on the bench of our grandparents. Alice stood in the pulpit and took a picture of us. Before the altar there was a white rail, on which the kneeling communing guests could hold themselves [when they received communion] and on the wall behind the choir, there were holy pictures; but otherwise the church remained the same inside and out.
The pastor lived with his children upstairs in the corner house[72] opposite the church with the social hall below, where we had coffee together. We visited the old Lutheran church, which had now become an old Catholic church and was locked with a iron gate. Then we drove to Neustadt Street. There was no alley anymore, no expedition place and at the left an empty space to the street. Our house and Friebes house were gone, as well as the garden of Hirthes. Then we drove to Landsitzer Street. The house that belonged to a grandparent had been torn down a few years before, as well as the vineyard (Bergel) and the barn, a neighbor who knew a little German told me. For themselves the Poles built a long high house in the big garden.
Shem and Alice now had to get back. On Monday he had to work again. The rest of us drove to the city hall (Rathaus) and ate the midday meal outside. Rieke made a mistake with her money, paying for the service, but the Poles gave her back the big bill and allowed her to give them the correct small bill in payment. For that I thanked the waitress sincerely. Then with Rieke I went to look for the Lyceum. It was enlarged and all the other houses around it were occupied. Throughout the city all the houses had people dwelling in them, just the Staub and Vitense stores were empty.[73] Otherwise everything was clean.
Then Ulrich went on to Seppau. The castle was still standing, as well as the castle yard with its beautiful entrance, perfectly kept. We were allowed to visit the inside of the castle. The rooms of the elderly countess were locked. A guide (Settinerin), who could speak Polish and German, told us that the son of Count Schlabrendorf came back each year. The count had married in Munich. And for a few times a year the children were there for recreation (Erholung). Presently the field workers were coming to eat.
The harvest is very scarce, so that no money is left over for the son of the [count]. The two houses for the squires were still there. In one of them lived a Polish family and in the other, where the Inspector used to live and I had my office, was in ruins; [also in ruins were] the carriage houses and the inn, as well as the five farmers’ houses. For themselves on one side of the alley, the Poles built little houses for themselves. The Mausoleum was going to be arranged to become a little chapel and the caskets will be buried, said a pastor who spoke with Ulrich.
Nothing is left to be seen of the great Castle in Schönau, even the house of the Inspector is gone. The church and the village, however, are not damaged. The park in Seppau is still in order. I sent Rieke and Daniel to take a look at it, because I couldn’t walk anymore, because my hips hurt too much. (It was in 1994 in November and 1995 in May that I first allowed having my [hip] operations, and sad to say, that was too late.) The tropical green house (Orangerie) and the house of the forester were not there anymore. The little pond, however, was larger, and the children probably swam in it for sure.
Then we drove back to Grünberg. Then on the next day to Hirschberg, where we looked at the Wang Church while Daniel and Rieke climbed up to the top of the Schneekoppe. In the afternoon we then drove to Wolfsdorf. Ulrich drove down into the village so fast, that I couldn’t recognize anything. Then we went back slowly and there we saw Hankes’ house, Hillers, and the Schmiede’s, which had a white fence in front of it and on the opposite side, the school and the large estate (Gut), where we remained for a longer time.
The schoolyard had been reworked into a garden and fenced in. On the bridge a man spoke to us in German. He lived in the settlement, which was now densely developed. He invited us in for coffee and his wife was also very friendly. Then we heard that mining work had begun again. Numerous farm houses that were lived in and also a little church, as well as some little houses, had been built on the street to Goldberg. Goldberg had also not been heavily damaged. The church in which all the children had been baptized, was still standing, and the market remained. I sat down there and the children walked around.
Ulrich was excited about the schools [in Goldberg] and would have liked to have gone to school there. Then we drove back to Hirschberg and on the next day to Weimar, which we also still toured. Rieke and Daniel once had a vacation there. They then drove back home by train and we went with the car, and [promptly] had another flat. Then a young man ran into the rear end of our car, so we had to wait a long time for the police. But the car was still able to drive us home.
Two years later, Ulrich and I again drove to Berlin, Tante Trudel and Tirzah had come from America. With them we drove to Mecklinburg. In Mirow, the place my father was born, we visited an acquaintance of Ursel Holtfreter, who showed us a great deal. There are many lakes and fortress there. Tante Trudel even went along to one of them and came back completely exhausted (kaputt). Later she also had a hip replacement.
In the early years in Boll I often drove to the children to help. I was always at the birthdays of Johannes and Elizabeth in Munich and always stayed a few days. On Christmas, too, I helped with the roasts and with baking. I always brought along Christmas pastries (Stollen). Ilse was invited every time.
