Dearest grandchildren,
This entry speaks pretty much for itself. Thomas has found his way to München, found his brother and sister and now, as an orphan and a displaced person, he must begin to figure out what the rest of his life will look like.
Here are his words:
“Bitt’schön, wo geht der Zug auf Solln[1]?” I said to the man with the heavy black mustache. He wore a uniform and looked official. I had practiced that sentence for the last half-hour while making my way through downtown München to the train station. I knew how Bavarians felt about Prussians (meaning anybody who speaks high German or another German dialect) and I didn’t want him to think I was a stranger here.
Proper high German for going (to a place) is nach (that place), but I thought that in proper Bavarian it was auf (that place), and I was rather proud that I knew that. Like all Germans, I loved the Bavarian dialect. I thought I remembered how it sounded from peacetime vacations in Bavaria and Austria so long ago. Unlike most Germans, though, I tried to imitate it.
The mustache looked at me, a bit bewildered. I must have said that wrong. I blushed.
“Nach Solln?” He said, emphatically. “18:15.” Obviously, he had seen right through me and now he tried to speak a language I would understand.
“On which track?” I wanted to know. He didn’t have to think about that one. There was only one usable platform and track. What amazed me was the amount of order which had already been reestablished here in the American Occupation Zone. The trains here actually ran on a schedule! For all I knew, the train would even leave on time. But then, things run a little more relaxed in Bavaria...
18:15. That would give me a bit of time to rest after the long trek from Hof, the town in the northeastern corner of Bavaria, at the Czech border, where I first had entered the American Zone yesterday. From there, I had hitched on a variety of trucks, staying on country roads, and avoiding the Autobahn because too many of the Autobahn bridges had been destroyed. It would take many years to fix those.
It was dark and cold on this winter night just after Christmas. I was hungry, tired, and dirty. I put one of my valuable suitcases up against a brick wall to sit on and put my feet on the other one with my backpack under my knees just in case I might fall asleep. This technique of sleeping had become a habit, helping me keep my three pieces of luggage with me at all times. The four of us had traveled far like that.
I was so ready for a bit of civilization. It had been more than a week since I’d seen civilized life, over there in the Russian Zone, at Nora’s house.
Nora. Since last April, she had been the center of my life. How hard it had been to leave her; we were practically engaged! In the days and nights before I left, we had become closer than ever. Now, knowing there would be a border between us, the parting was especially bitter, even if it was only a border inside Germany between the Western Occupation Zone and the Eastern one. As it turned out, that border cut the world in half for many years to come. When I sat there in the dark, even though strangers hurried by and huddled around me, my thoughts were far away, and slivers of poems floated through my mind:
Wie hab ich das gefühlt, was Abschied heißt,
Wie weiß ich’s noch: ein unverwundenes,
Grausames Etwas, das ein Schönverbundenes
Noch einmal zeigt, und hinhält, und zerreißt...
-
How I have felt what parting means!
I feel it still: a blunt and cruel something
That once more shows what had been beautifully tied
And holds it up in front of you, and tears apart....
Oh yes, the pain of leaving was real, just as Rilke had said. But it was not the only poem going through my mind. I felt vaguely uneasy about all that had happened in that last weeks between Nora and me. It had all been so new, so binding, so dangerous.
Es war noch Zeit, ich konnte gehn,
Und alles wäre ungeschehn,
Und alles wäre rein und klar,
Wie es vor jener Stunde war.
Es mußte sein. Die Stunde kam,
Die kurze, schwüle, und sie nahm
Unwandelbar, mit jähem Schnitt
Den ganzen Glanz der Jugend mit. Hermann Hesse
There was still time, I could have left,
And everything would be undone,
All would be innocent and clear
Like once, before that hour came.
It had to be. The hour came,
That short and sultry one, it came,
and severed with a sudden chop
The very luster of my youth.
