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Wednesday, 17 December 2014

Memories of a German Childhood

By Henry Lowenstern

Some people have vivid - and detailed - memories of childhood. Mine are only a few. One of them is my childhood ambition of wanting to be the driver of the funeral hearse.

Funeral processions passed our house regularly in my small German hometown, Korbach in Waldeck, and I always ran to the street or to a window for a closer look.

At the head of the procession was the fancy black hearse bearing the black-draped coffin drawn by two black horses. Then followed the procession of mourners, in black, walking silently behind. Sitting high atop the hearse was the carriage driver, also dressed in black, wearing a glorious black top hat and wielding a long whip over the horses.

Usually, no one at my house knew who was being buried. If I were the driver, I reasoned, I would be able to wear a glorious black top hat, wield the whip and I would know who was being buried.

My next memory is less innocent. It involves a different kind of a procession along our street. At the far end of our town was a training camp for Nazi SS recruits. SS stands for Schutzstaffel, literally “protective staff.” It was the most brutal of the Nazi storm trooper organizations.

When the column of recruits came to our street, on which were a number of Jewish-owned stores and homes, the goose-stepping recruits sang at the top of their voices: Wenn das Judenblut vom Messer spritzt, dann gets nochmal so gut. (When Jewish blood spurts from the knife, things will be a lot better.)

Needless to say, I did not run to the street or to a window for a better look.

When the Nazis came to power in early 1933, my parents and many others in our town thought they could wait them out. Governments in the Weimar Republic had come and gone in quick succession and many people were confident that “This too shall pass.” So, when the harassment and boycott of Jewish-owned businesses began, my father and others Stammburger (solid citizens, as they believed themselves to be) thought they could outlast or even fight the harassment.

My father’s clothing. yard goods and bedding business was regularly targeted for broken display windows and sidewalks white-washed with the slogan, Juden sind Volksverater (Jews are traitors).

After a few of these incidents my father, who was pretty handy with poster materials, went to our synagogue and copied the legend on a bronze commemorative plaque that had been presented to the Jewish congregation by the German government.

The plaque listed the ten members of the congregation – my father’s brother among them – who had been killed in World War I while serving in the German army. Below the names was the promise: Des Volkes Dank ist Euch Gewiss (You can be certain of your fatherland’s gratitude).

I remember that my father placed his poster behind the broken glass in one of his display windows. It made him feel better, but it was soon removed by the Nazis.

Perhaps it is just as well that I don’t have many more childhood memories.


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Posted by Ronni Bennett at 05:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post

Comments

Oh Henry, how sad. I am glad you survived. I was married 27 years to a German man who came to usa at age 23. He lived in Stettin and told many similar stories. He was not Jewish but loved them and lost his home, etc.

Good writing.

As a Jewess myself, growing up in a protected America, I thank you for that stark, condensed look at what might well have become my childhood.
Good, compact and moving writing.

Although not Jewish, my husband's uncle was beaten to death on the street in Brussels for stepping in to defend a Jewish woman and child Nazi soldiers were attacking.

From my late mother-in-law's stories of life in Europe leading up to and during WWII there are frightening parallels to what is happening with the right-wing political movements today.

Good observation Deb!

Very moving. I love your style, though the memories are awful. Thank goodness you survived.

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