Before the vacation I already drove to Hanau to Christoph and Claude and baked pastries and cookies for their many children. They now ran an Albert Schweitzer House with eight children. Jacqueline, a handicapped child, which Claude had taken along from Reha-Center, felt good among all the children. She was the child of a 17 year old German woman and a Black American, who had returned to America. She was paralyzed on the right side and completely below the hips. At the age of four she first learned to crawl and speak. Claude had done a lot of exercises (Gymnastics) with her and Christoph took her swimming and horseback riding. She went to a school for the handicapped and now at the age of 20 she is working at a workshop for the handicapped. Claude and Christoph, who is now active in a hospital, have given up in Hanau and have now rented a house, which they have made wheelchair accessible.
Brigitte and Eckehardt had a house built for themselves on the Otzberg and I helped them move. In the same way, Rieke and Daniel, who had married in Boll and who for the first years lived here, moved to Freiburg and worked in an anthroposophical school for the handicapped.
I have adjusted here very well and have been living here for 22 years in the same house. My birthdays are for the most part celebrated together with my children. My 70th we celebrated in Hanau with Claude and the 75th in Otzberg with Brigitte. My 80th and 85th we celebrated in a guesthouse, also my 88th, which the children have already arranged. I had a meeting with the people from Silesia: the Grimms and Herbert and Gerhard Löbel here at my home. Ulrich joined us and allowed himself be told all about Wolfsdorf. The Grimms once brought me to Christel Frömberg, and there I met Friedel Neumann, whom I hardly recognized, she had changed so much.
A letter from Ulrich Hoffmann 7th of Feb. 2005
Dear Hanna, dear Tirzah,
When Alice and Shem were with me for a visit on January 3rd and left, after the report of the loss of life of your mother suddenly arrived, I thought of an old record (from ca. 1955) with a beautiful cantata of Bach (Bach Werk Verzeignis BWV 160) which would have been fitting for this sorrowful moment. I had already said to Priscila that I would send you a tape of it. Sad to say, because of overplaying it, the tone quality of the tape has gotten bad, which I suspected. This old interpretation, however, does not exist on a CD. So I will send you a new CD from 2004, which I don’t find quite so empathetic. I hope that in spite of it you will be pleased by it. At the same time with it I would like to commemorate your mother on her birthday 3/1. (More recently this cantata has been ascribed to Telemann.)
During their visit, I showed Shem “The Memories” of my mother. She had written one part (“The Flight”) in 1989 and the longer part, sad to say, only 1997/1998. Then she became spiritually exhausted. They have not yet been printed up by a typewriter. But Shem said that Tirzah probably would be interested in it and could read the handwriting. So I copied it all for Tirzah, and hope that she can fight her way through and take up what interests you. From 1945 I have some particulars in memory, but as I said, I have not yet come to the point where I could rework it.
Today I received your letter of announcement.
Heartfelt greetings,
Ulrich
Translated by Peter D.S. Krey January 20 to February 10, 2023
Notes: Ashley my son read Wally, with as an English “W” and wondered who that was. It has to be read as “V”.
I mostly left the simple sentence structure of Tante Hanna’s style as is. What is in [brackets] are inclusions of mine to clarify some sentences. Tante of course means “aunt” and Abendbrot means the evening meal. The midday meal, Mittagessen is the substantial dinner, which we eat in the evening.
Tante Hanna has a way of not introducing people, but their names suddenly appear. The case that threw me for a while was “Father.” I finally realized she was talking about her husband, but she writes for her children, so she refers to him that way. It was only when the plundering Poles dumped his papers into the field, and he read his name on one, that I learned his name: Kurt Hoffmann!
Some words were really doozies and hard to figuring out. The capital letters gave me the most trouble. A handful remain a mystery, but more about translation can be found in the footnotes.
This was a labor of love for relatives, I never got to know.
lovejoypeace,
peter krey
PS: Johannes, his son, and Elizabeth, his daughter, informed us that Ulrich died on April 30, 2024.
Ulrich Reinhold Kurt Hoffmann (8/3/1038-4/30/2024)
Daniel, Friederike’s husband, died a few weeks before Ulrich and was a little over 90 years old. He had just finished translating Rudolf Steiner’s The Philosophy of Freedom.
[1] Note: The capital letter beginning her name is the same as in Acktentasche.
[2] Katzenköpfe. Probably an older version of cobblestones, literally, catheads.
[3]Kopfstücke: These must have been coins with the heads of kings pictured on them, like we would have presidents, Lincoln on a penny, FDR on a dime, etc.
[4] Gute Stube versus Wohnzimmer.
[5] Wohnküche.