The short train was backing onto the track and irrevocably, with a sudden click brought me back to the demands of the hour. I was almost at the end of my journey, and I was ready for it to be over. Since leaving Nora’s house I had lugged those suitcases onto freight cars and trucks, stood with them in lines full of refugees, and slept with them on straw sacks in the holding camp and in a tool shed of a railroad yard. Lugging them with me wherever I went. More trains, no beds, more trucks, and more sweaty walks, carrying with me all that was valuable to us three siblings. I was ready for civilization.
The small apartment above the fire house in München-Solln was quite civil — and even warm!
(The Solln firehouse today.)
What a relief to see that Rainer, Ulli, and Renate had arrived, and had managed to settle in. It was such an enormous relief to be together again, safely. My “room” was a couch in what passed for the living room. It was all quite homey, and they even had a pet: a hedgehog, of all things. He felt quite at home under and on the furniture, even on the kitchen table!
The morning after I arrived, I immediately embarked upon the most urgent task, registering at the police station. Not only was it the law (and still is!) to check in and out with the City whenever you move from one place to another, but it was vitally important to establish myself as a legal resident of München as soon as possible. I needed a priority standing among all the people who were vying for the right to live here. In those days, becoming a legal resident of a city was harder than becoming a citizen of another country is today. München, like practically all large cities, had seen the worst of the bombings and livable lodging was desperately rare. There were simply too many people who wanted to live here - people who had lost their homes elsewhere in Germany and had relatives or friends here, like I did, thousands of KZ (Konzentrationslager, or concentration camp) prisoners who had been freed by the Allies, and millions of refugees who were expelled from formerly German lands in the East. They had all fled into a destroyed and already crowded country. And then there was the human flotsam and jetsam of war that always seeks the cities. The Municipal Housing Office, which was in charge of assigning all lodging space, all apartments, all rooms, even all large closets (it seems), was simply overwhelmed.
I didn’t realize until a year later how critical it had been to establish my squatter’s rights there.
Next priority: food ration coupons. One could not survive on the rations of others for more than a day. Now, with the blessing of the Polizeiliche Meldebehörde[2] in my hands, I could apply for ration stamps. I don’t remember what I got, but I remember being amazed at how generous the rations were compared to the shortages in the Russian Zone, where I had just come from. A week’s worth of rations in the American zone consisted of two pounds of bread, half a pound of meat, half a pound of fat or oil, a quarter-pound of sugar, jam or honey, plus some pasta, some legumes or rice, and some skim milk. The rest, mainly fish, potatoes, fruit, or vegetables, were catch-as-catch-can (but usually as can’t catch!).
Over the next four years, the food situation improved, but only very gradually. Fields had been destroyed, farmers had been killed or were in captivity in Russia, and millions of cows had perished in the fighting. The entire transportation system was severely damaged or destroyed and there was very little gas, even for the number one priority: food distribution.
Even today, having lived for half a century in a country where food is plenty, it hurts me, down in the pit of my stomach, to leave food on my plate or throw away leftovers. People who have felt the pain of hunger will never waste food again, not even when they can afford all they want.
More generational trauma here! Throughout my childhood I was reminded of the emotional and physical pain Dad speaks of here. He had felt the physical pain of hunger down to the pit of his empty stomach and the emotional pain of food insecurity was with him not only during the war, but for years afterwards, as well. My mother, like all Germans, also knew the physical and emotional pain of hunger. The result was that food and hunger - not mine, but others’ – took center stage throughout my childhood.
Appetite, though – eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full – was an unknown concept to me during my childhood. We ate when we were told to, what we were told to, for as long as we were told to. The only context in which I heard the word “appetite” was in regards to spoiling it, never as something I could gauge or have any control over. I understand WHY I’ve experienced generational trauma regarding food but, in spite of a million diets, therapy, and even hypnotism, I still struggle to define my own appetite and to assert my own control over my own food.
Now it was time for more normal-life challenges, such as getting busy to build a future!
