January  

Our first home was in Berlin. We moved together as students in September 1956 a few months after we got married. We could rent two rooms with kitchen facilities and shared bathroom in a huge apartment in the suburb Tiergarten at Levetzowstrasse 16   

    our window                                                                                                                             our view 

The location was ideal. The old building was right at banks of the river Spree and close to the huge city park Tiergarten not far from Brandenburger Tor. The buildings on both sides were destroyed during World War 2, and only on one side a new modern apartment block was built.

The two rooms were quite big and we subdivided them with walls made out of plastic shower curtain material. A small part of the living room became our bedroom and half of the room with the stove and sink became later the room for our 2 kids. Hartmut’s aunt lived in the other 3 rooms. 

The place was dark, never got any sun.    

 We were very happy there for the 3 years we lived there before we migrated to Australia.