[6] In the top margin, the copy top chopped off: Johannes Peschko war Leutnant (a guess) und der älteste Sohn von Pastor Peschko aus Züllichau: Johannes Peschko was a lieutenant? and the oldest son of Pastor Peschko from Züllichau.
[7] Mittagstisch.
[8] Der Revisor tat einiges wieder heraus.
[9] Wenn die daneben fiel, gab es ein Donnerwetter.
[10] Auslauf.
[11] They go “into the toilet,” so it has to be the outhouse.
[12] It was fought between 26 and 30th of August, 1914 in the first month of World War I and in it the whole 2nd Army of Russia was destroyed.
[13] Abteilung.
[14] “Kurzschluss gemacht” means “caused a short circuit,” but here I think it refers to his suicide.
[15] Tante Lene may have been Erich’s wife. He was Magdalena Gessner’s son. She was the evil stepmother.
[16] I had to correct this mistake. Tante Hanna wrote that “as a bride she would have to wait seven years to follow after him, so they had a civil marriage in Hamburg.” As his wife, she could follow after him in two years.
[17] Hausfrauenverein.
[18] Schlingpflanzen.
[19] Dachstuhl.
[20] She has schickte (sent)? I find that schlichten means playing a trick, also ein Streich spielen. But she writes “sent.”
[21] It’s hard to tell if the two youths also sent the Catholic Parson and the Midwife to participate in the lark or if they were also tricked by them.
[22] Gütssöhne und -töchter.
[23] Breathing with a death rattle. Tante Hanna is brutally realistic at times.
[24] A village in Prussia.
[25] Krezpielów.
[26] I’m uncertain what Eleven means in German. It seems to be English.
[27] Die Schwänze.
[28] Could not figure out this word.
[29] Löns Lieder? Perhaps German for love: Löw? Page 69.
[30] Wellfleisch.
[31] Fideikommiss.
[32] Sie war bockig.
[33] And drown herself?
[34] I think with “Father” she introduced her future husband! She is writing for her children.
[35] Tante Hanna must have left out leaving work with the count and then in a little will flash back, I believe.
[36] Transition: Is this a flashback or did Tante Hanna go back to work for the count?
[37] Wurde aber umgeschlossen.
[38] Und verschwinden Sie!
[39] Or Marthus? She does not introduce them.
[40] Her underlining. I’m not sure of the name: Urdma or Urdna?
[41] Die 1. Lehrerstelle.
[42] These names are cut off at the top of the page and I guessed at them.
[43] Riekchen is T. Hanna’s next child, her daughter.
[44] Pages 118-119 seem to be missing. I lost them or the copying may have skipped these two pages. My translation goes from page 117 to 120.
[45] Perhaps Christoph’s birth is missing.
[46] It is now called Karlovy Vary in Czech and has been popular with the Russians until the war against the Ukraine. See the recent article:
[47] An open wagon with big wooden wheels, wooden slats on the sides, coming in different sizes.
[48] Gelebt haben wir von was wir in den Mieten fanden.
[49] Alles Eingewickte und Säfte.
[50] Brüllte.
[51] Ausgedinge Häusel.
[52] They were Germans, without German citizenship, that the Nazi’s used as a rationale to invade the eastern countries.
[53] Fackwerkholz.
[54] Bewohnér gegenüber!
[55] Her name means a “dear purchase.”
[56] In the margin Tante Hanna writes: Wawerzinitz = seine Mutter. Flight p. 18.
[57] I had to fill information into this paragraph to make it understandable.
[58] In parentheses Tante Hanna repeated two pages about the thunder bolt that hit their house. (Pages 128-129 repeat most of pages 126-127). Maybe she was copying and did it twice?
[59] First the name is spelled Kling then Klink, but I think they are the same family.
[60] It seems that Helmuth was T. Christa’s husband, who must have also came from the refugee camp.
[61] Ruprechts Sack.
[62] I don’t want to always translate Er meinte… as “He said.”
[63] Perhaps they bought those oil furnaces for Langstadt, the way they had had them in Schlierbach.
[64] This a guess. I found one meaning as a camper.
[65] I thought this was a camper. Now it doesn’t make sense, if he could drive it.
[66] Und sah sonst nur fern.
[67] To say “a fat man” is quite crude, but she writes der Dicke. What can I say: the stout one again?
[68] Schmunzele.
[69] Oberschenkelhalsbruch Actually the neck of her femur bone.
[70] Maybe the official will, not the one she made herself?
[71] Die Erlöserkirch und Bismarkplatz.
[72] There is a capital letter F before Eckhaus. I’m not sure what it means.
[73] Nur die Staub und Vitenseläden? waren leer. This could have been store names.
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