That required much thinking and discussion about professions and earnings potential, about personal talents and challenges, about visions and prospects. As the times dictated, those discussions were rather pragmatic and centered more on what was available and realistic, rather than on personal dreams. One had to focus on practicalities: where could I find work for a decent wage that would provide me with enough income to find a place to live and would entitle me to higher worker food rations?
Rainer had been very lucky to get a job with the American Military Government — why not try that? After all, working there got him a hot meal at lunch, and possibly access to cigarettes which were the hottest black-market item. Not only hot — they were the only hard currency: a single Lucky Strike cigarette was worth 5 Reichsmark and the “whisper exchange rate” may have been “four Ami cigarettes for one pound of bread.” Often, food or ration coupons couldn't be bought on the black market for any amount of money at all, only for cigarettes, but you had to be sure not to be caught “playing the black market” – which existed all around you. While walking down a street, you might hear a whisper. “Shoes? Fat coupons? Silk stockings?” If that item was something you wanted and could buy or trade, you followed the voice to the nearest house entrance or dark spot, and started bargaining. Just about anything could be found on the black market. Once, Rainer bought a bundle of plates of pure copper on a whim!
The black market was largely run by displaced persons, DP’s, in UN lingo, who were occupying a special place in society at the time. They were largely people freed from Nazi camps, and many of them spoke Yiddish, dialects, or languages we didn’t understand. They were considered “broken” -- dismal, miserable, homeless, and poor --yet with special access to goods and treated by authorities with tolerance. They lived mostly in the Bogenhausen District, an area of private villas that had largely survived the bombing. But the black market was not a place; it moved wherever there were crowded sidewalks or unobserved hiding places. And its currency was always cigarettes.
Rainer helped me fill out the application form for the Military Government and introduced me to a strange new world. It turned out that world didn’t want me. It was a very short interview, and it didn’t feel right. Aside from an unfinished high school education, I had absolutely nothing to offer. I didn’t know enough American English even for a dumb office job, and I didn't look like a good warehouse worker either. I couldn’t understand the American GI when he wanted to know how old I was. He kindly but firmly told me to come back with better English. At the time I was quite sure I wouldn’t.
So, what next? Schools were only beginning to open, though nothing was really operational yet. I spent a few days finding that out and ended up quite discouraged. I even tried to do a little studying on my own, but of course that didn’t get very far. At that time, Rainer still wanted to become an engineer. Under his influence, the idea of becoming an engineer made sense to me. It certainly was the kind of profession that Germany would need, and it had a certain glamour value, partly because it would be a respectably masculine and modern thing to do, partly because it was what Rainer wanted to do.
Rainer had worked at one time for a small company called Bauer Kompressoren, where air compressors were built in a small shop not much bigger than a garage. They were in operation now again, - or tried to be. Maybe I could learn something useful there and at the same time get worker’s rations. Besides, they were in Obersendling, only a half-hour walk from Solln.
Bauer Kompressoren hired me, and there I learned two things that I never forgot - arc welding and lighting cigarettes without matches. Arc welding has come in handy over the years. The cigarette lighting was of immediate value, as matches were hard to come by. I discovered that it was easy to jam a steel rod into a grinding wheel so hard that it took only a few seconds to glow bright red. Voilà— an instant cigarette lighter. Barbaric! (But macho.)
My guardian, Konsul Rothe, who was my father's old bank partner, was neither impressed with macho nor very pleased with where I was headed. In fact, being steeped in staunchly German values of the pre-war period, he was quite unnerved, and strongly urged a more energetic search for an appropriate institution of higher learning, leading to “the really only acceptable title” - a PhD (which he never got).
It worked. I quit Bauer.
A few years ago, on a visit to München, I drove through Obersendling againand I noticed the name “BAUER KOMPRESSOREN” in large letters atop a multi-story modern factory building. The letters alone were about twice the size of the shop I remember from 1946!
(The Bauer Kompressoren factory in Solln today. It is one of 16 Bauer locations worldwide!)
[1] “Please, where does the train leave for Solln?”
[2] Police Registration Authority
No comments:
Post a Comment