A Gnostic Childhood
Part XVII
Working for ARWA
1959-1960
After
recuperating for a couple of weeks from being a baker's apprentice, I had to
look for work. Needless to say, I was itching for adventure and all my planning
for the future was related to find a way to be able to see the world. Of course,
America was first and foremost on my mind, but, at the moment, there seemed to
be no possible way to get there. Thus, any country would do to satisfy my need
to see the world.
Seeing an advertisement for workers needed at a women's hosieries
manufacturer in Berlin-Tempelhof caught my attention and imagination. ARWA was a
large German company with plants in various areas in Germany and in South-Africa
and I had heard that it was possible for workers to be sent there, upon request,
to work in South-Africa. Thus I applied at ARWA and was hired.
So, around mid October 1959 I began working there in the huge knitting
plant. Unfortunately there isn't much that I remember, except that it was a very
noisy plant filled with large knitting machines which vibrated the floor of the
walk-ways between the rows of machines. One could feel the vibration strongly
going right up one's legs to one's head. The noise coming from those vibrating
machines was deafening and many workers there wore earplugs. My job was to walk
between two rows of machines lined up for about 100 feet and to listen for a
certain sound which was clearly audible, even in the midst of the "normal"
noise. Sounding like a high pitched screech, it indicated that a machine had a
broken threat or needle. I would then have to reset the malfunctioning machine,
rethread it and if necessary, find out of perhaps hundreds of needles which were
arranged in a kind of circle, which one was broken and needed replacement.
On my first or second day there, I remember replacing a needle and
rethreading it, when upon restarting the machine, the whole row of machines
started screeching and breaking down. The foreman came running and in near panic
stopping the whole row of machines from an emergency switch. I felt like an
idiot and never quite understood what had gone wrong, except that I was
responsible for ruining thousands of needles and God knows how many stockings...
The foreman was a decent guy though and patiently explained to me again how to
do the whole process again. My suspicion is that perhaps I had put the wrong
size needle into the ring and thus caused the "catastrophe".
Another memory of ARWA is the great cafeteria they had and the really
excellent hot lunch they served there. What was even more surprising, was that
they also served a bottle of beer for lunch. I never had it though, because I
was afraid that it would make me too sleepy to continue working after lunch. But
many of my co-workers did. -Living in "puritanical" America now, I can not even
imagine having beer for lunch at an American factory. After working there for a
while, I began to ask fellow workers about what it took to be sent to
South-Africa by ARWA. They told me that one had to work for the company at least
two years before being able to apply for such a "transfer". Of course, I knew
right then and there, that I would never be able to go through this work there
for two years. Not being the factory-worker type of personality, I had just
barely hung on to this job by the hope of being sent to South-Africa soon. But
two years of that drudgery, noise and vibration and even then not knowing for
certain that I would be sent, wasn't worth it to me. So I began to look for
other ways and means to find a job which would open a possibility for adventure
for me.
By early May 1960, I was ready to make a move and went to the large city
of Berlin employment office in Neukoelln...close to my former school at the
Zwillingestrasse.
Applying for
job as fire fighter
at the US HQ in Berlin-Clayallee
Looking there at one of the many bulletin-boards with job listings, I saw
an add that truly caught my imagination. It stated that the United States Air
Force was looking for Fire Fighter trainees at Tempelhof Airport and gave an
address in Berlin-Dahlem, Clay Allee, to apply in person. And I knew right then
and there that this was exactly what I had been looking for. Immediately I left
the employment office and took the subway (U-Bahn) to Oscar Helene Heim station
in Dahlem and as it turned out, the station was located just about right across
from the U.S. Headquarters in Berlin, which included the Consulate and the
employment office for civilian employment by the U.S. Armed Forces.
Main entrance to HQ building and
US Consulate. The employment
office was actually across the street from a side entrance.
Photo credit:
http://www.berlin-brigade.de/
Coming up the steps
of the Oscar Helene Heim subway station, I couldn't believe what I saw. It
seemed that I had arrived in America. At least, an America as I had always
envisioned it. In this genteel neighborhood, a suburb of Berlin, life seemed to
take on a different dimension. Although the architecture of the various
buildings there were typical creations of National Socialist construction, they
could also easily be related to buildings found in Washington, DC. Having read
many books and seen many pictures of America, I could immediately see the
similarity.
