2021

  Childhood Stories will be my theme this year 

Every one has some childhood memories. And some people write their life stories down. I did too, so far only part of it, my childhood. Hartmut, and also his father, Fritz, wrote their whole life story. One of our children, Ulrike, used her childhood memories for her artwork. 

Every one talks now and then about their memories especially from childhood.

So this year I will use childhood memories for my blog.

 December

Karin

It was April 1945

When I saw my friend Pippi again, she had two kitchen knives hidden in her pocket. She said that she had heard people saying the Russians burnt down houses with Nazi posters in towns they had conquered. So the two of us went around our block and scraped off posters with a swastika. We never finished our project, too little time between the too many air raids.  

One day Papa and I left the apartment and we sat on the park bench in front of our house. I asked Papa why he does not take anymore photos.  “What is there nice to take pictures of now?  Ruins? Sad people?” “ I am smiling.” He smiled too, got up, fetched his camera and took a photo of me. We could hear the cannons at the outskirts of Berlin. “Papa, we will call this picture ‘the end is near’.  And soon everything will be good again.” “No. It will never be good again.” Sad that grown-ups always now have to add unhappy words. 

And this is the photo:

 November

Opa Fritz  

Excerpts from Hartmut’s father’s memoirs (translated)

Fritz Sturm was drafted in 1940 and posted to a searchlight unit near Hamburg to spot British bombers. In April 1945 his unit was ordered to the front. Each soldier received 500 cigarets. Their mission was to destroy  tanks of the Allied Troops advancing along the Autobahn. His unit of 20 had withdrawn soon into a forest. The commanding officer had disappeared. They reached the outskirts of a village and were urged by the villagers to move on, because British soldiers are already occupying the village and they would be shot if they helped German soldiers. They split up into small groups of 4 man and continued move on through the forest for days. To their surprise they found a holiday home and were even more surprised when they were greeted by a friendly family. After a few days hiding there the 4 decided to give themselves up and marched into the village to the British post. That was the end of fighting and the beginning of over a year in  a Prisoner of War Camp. 

Opa Fritz had survived the war. 

October 

Hartmut

Hartmut remembers a lot about the war. He was over 8 years old when World War 2 started and just had his 13th birthday when it ended. Here is one of his memories of an air raid he described in his ‘Life Story’. 

There was a restless humming of voices in the cellar, the air raid shelter. Children cried, because they had been woken up from deep sleep. I myself reacted usually in an obnoxious manner, I hated to be woken up and pretended not to have heard. Mum became very frustrated with me. My sister Siegtraut on the other hand was alert and helpful. The situation improved when the neighbour came to help. Once in the cellar, Mutti gave us coloured pencils and paper and I drew pictures of German bombers dropping bombs on London, pursued by British fighter planes and attacked by British anti-aircraft fire. I also drew pictures of the land war, German tanks featuring in most of those drawings 

Usually, after an hour or two, sirens signalled the end of the alarm. People clambered back upstairs, but for most, the night had been disturbed so badly that they could not return to a restful sleep. 

 September

Ulrike

When I started high school, I saw how important it was too be cool, only I was not very good at it. Most of  my friends knew how to be cool. 

On weekends, we often went to the beach with a transistor radio and we stretched out on our towels in our bikinis, and talked about the surfy boys. Only I did to know what to say about the surfy boys so I just stayed quiet and listened. My bikini was a hand-me-down from one of my friends.

On school days, we all sat in a row on the concrete outside the classroom in our lunch breaks. Our legs were stretched out in the sun and we smothered them in cocoa butter. It was cool to have very brown legs. 

That was the only cool thing I was good at.

  August

 Karin

I remember my first day at school very well. It was summer 1942. In Germany it is custom that kids get a 'Zuckertüte', a huge colourful bag filled with lollies to make the start of the serious side of life a bit sweeter. I also remember the dress I had on: my Red-Riding-Hood dress Mutti had made. Our teacher was Fräulein Herbener. She had a  beautiful smile. I liked her. In the first year we had lessons for two hours only each day. We started to learn the alphabet still using the old Süterlin script and wrote on small slates with chalk. Sometimes the packed lunch rubbed on the slate in the school bag and the home work was smudged or obliterated. I found homework hard. All my letters were always crooked and often I had to redo my homework. That did not bother me too much. I just wrote the letters and words again and again as best as I could, but they never turned out much better. So after a while my parents and teacher accepted it - no, they did not give up on me. For my handwriting I always got the lowest mark. That did not bother me at all because in numbers and story telling I always got good marks. Within the first year of school, the system was changed and we started to use Italic letters. That was so much easier to write and also to read, but my handwriting did not improve. 

July 

Hartmut

1938 came along, Easter was around, and after Easter the time had come, when I had to start school. This, however, was spoiled by an attack of scarlet fever. My sister Siegtraut and I became very ill. We were kept isolated in our room. 

 I started school six weeks late. All the other kids in the class had settled in. On my first school day, Mutti dressed me up, nice and properly, with a new leather satchel. The satchel contained a slate within a timber frame. The school was the 7. Volksschule, Public School Nº 7, Berlin-Weissensee. My teacher was Herr Buchwitz. Herr Buchwitz was a lovely middle-aged gentleman, probably in his late forties. He wore pince-nez glasses, glasses that had no frame but were attached to the nose by a spring mechanism. He helped me along during the first weeks. 

We started writing using the Gothic Sütterlin script. This script is very  much up and down, with sharp edges. I can still write and read Sütterlin script. This script was replaced during 1941. From then on we learned the Latin script, very similar to the writing styles of most other European nations with the addition of the Umlauts ä, ö and ü and the ß (s sharp). 

