April

From 1963 on, right from the beginning when Hartmut was a teacher we saved every penny to buy a house. And within 3 years in Sydney we had saved enough for a deposit to look for a places. Our friend Ron helped us a lot to find a good place. Just when we thought there is a little cottage in Narrabeen which may be suitable, a phone call came from the Housing Commission: ” You are next in line for a place, a new 3-bedroom brick-veneer house in Green Acre is available for you now.” What to do? After long discussions we made the difficult decision: old timber-fibro 2 bedroom cottage at a norther beaches suburb with a mortgage  may be a better option after all than a perfect home with hardly any debts at the western outskirts of Sydney.

We got the keys for our first own home on 10 March 1966, the day we left Berlin six years earlier. Over the six years we lived in Narrabeen we renovated the place with the help of two good friends and and made it a beautiful home for our family.

  

There was a nice big backyard with a clump of bananas and a a big gum tree. 

And we had very nice neighbours.

 March

Big changes effecting our life happened late in 1961 and early 1962.The Berlin Wall was put up in August 1961, making it impossible for people from the West to visit family in the East. And our relatives, like most in Berlin, lived in both parts of the city. So we could no longer visit our parents if we were to return.The 'East' was closed off from the 'Free World'. 

Also Hartmut received an offer of a study place at Sydney Teachers College and a scholarship for a one year course to gain a Teaching Certificate. So we decided to move to Sydney. And before we could let our parents know that we wanted to stay longer in Australia my mother died. 

We moved to Sydney and found soon a very nice place in Balgowlah, near a bay of the harbour with views to Manly. A lovely very old widowed lady lived on the ground floor of that beautiful house and we rented the upper floor.There were two bedrooms, a large living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. The kids got the large bedroom, the very small second bedroom became the study and in the large living room we put a bed for us and made it look like a sofa during the day.

We lived in Balgowlah for four years and they were happy years. Hartmut became a teacher; our two eldest started school and our third and fourth child were born there.

 February

Our next home was 16 000 km away, on the other side of the globe, moving from Berlin to Melbourne. 

We migrated early 1960 to Australia where we hoped to have a better future for our family. 

We enjoyed the long  voyage on the Castle Felice. 

Also the few weeks in the Migrant Camp at Bonegilla were not too bad. 

Hartmut found a job in the Victorian Tourist Bureau and we moved to Melbourne. 

Together with friends we had made on the boat we rented an old terrace, at 213A Bay Street, North Brighton, an upper-class suburb. Each of the 2 families had 2 bedrooms upstairs above a closed down shop. We shared the kitchen downstairs (just a stove, no sink; a tap was in the bathroom next to the kitchen). The toilet was outside at the end of the little yard behind the house. 

We had 2 good years there and saved every penny for big plans, not worked out properly yet.  

 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. 

  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.