Everything seemed so unlike to what I had experienced as typical of
Berlin. For one thing, there was plenty of open space. Clayallee itself was a
wide highway like street with broad sidewalks. Pine-trees, well kept hedges and
shrubs surrounded elegant villas and former German ministry buildings which now
served the occupational US forces. The American flag was flying everywhere and I
could see US Army and Air Force soldiers driving by in their big American Ford's
and Chevy's. A little further down Clayallee was a typical American shopping
center, movie theater and school for dependant children. Also sitting back quite
a distance from the road were apartment houses for military families. American
buses passed by taking soldiers as well as their wives and children to other
military and civilian installations in Berlin. US Army buses were dark olive
colored and Air Force buses dark blue. Bus stops were marked with their own
special signs which were placed often near Berlin city bus stop signs and I
watched with envy the passengers getting on and off those buses. To say that
those Americans were like gods to us is hardly an exaggeration. They were like
emissaries from another, better world, a country resembling paradise on earth,
they were Americans. Even their clothing looked so different, so relaxed and
colorful, compared to our stiff looking, bland German style.... Needless to say,
I had entered the subway in the squalor of the inner city, passed through the
endless, dark and dank smelling tunnels underneath the teeming city not only to
have crossed a large part of Berlin, but to have arrived in heaven. I was
suddenly in the America of my dreams!
Walking to the HQ
building of my destination, I saw a sign pointing to the employment office
located at a side entrance off a side street. All signs were in English and
German. A street crossing sign marked "Pedestrians" caught my attention because
the word looked so strange to me. There were also thick yellow lines where one
was supposed to cross the street. There was a guard at this gate who spoke
German and one could ask there for information about getting to the employment
office, although there were also plenty of signs in both languages to point out
the way.
When I finally arrived at the correct office, I was handed a form to fill
out by a friendly German secretary. This form too was printed in English and
German. After filling it out and handing it back to the secretary, she asked me
to wait in a waiting room, telling me that she would call me as soon as she was
able to contact the Tempelhof Airport fire department to verify details about
the job.
After waiting for about thirty minutes, she came back and handed me some
papers which I was to take to the fire department in Tempelhof. She had
scheduled an interview for me there for the next day. The only thing was, she
told me, that the job appointment as fire-fighter trainee would not be open
until September, could I wait for four month? Of course I couldn't. I needed a
job as soon as possible. Gathering my courage, I asked her if she didn't have a
kind of temporary job for me right then to bridge me over. Looking through her
rolex index cards, she said that the only immediate opening was at the US Forces
laundry at Andrews Barracks in Lichterfelde. Without hesitation, I agreed to the
job in the laundry until my appointment as fire fighter would come through. So I
ended up having to go for two job interviews, one at Tempelhof airport and the
other at the laundry in Andrews barracks.
Job interview at Tempelhof Airport
Arriving at a side
gate which gave access to the fire department at Tempelhof airport, a German
guard, employed by the US Air Force, made a phone call to the fire department to
verify my appointment. Then he pointed to the open gates in which I could see
four large fire trucks and told me to just walk in there and as for Herrn
Gaertner. In front of the gates I saw a volley ball net and wondered what it
was, as I had never heard of that game before. Walking into the station through
one of the open gates, I saw younger men polishing the huge red "American
LaFrance" fire trucks. Asking for Herrn Gaertner, he came suddenly sliding
down a shiny pole from upstairs. A genuinely nice man in his forties, his
mannerisms and open friendliness made me feel at ease immediately. Offering me
one of his "Pall Mall's", he ushered me into a small office on the right of the
station. There was a coffee pot and he poured me a cup, handing it to me, he
pointed to some sugar and a milk container. Everything about him was so kind and
comforting that I just knew that the job was mine. He told me that there were
about four applicants and that the final word would come from T/Sgt. Quarles,
the US Air force sergeant in charge of the fire department, but that he would
definitely put in a good recommendation for me. After he had explained a general
outline of what it was like to work at the fire department and that the hours of
work were 24 hours on duty and then 24 hours off, which I really liked, he took
me on a tour through the facility. Besides the large garage for the two fire
trucks trucks, a water-tanker and an
ambulance as well as a Volkswagen bus as a general "run-around" vehicle, there
was next to Herrn Gaertner's office a CQ room with an extensive, complicated
looking, switchboard and two way radio where the emergency calls, mainly from
the airport tower, came in and from which then the operator on duty would sound
the alarm, announce the kind and location of the emergency over the fire
department's speaker system and open all the gates for the trucks to be able to
get out. On the other side of the station was a quite large kitchen, where one
of the fire fighters did the cooking of lunch and supper. Walking up a spiral
stairway, we came to the upstairs quarters with two huge dormitories, one for
each alternating shifts. There were about 15 cots and lockers in each dormitory
and Herr Gaertner explained that we could sleep there at night with our heavy
rubber boots and silvery looking asbestos pants rolled over the boots by our
bedside so we could slip into our boots and just pull the pants up in seconds.
