This story is written for all people, whose suffering due to war has been forgotten, since quite innocently they may have found themselves on the wrong side of a historical conflict. It is representative of the suffering and the collective guilt placed on innocent victims of circumstances beyond their control, as well as that of their descendents.
It is not the intention of the writer to diminish the indescribable horror of the Holocaust, but tells the story of millions of people, whose suffering history has chosen to ignore. While this is my story, I am writing it not only as a personal catharsis but for all people, irrespective of color, race or religion who have, or are at present, on the wrong side of a political conflict and are thus expected to survive, endure and heal without having a voice.
Thus I decided to speak for them all!
The Early Years
Memories of my childhood seem to go back further than those of most people I know. True, they are somewhat fuzzy about the early days, especially when I was still a baby in diapers and drinking from a bottle, but nevertheless they are there.
I can still picture in my mind the old brick apartment house on the outskirts of Cologne, where my family took refuge after the war. The city, where my mother grew up, had been reduced to a pile of rubble from the unrelenting and prolonged bombing attacks by the allied forces. From my mother I would later be told often about the once beautiful ancient city, dominated by the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world, 800 years under construction. A city, founded by the Romans under Nero’s mother Queen Colonia Aggripina 2000 years ago and separated by the Rhine river, with beautiful old buildings hundreds of years old, now turned into the nightmare of the skeletal remains, unrecognizable to those who had been happy living here. Rhinelanders were renowned for being light-hearted and fun-loving people. Now the survivors stood devastated in mind and spirit in the midst of ruins which once had been their homes, hardly comprehending how all this could have happened. I remembered the cramped quarters, since there were my grandparents, already past 80, my two sisters, 12 and 9 years older than me, my father and my mother living in two rooms. Three things stand out sharply in my mind: sitting by the window on my beloved grandmother’s lap, who never tired of reading fairy stories to me, the small backyard with the crude sandbox and the little farmer’s daughter across the street, proud owner of a wooden rocking horse I was allowed to ride on rare occasions. To this day I have a great fondness for old-fashioned rocking horses. I would have loved to own one myself when I was little, and I made sure my sons grew up with the pleasure I was deprived of.
There are other memories, but I have never been able to place them in the proper order and it really does not matter, since I know the events all had to have taken place prior to my third birthday. Sometime during my second year of life we moved further out into the country. My father purchased a good-sized piece of property in the midst of fields on a dirt path with no name, on which he and my grandfather at first built a basement with a one-room wooden shack. At least now we were able to grow all of our own food. But that definitely occurred sometime prior to my turning three. Before that, there are memories of my sisters having to take me along in my carriage much against their will and leaving me down by the Rhine-river meadows while they played with their friends. I remember taking some minor abuse from my sisters who, as I was to find out soon enough, were half-sisters. My mother’s husband had died early on in the war on the Russian front at age 28, leaving her to fend for herself, two small children and aging parents, through one of the worst periods of the twentieth century.
My sisters discovered that pinching their baby sister’s cheeks they could make me cry, and when out of my mother’s or grandmother’s sight, would amuse themselves as children often do, by alternatively pinching and kissing me. This fact alone left me in a very confused state of mind but had ultimately proven a good lesson in life. They did not mean any harm, since I was later told that when crying I had the most adorable facial expression, but as I now reflect on these occurrences at the age of 54, experience has shown me, that oftentimes the people we love most will inflict the greatest pain.
At the time the muddy river seemed huge and frightening. Thus I sat quietly in my old rickety carriage sucking on my pacifier, while watching the other children play. The particular odor of the wide river is another memory deeply embedded in my mind. If I close my eyes I can still conjure up the distinct somewhat musty smell to this very day. At this particular point the Rhine curves sharply and is extremely wide. To a very small child it seemed like a huge monster, flowing along slowly the color of mud and riverbanks lined with scraggly trees, bearing the signs of being flooded on a regular basis. In the fall they looked like ghosts to me, reaching out to grab me and pull me into the muddy waters.
Now that I have opened the Pandora’s box, memories come flooding back to me and I vividly recall my dear grandmother, a tiny woman with long gray hair tied into a neat bun, who always dressed in a long black frock. One morning grandmother faints right by my side on the cobblestone pavement, while we are waiting for the milkman. I can still hear the porcelain milkjug shattering into a thousand pieces and feel the fright and utter helplessness of seeing my "Oma" lying unconsciously on the sidewalk.
Actually, at this point, my grandmother forms the centerpiece of my life, more so than my mother, always too busy is trying to feed the family. My sisters have to go out and ask the farmers for permission to go over the harvested grain and potato fields to pick up the leftovers. The grain goes into the old coffee grinder and provides a coarse flower for bread or pancakes, and many buckets of potatoes missed by the harvesting equipment are salvaged from the potato fields. The farmers are wealthy these days. They have more than enough to eat and drive a hard bargain. I hear that some of them have so many valuable oriental rugs, that they are stacked in rolls in the barns. People will trade in their most treasured possessions just to have food to eat. The basic staples, such as flower, potatoes and eggs carry a high price, since the rationing coupons just do not make end’s meet.
One day Mama has a terrible argument and screaming match in the hallway with her older sister Anna, who also lives in the same apartment house. They fight fiercely over a two-piece kitchen hutch, which my aunt and her husband are carrying out of our apartment, claiming it to be theirs. But Mama is no fool; they get away with the top piece but the bottom piece stays and I remember it for a long time. Eventually my father finds another top and paints it a matching color. While the argument is in full swing I am pressing myself into the corner of the hallway, clinging to Mama’s skirt while crying bitterly. I am afraid!
Memories are so very strange. The multitude of things we remember as adults at times seem rather insignificant, however to a child of such a tender age they are simply monumental. Thus I even recall being scolded for wetting my pants while playing in the sandbox, the most scratchy and uncomfortable hand-knitted woolen underpants ever made. I also remember well the