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. 

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