More or less in the center area of the dormitories were two large holes with a
silver pole in the middle. Looking carefully over the edge and down below, it
seemed like we were quite high up. On the bottom, down below, was a large,
round, rubber platform to provide a bouncy softer "landing" for fire men sliding
down the poles with speed. In order to reach the pole, one had to lean over the
large hole and grab the pole with both hands, then wrap one leg around it and
cross it quickly with the other leg while also shifting from holding the pole
with one's hands to the crock of the right arm and using one's crossed feet
pressed against the pole, to determine the speed and final stop of one's
ascension down the pole. Herr Gaertner demonstrated the whole operation and
after having "landed" downstairs and looking up at me, told me to give it a shot
as he would watch and monitor my moves. I must admit that I was very scared.
Heights didn't agree with me very well and looking down while reaching for the
pole, Herr Gaertner kept encouraging me. He told me not to look down but only at
the pole straight ahead of me. So, after some hesitation, I had no choice but to
lean over the "abyss", grab the pole with my sweaty hands and literally jump to
wrap my legs around the pole. Reaching the bottom before I anticipated it, I
used my left hand to break instead of my feet and "burned" my hand from the
friction. Not badly in any sense, but knowing that I hadn't done it quite right
and emboldened by my "success", I asked Herrn Gaertner if I could practice some
more. Walking back up the spiral staircase, Herr Gaertner demonstrated his moves
again and when my turn came, I did it right. Feeling so proud of myself for not
only having mastered my fear of heights, but having also slid down with ease and
speed, I came to enjoy the whole thing and goaded Herrn Gaertner to do it over
and over again. He seemed to enjoy my youthful exuberance and determination. And
I think, in retrospect, that it probably was just that exuberance which landed
me eventually in the training program above other, probably better qualified,
applicants. Who knows? Herr Gaertner did seem to genuinely like me, even before
the "pole-slides", but sometimes it is just such a spontaneous determination, as
I must have shown, which makes the most lasting impression.
Anyways, after asking my new friend how long it would take before I could expect
an answer to my application, he told me that it would be at least a couple of
month. I would have liked to start right then and there, but knew that there was
no way to speed-up the process. Herr Gaertner again encouraged me by telling me
that he thought that all would go well for me and that he looked forward to my
coming to work with him and his crew.
Happily, and somewhat consoled, I said "Auf Wiedersehen" and walked back to the
gate.
Job interview
for a temporary job at the US Armed Forces Laundry
at Andrews Barracks, Berlin-Lichterfelde
Main Entrance to Andrews Barracks
which was the former
Lichterfelde Kaserne of SS Leibstandarte. A sprawling complex
of pre world war I buildings and newer buildings, like this one,
built during the Third Reich.
After being at the
exciting fire station, the thought of applying at the laundry was not very
stimulating. But I needed a job immediately and thus had no other choice, but to
go home to eat something and then take a bus to the Andrews Barracks in
Lichterfelde.
