Dogs on my Heels

They used to call me ‘Bubi’, and I did not like it. Even my own mother would call me Bubi affectionately because I was a good baby and a good young boy. ‘Bube’ is another term for boy in German and it literally means little boy. She would sit me down on the wide windowsill and I would watch the ‘RAD’ men parade around the huge flowerbed circle in the middle of the town square in Osieciny. They would march and they would exercise with their shovels, and they would sing so beautifully. When it was over, Mutti, (this is my mother) would give me a pair of scissors and an old newspaper, and I would be content and snip away at it for hours. This all ended one day when I ran out of newspaper and started cutting the curtains into smaller pieces. I don’t remember what she called me then, but it wasn’t Bubi, that’s for sure. The other thing I remember about Osieciny was an Easter egg hunt, probably in 1944. I would have been about three and a half years old. It was a warm and sunny Easter Sunday and the bunny had hidden so many brightly coloured eggs among the tiny pine trees of a newly reforested area. There was so much sand and I think our friends, the Wendlands, and their boys were with us. Shortly after, Mutti moved back to her parents in Lubsin. The political situation had changed and there were many reports of heavy German casualties and defeats in Russia. The rumour mills and the propaganda machines were revved up into overdrive. “It won’t be long now and we will be the masters again, and you Germans can be our servants for a change,” proclaimed her maid almost daily. Here on the farm in Lubsin, Mutti had escaped the hectic frenzy of the city and we enjoyed the relaxed, rural lifestyle. The farm provided security and comfort within the family unit of her parents, her sister Irma, and her two younger brothers, Arthur and Otto. Her other brother Gustav, already of military age, had been summoned by the German authorities and was fighting the war somewhere in the east. My mother was the oldest of the siblings, and my brother Horst and I were Opa and Oma’s only grandchildren. It was an advantage, you know, to be the sole grandchildren. But we didn’t realize that then! I remember a nice and sunny day when Uncle Arthur was bringing in sheaves of wheat from the field. “You want to come for a ride?” he asked me, and I nodded. I watched the two big horses pull the empty wagon with ease back to the field, and I was fascinated with how the giant wheels of the wagon turned and how the spokes flickered between light and shadow. I bent over the sides a bit more and a bit more, and then, I lost my balance and was falling right in front of the giant wheel. And for the first time in my young life, I faced death and looked straight into its eyes. Uncle Arthur just grabbed me by my suspenders and hauled me back into the wagon and he laughed and I will never forget the gentle smile on his face. “Don’t worry, I will not lose you,” he said, and he laughed again as if nothing had happened. He did not know it, but Uncle Arthur was my hero! When Opa was ploughing under the stubble of the grain fields, Horst and I were running behind the plough, barefoot in the fresh furrow and then, we stepped on mice, millions and zillions of mice, and it was so horrible. I still shudder to this day when I think about it. Many people are short-sighted and so was Opa Quast. I must have inherited this shortcoming from him because none of the Arndts was nearsighted. As a matter of fact, all the Arndts have had, and still have, excellent eyesight, and none of them wore glasses as far as I know. How Opa shot 72 rabbits during the ‘Treibjagd’ will always remain a mystery to me. This is when the entire village got involved. The hunters with their shotguns were positioned on one end, while the rest of the people started from the other. They chased the game with lots of noise and hoopla towards the waiting hunters. Opa came in second, and he was very happy and excited. We were very proud of him. For the next weeks, the fine smell of smoked rabbit lingered all through the house. A few times, I sneaked into the living room and helped myself to some samples of this delicacy, which was forbidden to do, of course. Opa was the Mayor of Lubsin, and he was the only one to have a radio. What he heard on October 22, 1944, was terrible news.