A German Childhood

“ I don’t want to be Germany! You always make me be Germany.” The little boy stood—feet planted wide apart and wearing a defiant look on his face—and loudly protested the role assigned to him by his older brother. His expression mingled outrage with the resignation of one who knows that any protest will be fruitless. The younger boy balled his fists but then thought better of his plan to engage his much bigger sibling in a fist fight. In an attempt to hide his embarrassment, he snapped the wide suspenders holding up his short pants. The latter revealed bony knees and shins that were covered in nasty looking scratches and crusty scabs. “You have to be Germany,” insisted the older brother. “You are the youngest, and I said so,” he added for good measure. “Can’t he be France this time?” I asked after some hesitation, eager to put an end to the brotherly feud. The little boy shot me an angry look. “I don’t want to be France,” he screamed loud enough for Mrs.Meier, who lived in an apartment across the street from my family’s home, to open her kitchen window. Resting her ample bosom on the window sill, she leaned out to see what the commotion was all about. Ignoring the inquisitive neighbor, our furious playmate screamed even louder, “ I want to be America!” I retreated into shocked silence. America—well, America was special. By the unwritten rules of our game, none of the younger children were ever chosen to be America. The oldest boy or girl always declared at the beginning of the War Game,” I am America.” Everybody knew that. “ You are Germany, and now stop screaming or I will give you a thrashing,” the oldest boy in our group asserted his authority. “ Ingrid, you are France. Rosemarie, you are England. Klaus, you are Russia.” With an unhappy look, the little guy raked his fingers through his short hair that clearly showed evidence of a home hair cut. With some reluctance, he joined the other players. Klaus had used a piece of chalk to draw a circle on the street’s pavement and then divided it into five equally large sections. With one foot placed inside and the other outside the circle, each child stood poised for flight. Harald gave each player an appraising look. While he slowly hitched up his pants, we all waited in anticipation of the challenge. “Germany declares war on Russia,” Harald finally called out loud. Mrs. Meier closed her window, either in protest of our game or because it was time to prepare the evening meal for her family. Klaus took off running, with Harald in determined pursuit. I relaxed in my wedge of the circle and thought about the rules of our game. What did it mean to declare war? I knew that soldiers went to war, but did they chase one another? If it was all a game, why were two of my uncles dead? My father had been in the war, and now his right leg was stiff. When I asked, I had been told that it would never straighten again. It was 1955, and I was five years old. Although I was not a child who fretted and worried about life’s mysteries, I was nevertheless curious. This game—it had to do with something that happened in real life during the war, but what? None of the boys ever wanted to be Germany. To be Germany was to be a bad guy, but why? I knew better than to ask. My family had just moved from the Mosel valley to the Sauerland region , and I spoke the dialect of Neumagen, a tiny village next to the river. The dialect spoken in Oestrich by elderly residents sounded totally incomprehensible to me. The children, who were expected to learn how to speak and write High German in school, were a little easier for me to understand. High German was spoken and written by all educated German citizens in formal settings. Although I felt comfortable learning new vocabulary and phrases used in the Sauerland region from Rosemarie, a little neighborhood girl my age, I was not about to ask the older boys any questions .Only last week, the children in my kindergarten class had laughed uproariously when I had chosen a girl as a Knecht—a male farm worker—to join me in a circle game. I had never heard the word Knecht. From the comments made by my classmates, I vaguely understood that I should have chosen a boy. With my cheeks aflame in embarrassment, I pretended that my choice had only been a joke and laughed along with everybody. When I finally took the hand of a little boy, he smirked to let me know that my pretense had not fooled him. There had already been other misunderstandings and confusion. I needed no further convincing that learning the language that would be understood anywhere I moved in Germany was of the highest importance. Once I understood and spoke High German, I would try to solve the mystery of why nobody wanted to be Germany, and everybody wanted to be America. My thoughts were interrupted when Klaus caught Rosemarie and both children returned to the circle. “ England declares war on France,” shouted Rosemarie. I took off running. Of course, as I was to learn years later, Great Britain fought on the side of France and the USA during World War II. That day, I was oblivious to the fact that our game did not represent historically accurate facts. More than a decade later, I was reminded of our War Game, and my little friend’s insistence to “be America.” I was almost seventeen years old when I became a student of the Gymnastikschule Schwarzerden in the German state of Hessen. The college was located near the small town of Gersfeld and an American Air Force base on a mountain called the Wasserkuppe. One day, a group of American airmen invited several German girls to the base’s movie theater. With growing amazement, I watched young American mothers file into the theater while holding toddlers and infants. It was seven o’clock at night. Didn’t American parents put their children to bed at that time? In utter astonishment, I then saw the entire audience rise and, with one voice, pledge allegiance to the American flag. Among those standing were the adorable toddlers dressed in pajamas. With tiny, right hands placed over their hearts, their high voices rose in unison with the deeper ones of the adults. Unsure of what to do and unaware that it showed disrespect, I remained seated. Nothing in my life so far had prepared me for a ceremony that showed respect and love for one’s country. I had never seen a German flag. I had neither heard the German National Anthem nor did I know the text. Throughout my childhood, the total lack of patriotic feelings neither bothered nor seemed strange to me. The children of post-war Germany knew nothing different. Not a single member of the American military ever made a disparaging comment to me about my connection, however distant, to the former Nazi Germany. The first time that I was confronted with the concepts of collective and transgenerational guilt, it happened in our neighborhood in Mount Holly, New Jersey. My American husband, Harley D.( David) Wood, and I moved there from Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1973. Over the next few years, several other young couples bought houses there as well. When one of the women and I met one day in front of our house, I introduced myself.