I had a lot of catching up to do, because I had missed the first few weeks of schooling. Back home, Mutti sat down with me, and we read through the pages of the Fibel, the first year primer. I had to read, I had to write. Mutti was probably too critical; there were few praises but a fair amount of criticism. She was a perfectionist. Even in first class we had regular homework, writing down a couple of sentences or copying a paragraph from the Fibel. Not to upset Mutti, I wrote very slowly, and very neatly. But always at the end, paragraph almost finished, I made a tiny mistake, and I had to start all over again. Sometimes three or four times. Nonetheless, I must not have been too bad. At the first Parents’ Night Herr Buchwitz said to Mutti: “Der Hartmut, ja, der liest wie ein Alter.” He reads like a grown-up. Mutti was very proud, so was my Vati, when Mutti told him. 

. 

  June 

Opa Fritz

Excerpts from Hart’s father's 1973 memoirs:

(translated form German)

During the summer months my sister and I stayed often with my uncle and aunt. They lived in a village and had no children. Aunt and uncle were very kind and spoiled us. My sisters was almost two years older and had already started school. I wanted to learn to write too. So my aunt bought me a slate and a slate pen. With aunty’s help I practices strokes up and down, but did not manage to write letters properly. Soon aunt and I gave up. 

                                                         my sister Frida, uncle Karl, me Fritz, aunt Marie

The law demanded that children after turning 6 had to go to school. The schoolmaster used the cane frequently when pupils made a mistake. Although my writing was always criticised and I never achieved the expected standard I learned soon to read and I loved reading. The daily news paper published novels in sequences and in a few years these became my favourite reading. Father demanded that I read more the scripture book. I did and found it interesting too. I also used the scripture book to hide the news paper novel segments. 

The last 4 years of Fritz’s 8 years of schooling happened to be during World War 1.

 May

Karin 

I remember my grandmother’s 80th birthday very well. Papa and I went to the big family reunion in a far away village near the Baltic Sea. It was 6 April 1942. I was the youngest of all the cousins there and every one spoilt me. Only one of our grandmother’s grandsons was there. All the other older grandsons were now soldiers, fighting in Hitlers World War 2, and Karl has already fallen. 

                          I admired my old grandmother very much. She was still active till she died aged 96. 

 April

Ulrike

Our daughter has created a book with illustrations of her childhood memories..

This is an excerpt from it:

The Baby

Then my sister was born and she was a real Aussie. Now our family had a solid connection to this new country, 

because no matter where else we may go, my sister’s place of birth would always be Australia.

March

Opa Fritz

 In 1973 Hartmut’s father wrote in his memoirs (translated form German):

Our first child was born on 19 April 1932, early in the morning. The birth caused some worries. It is well known that mothers have to suffer, but no one talks how the father-to-be is feeling. And what are physical pains compared to the emotional pain a father-to-be has to suffer! 

We baptised our son Hartmut.

Although we both tried our best to take good care of the little one, the first year our first child caused us some worries. But grandparents and aunts tried to help, and most of all they admired the baby.

      

 February

Hartmut:

I was born on a Tuesday 19 April 1932. My parents were very happy, and my dad was very proud that I was a boy. Then it was still regarded as something special, when the first-born child was a boy. Boys were supposed to carry on the family name and tradition. I was given the names Hartmut Fritz Ernst, the middle names after my father and grandfather as it was tradition in my family.

Mutti was happy too. She had an easy birth. I was born in the Martin-Luther  Krankenhaus in Berlin-Schmargendorf. On the day when Mutti was released from hospital, Vati picked her up. He had bought a beautiful grey pram, and it was my first journey across Berlin on a lovely late April spring day. The trees were all in flower, and the air was scented with the perfumes of spring, lilac and apple blossoms, tulips and jasmine. The birds were singing, blackbirds, starlings, sang their joyous songs and tended their nests.  

I was pampered and had a great time. Every four hours, Mutti fed me. I grew up on mother’s milk, and was weaned after one year. This was quite unusual then. Bottle-feeding was the vogue. 

I do not remember many things from those days. My earliest memory goes back when I might have been just a little over two years old. Mutti was pushing the pram towards home. Siegtraut, my little baby sister was inside the pram, I had a seat on top of the pram from where I could see the world. Why I remember this moment? I do not know. 

I also remember, that my parents frequently visited friends, And on these visits, in the evening, when I had become tired, I was put in a bed or in a pram, and I can still hear the distant voices in the room next door. It was such a peaceful atmosphere. 

          

                                          

                                         

 January

Maybe I start like this: 

I, Karin, was born on 13^th November 1935, in Oels, Silesia, Germany. My parents Heinrich and Charlotte…

Maybe better like this:

13 November 1935. It was raining. A cool, grey Wednesday evening. My parents were on their way to the  movies, when my mother felt things were not quite right, better return home. The midwife was called. Just as she arrived I was born. She was concerned that the newborn baby did not cry much, so the competent woman picked me up by my feet, lifted me up upside down, slapped my bottom, and after a strong single cry she put me down. But she expected more and started to repeat the procedure. This distressed my mother and she pleaded to leave me in peace.

One of those early little anecdotes of early childhood. We loved when our parents tell us about our first years. Once Mutti told us that she had overlooked to feed me on time, and a long while after the scheduled time she realised that feeding was long overdue and when she came to get me, I was happily playing with my fingers and smiled at her.

Little stories like this about one’s birth and early years become important memories. As a kid I always thought I had to be tough, and I show them how tough I could be right from the  beginning.

                                               

 2021

  Childhood Stories will be my theme this year 

Every one has some childhood memories. And some people write their life stories down. I did too, so far only part of it, my childhood. Hartmut, and also his father wrote their whole life story. One of our children used her childhood memories for her artwork. 

Every one talks now and then about their memories especially from childhood.

So this year I will use childhood memories for my blog.