A Gnostic Childhood
Part III
We Arrive In Borken Near Kassel
The final days of the war were frightening because of the constant bombings of cities such as Kassel and Fulda. We heard the bombers coming and didn't know if they would bomb Borken or keep going. They sounded like a huge swarm of bees approaching and my mother would grab me and run with me to the "Bunker" where the townspeople would seek shelter and protection during these attacks. Even though Kassel and Fulda were quite some distance away, we could feel the ground in the bunker shaking when the planes dropped their deadly loads.
When the
Americans came to Borken, they confiscated all radios and "valuables"
such as watches and nick-knacks. Herr Bott, a man of conscience and generosity
put us and Frau Beumelburg up with members of his family of which there were
many all over this small town. We lived with Frau
Ursula who was the wife of Herrn Bott's brother or something like that. I
shall be eternally grateful for their help and caring, especially since they too
had so little left. Hunger was our main concern, and I remember going with my
mother and Frau Beumelburg, who was "Tante" Beumelburg to me, through the wheat-fields looking for wheat kernels that had fallen to the ground
which we were allowed to pick up and which my mother would later grind into a
resemblance of flower. I think, she even collected enough to take it to a flower
mill and have it ground there at times. We ate soups made out of this flower
with bread crusts, which we had been given by toothless neighbors who were
unable to chew the hard crusts and I ate my
first orange getting orange-peels, from which we removed the white lining, from neighbors also. Even though it tasted
bitter, I liked it very much because it seemed so "exotic" and
unavailable. The American soldiers were okay for the most part. What stands out in
my mind were the black soldiers who seemed very kind and considerate and without
the "victor's" attitude. I remember when my mother took me to a huge
indoor swimming pool where I ran around playing with other kids when I
suddenly ran right smack into a guard rail made out of iron. Having broken my
nose and bleeding profusely, I screamed as loud as I could under the
circumstances, when a black US Army medic came running to me, picked me up and
hugged me and calmed me down. He put a butterfly on the open wound on my nose
and ran off to get me ice packs. Then he gave me my first chocolate, Cadbury
chocolate, and I was in seventh heaven. He also introduced me to the joys of
Wrigley's juicy fruit chewing gum. I still love the taste and smell of juicy
fruit gum to this day. And never shall I forget the loving kindness of this
black American soldier.
Sometimes, on
our walks searching for wheat, we came across old fox-holes, "Schuetzengraben," US
Army dug-outs from the final days of WWII, in which I discovered discarded comic
books like 'Sad Sack' and 'Superman.' I still remember the
smell of the cheap pulp paper of these comic books which amazed me to no end.
Sometimes, playing with other kids, we would go to the garbage dump and find
Third Reich memorabilia such as Hitler Youth albums and daggers and German Army
helmets. I would gather albums and helmets and daggers and carry them
"home" to the Botts' house where my mother would turn pale and run
them back with me to the dump. Everybody was desperately afraid to be branded as
a Nazi if they were found in possession of these items. Tante Ursel's husband was suddenly
arrested and put into a concentration camp run by the allies for former Nazi's.
He had been denounced by one of our neighbors who had a grudge against him.
Being just an unimportant follower, he was released after some time and told
about the horrors he experienced there. Such as the torture to get information
about things he couldn't have any knowledge about. When he came back he was a
changed man, ugly and mean-spirited. Once, after I drove him crazy with
questions, he picked me up and sat me down on a hot stove to shut me up. I was a
hand full in those days, always talking and asking questions, always wanting to
KNOW why things were the way they were. One time we were walking on main street
in Borken, when we saw a group of American soldiers hanging around in front of a
building. I, brazen as I was then, ran across the street to them and asked them in my
best English for candy, chocolate or chewing gum. These soldiers were
hot-blooded Puerto-Ricans and Mexicans who found me utterly obnoxious and pulled
their revolvers out pointing them at me and telling me in broken English to get
lost. I would have nothing of it and kept on badgering them for candy, when my
mother came running to grab me by the arm and pull me forcefully away from them.
I felt deeply hurt and embarrassed and threw a fit by letting myself fall on the
road and screaming my heart out.
II shall never forget the generosity
and kindness of black American G.I's
Another time we walked by a US Army motor pool and I ran up to a jeep and climbed in it sitting behind the wheel like a real trooper. My mother, in deep fear and embarrassment, tried to pull me out of the jeep but I would have nothing of it, holding on to the steering wheel for dear life. Soldiers came running and tried to coax me out of the vehicle but I wouldn't budge. Even the promise of candy didn't override my desire to drive the jeep.
Finally a GI indicated to us that he would give me
a ride in the jeep if I sat in the passenger seat. I somehow trusted him and he
really did drive me around for a little while while my mother stood pale in fear
and embarrassment. This is understandable now, when one realizes that this was
an "occupational" army which had orders not to "fraternize"
with the "enemy." Given the language barrier and my irrational behavior
in those "heady" days I understand now that we were in true danger of
being arrested or even shot by an overzealous GI.
I hated school with a passion. My first day in April 1946 was a total disaster despite the cone shaped "Schultuete" a cone-shaped paper container usually filled with candy and small toys, which every German first grader gets from his parents on his first day. Of course, there wasn't much in this large cone since we didn't even have enough to eat. But, somehow, my mother and friends and neighbors came up with some things which they thought would get me on a happy start in the world of "organized" learning. Not so, I felt completely lost in the huge class-room which served not just one grade but four or even more. The whole thing went over my head and I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of kids, the noise and the orders given to four or more grades in one classroom. Not knowing if the teacher was talking to us, which is me, in the first grade group, or to the other bigger kids from other grades, I became totally disillusioned with school and 'organized' learning, a feeling and attitude which would stay with me for the rest of my life.
Something mystical or strange at least, happened one day as I was with a friend, Karl-Heinz Zach and his mother wanted to take a picture of him with his German shepherd dog standing by a fence close to his home. I suddenly felt something within me say: "This looks like America where you must go to establish......" I can't say "what" I was to establish, because I don't want to cause myself any problems now, as stupid people might hold it against me.
The day came when Tante Beumelburg left us to return to Berlin-Erkner in order to take care of things at the "Bootshaus Beumelburg." It seems that conditions had somewhat improved in Germany to the point where one could travel again by train if one was able to secure the necessary military government authorization papers. My grandparents had also contacted my mother by mail, or vice-versa, that things were o.k. with them and that my mother and I should come and live with them.
After some time passed, my mother decided to risk the trip with me and move to Berlin. I remember very little of this trip only that we had to change trains many times and that we had to wait in Goslar for another train connection. In Goslar we had to spend the night in the train station packed with refugees. We had some thin, watery soup in the station restaurant and I remember that it tasted like water with lumps of something...
These are my friends from Borken in 1950. 'Tante' Ursel sent me this picture to Berlin with the caption 'Kennst Du noch welche'? Herbst 1950. Of course since we left in 1947 they have grown a lot but I still remember Karl-Heinz Zach and another fellow named 'Friedhelm.'
This
is the questionnaire (Fragebogen) my mother had to fill out
to "prove" that she wasn't a "nazi". After a period of time she received
a kind of passport with her picture on it, as proof that she had been "cleared".
Above are the remnants still in my possession of this "clearance" passport.
Let me continue my story:
Go to "A Gnostic Childhood" Page 4
For more
information on post-war Berlin and Germany
please read Freda Utley's superb book:
THE HIGH COST OF VENGEANCE
on this website.