Inside Andrew Barracks
As far as I
remember, the Armed Forces Laundry was located off a side entrance to Andrews
Barracks. I had to pass a guard post whom I told that I wanted to apply for a
job at the laundry and who then told me exactly where to go. The laundry itself
was a huge warehouse like building with all kinds of washing, drying and
steam-pressing machines as well as a dry-cleaning section. It was hot in there
from all the washing machines, mangles and tumble dryers, but that didn't bother
me at all since I was used to extreme heat from my work at the bakery.
I had to see a Mr. Peko, who turned out to be a middle-aged, almost
military looking man with a crew-cut. He told me that he was originally from
Czechoslovakia and had immigrated to the United States after the war. When I
told him that I too wanted to emigrate to America, he seemed impressed and
somehow happy, telling me how much he liked it there and that he looked forward
to returning to the US within the next few years. From the papers given to me at
the Clayallee HQ employment office, he could see that my job with him would only
be temporary because I was waiting for an appointment with the US Air Force fire
department at Tempelhof airport and that seemed to disappoint him. It seemed to
me that he had taken an instant liking to me and would have liked to have me
work at the laundry permanently. He too, he told me, was a civilian employee of
the US Army, even as the manager of the laundry.
After a few more formalities and small-talk, he took me down from his
office unto the ground floor. I should mention here that his office was located
in such a way that he could look down through his huge windows and see everybody
and everything going on in the laundry. At the time this struck me as terribly
distrustful, if not disgusting. Never had I seen anything like this, that every
move and action of a worker would be monitored. But then, I reasoned, that it
really wasn't his fault, or even the Army's fault that the office was located
there and that the building was constructed in such a way.
Anyways, Mr. Peko seemed easy-going and friendly as he walked me through
all the different sections of the operation. When we came to the huge,
commercial dryers, he told me that this is where I would be working as a
"tumbler operator". Telling me that it was especially hot and that it involved
lifting amongst other items, wet fatigues out of laundry baskets into the open
dryer doors, he asked me if I thought that I could do the job. Of course, I said
"sure" immediately, telling him about my apprenticeship in a bakery and the
heavy labor and heat this work had involved. Reassured, he took me back to his
office and asked me when I could start working. I told him that I could start
immediately and he told me, with a smile, to be at work the next morning at 8 am
and left his office, after a hearty handshake, excited at the prospect of
working for the US Army within Andrews Barracks. After all, wasn't I now one
step closer to America?
Working at the
laundry
and the kindness of a gay friend.
Coming home, my
mother, as always, didn't seem to share my enthusiasm very much. Certainly she
was happy that I had another job, but working in a laundry didn't exactly give
her much hope, -even if it was at Andrews Barracks, working for the US Army. To
me it was the first step into a new world and the fulfillment of my destiny. To
her it was just another "hopeless" menial job, -Americans or no Americans. While
my whole life has always been guided and directed by an inner sense of
"intuitive destiny", she could not ever understand what made me "tick".
Nevertheless, I was happy and certain that my path had been cleared by
mysterious, hidden forces. To me there was no such thing as a "lowly" job. Every
job, to me, was slavery and my only concern was that I would be free to be
myself and free to think and dream while "working". Actually, the more menial a
job was considered to be, the more appealing it was to me, since physical labor
could be done mechanically, robot-like, while I could use my mind, at the same
time, to think and explore whatever was the driving force of my "intellectual"
pursuits at the moment. Money and income, never concerned me much, as I was much
more influenced by how a job would fit into my need to remain "free".
Leaving the apartment house at about 7 am the next morning, I rode my
bike from Mariendorf to Lichterfelde. A ride which took me about thirty minutes
and arrived at the laundry by 7:30. A fellow employee whom I met in the
locker-room, took me kindly under his wings. His name was Arne and he told me
eventually, after working with him for about a month, that he was gay and that
he had been a German prisoner of war in a P.O.W. camp in America for some three
years and loved every day of it. In fact, he told me, that he wanted to stay in
Texas, where his camp was located, but that this hadn't been possible. For those
three years he had worked in the fields of Texas and even in the streets of a
city which I think was Amarillo and he couldn't even express how well he was
treated there, in the camp itself and by the local population. Sometimes, when
telling me some of his experiences there, he would even become teary-eyed,
overwhelmed by memories and emotions. I shall always remember Arne's kindness
and willingness to help. He was a great soul and good friend to me during those
three odd month at the laundry.
Arne lead me to the floor manager who showed me to the dryers. There
were, I believe, 10 machines I had to keep running without loss of time. In
other words, I had to organize how long it took for certain loads, like
fatigues, bundled underwear, linens or private bundled clothing and thus
organize the filling up of the dryers. I also had to make sure that certain
items were completely dry and others, which were going to be pressed after
drying, were left somewhat wet. Arne operated washing machines right across from
my dryers and would ever so often push laundry carts emptied from his washing
machines, next to my dryers. Often, when in doubt about drying times of certain
items, I would ask him then for his advice. He knew the laundry operation in
every phase and was always ready to even help me load my machines when I
couldn't keep up with the volume of work.
The first two weeks were stressful, but after a while I got the hang of
it and began to enjoy my work there. Fast paced, hard work has always given me a
"rush", making me feel good and important, as a link in a chain of labor. There
was a cafeteria where we could buy food and snacks and sit for our thirty minute
break and talk. I couldn't get enough of Arne's first hand experiences in
America and he enjoyed telling about his experiences. Arne had a much younger
boy-friend working at the laundry too and he didn't hesitate to look at me with
disdain, if not ill concealed hatred. Of course, Arne was aware of his
boy-friends ugly behavior towards me and, in order to make me understand the
reason, told me that he was homosexual and that his boy-friend was just jealous
of me. It didn't bother me too much after I knew the reason, but it made me feel
degraded and, in an odd way, like a "sex-object". Despite it all, because I
liked Arne so much as a person and for his having lived in America, I pretended
that his friends behavior didn't bother me at all and continued my friendship
with him. And Arne never made any advances towards me, but told me that I would,
one day, understand more about being homosexual. Perhaps he could sense my
innocence in sexual matters and thought that I too would one day "come out of
the closet", which never happened. But I must admit, that, through the course of
my life, I had many gay friends. In fact I probably had more close gay friends
than "straight" ones. These were all people whom I dearly loved, but not in a
sexual way. Perhaps I was always drawn to gay men, because of their
intelligence, kindness and non-judgmental attitude towards me. They were open,
accepting and some of them even gregarious people who weren't tied to family,
children and social status and thus took me in as just another "oddball". Off
course I know that not all gay's are like that and that some are very much the
opposite, especially when it comes to social status and money. But the one's I
knew, my friends, were, just as I said before, great friends and great minds.
One day, in late July, Mr. Peko called me in his office and told me with a sad face that he had bad news. I was devastated and could hardly move, knowing that it must have something to do with either my "appointment" to the fire-department, or my job performance. Then he smiled and explained that the news for me were bad news for him, because I was one of his best workers and he was about to loose me. Flattered and excited I reached for the paper he was handing me and read that I was to start on August 8th at the fire department. While looking at the paper, he told me that he had given his special recommendation for me to the fire-chief, T/Sgt. Quarles. Shaking his hand with both of my hands, I thanked him profusely, telling him that I would come back if I didn't like being a fire-fighter. He said: "anytime," smiling knowingly as I left to continue my work.
Having received what I had hoped and worked so hard for, I was suddenly facing a dilemma; I loved my job, my co-workers and the environment of Andrews Barracks so much that, upon receiving what I had wished for, I wasn't really happy. Should I stay at the laundry instead? My intuition led me to understand that for me, in order to get to the United States, the laundry would be a dead-end, while working at the fire department along with American G.I's, there would be a much better chance to find ways and means. Of course, I had no idea what those "ways and means" could possibly be, but I, nevertheless, was certain that my "destiny" would lead me there, as long as I would follow my "intuition".
After my last day at the laundry was finished and I already had said "auf Wiedersehen" to Mr. Peko, saying "auf Wiedersehen" to Arne was painfully sad. We both knew that we would never see each other again and had tears in our eyes, as we embraced each other for the first and last time. Turning my back on the laundry and my beloved "Andrews Barracks", I could not possibly have known, that Andrews Barracks would eventually play a pivotal role in my ability to emigrate to the United States of America.....
Continue the journey to page XVIII
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