Escape

by Barbie Probert-Wright

  With my father gone, we all got on with living in our new home. Besides the four wings, there was a big living room with a Kachelofen, an oven built in to a high protruding section of the chimney breast, with a door at the front to put apples or potatoes in to bake. It was wood- and coal-fired, and was fed with fuel from the room behind. You simply shut down the fire to low at night and once a day emptied the ashes. Along the side of the oven, which was covered with shiny green ceramic tiles, was a bench where you could sit and toast yourself. There were also a dining room, a large kitchen and, at the back, a utility room and another kitchen, where we had a churn to make butter and cheese, and a special boiler for boiling sugar beet to make syrup. There was a further boiler for washing white clothes and a scrubbing board, and a large walk-in shower.

  The house was comfortably furnished, which was fortunate as we had very few possessions. I had the clothes and toys my father had brought with me, and my mother had a little brown leather suitcase, which she had in hospital with her, with a soft towel and good soap, her underwear and nighties and dressing gown, and a set of silver cutlery she always carried. It was a tradition in our family that we all had our own individual silver cutlery with our names engraved on the handles. (I had mine as a child but it was lost in one of our moves. I still to this day have Aunt Irma’s spoon, which she gave me as a confirmation present.) My mother also had an album of photographs. Thank goodness she did, or all record of our previous lives and all pictures of Ruth would have been destroyed by the bombing.

  My aunts and grandparents and cousins had the clothes they stood up in. But the women in the family were resourceful and good with a needle, and they could turn any bits of fabric into serviceable clothing. We children did not care anyway, as we were too busy having a good time.

  Like my mother, Aunt Hilda had two children who were much older than her youngest, Volker. They were Ulrich, who was then away in the Hitler Youth, and Thekla, who, like Eva, was off teaching for the BDM. There was so much room in the house that when Ulrich came to visit us he turned one large empty room into an aviary. He caught wild birds, sparrows and robins, and put tree branches and food and water in there. I remember him digging up lots of worms for them. We always nicknamed Ulrich ‘the crazy one’ but it was the aunts who went crazy when they saw the mess the birds made, and Ulrich was forced to release them and clean up.

  Ulrich was eight years older than Volker and me, so he was naturally the leader of our little gang whenever he was around and often led us into mischief. He was very clever at persuading Volker and me to do what he told us. ‘Bärbel is much braver than Volker!’ he would declare. I liked this and, of course, to live up to it I had to agree to his games. Volker, too, would always agree, as he was keen to prove he was just as brave as me.

  The old brickworks had a series of ponds next to it. They were man-made and were used to cool the hot, newly made bricks. The bricks would have been loaded into small railway trucks, which were then shunted down rails straight into the water. The rails and the trucks, which were big enough for us all to clamber into, still existed and we played with them endlessly. We were warned off by our mothers, especially after someone drowned in one of the further ponds, but under Ulrich’s command we did it.

  The factory itself was a three-storey building and we roamed around inside. Ulrich told us there were foxes and that we could befriend them. In fact, I think the only creatures living there were probably rats and bats. One of the items of clothing my mother had brought with her was a fox fur stole, which she wore round her neck like a collar. It had the fox’s head on one end and the long bushy tail at the other, which sounds gruesome but was very fashionable then. One day Ulrich told me to get the stole from the wardrobe in our bedroom, but not to tell anyone. He took it into the brickworks, hid it in a corner and tied a long piece of string to it. Then he took Volker, Henning and me on an adventure, and made us sit down in the same room as the hidden stole. As he cleverly pulled the string, the fox’s head appeared, and Volker and Henning fled in fear. Mutti was not too happy when she found out: ‘My beautiful stole on that filthy floor!’ she said.

  When Ulrich wasn’t around, Volker, Henning and I were a great little team and we played together endlessly, occasionally getting into trouble. One day when the weather was bitterly cold the ditches around the farm fields were all frozen, and we three decided that if the ice was thick enough to support a stone, it would hold our weight. When the stone stayed on the surface, I was selected as the first to try my weight on the ice. I plunged straight up to my neck in icy water. Thank God, somebody was going past and hauled me out. I was not popular when I got home. My mother was obviously very worried that I could have drowned or frozen to death, but she was very cross with me, too, for being so stupid.

  Eva and Thekla also visited us when they had leave from their teaching duties at the BDM homes. We were very excited when we knew they were coming and would run along the road to the turning for Poniec, to meet them as they walked from the train.

  Next to our house was a courtyard and a small house where a Polish family lived. The mother used to help out in our house, and the father drove us in a horse and cart when we needed transport. Their son was younger than Volker and me, and he was not allowed to play in the brickworks, but he joined in our games in the courtyard. His name was Polish for Peter, so we always called him Peter. I even learned to speak a little Polish, but all I can remember after all these years is mleko (milk) and daja mnie pocałunek (give me a kiss).

  Besides the marvellous playtimes we had, there were lessons too. Our parents were not going to allow us to neglect our education because there was a war going on. The people who had found the house for us, Mr and Mrs Boetels, had a tutor for their three children, so for a while we went up to the big manor house to share tuition. Later, perhaps because the tutor left, or because the family wanted to integrate more with local people, we were taken to a small school about two miles away. Every morning a lovely little horse-drawn carriage from the big house would collect me and Volker (Henning was too young for school). We felt ever so grand riding in it. I can’t remember learning anything at the school, but I loved the journeys. Sometimes we would persuade the driver to stop and let us pick mushrooms on the way home.

  The grown-ups also taught us. My mother had herself been a student at the prestigious Froebel Institute and had worked as a governess before she married, so she took charge of teaching Volker and me to read. Aunt Hilda had been what today is called a graphic designer, doing artwork for big businesses. She had beautiful handwriting and she made us write out line after line of letters. Aunt Irma taught me embroidery, and Grandmother taught me to knit and crochet. I remember sitting on her lap as she showed me the stitches. Little as I was, she always talked to me as if I were mature.

  She passed on to me her own philosophy of life and it has served me well. ‘Whatever you do, you don’t have to run to church every day or every week. As long as you can put your head on your pillow at night and not be sorry for anything you have done during that day, that is what being a good Christian is about.’ I have heard her voice in my head many times, reminding me, ‘If you are going to have to say sorry, don’t do it.’

  There was one occasion when I was naughty and had to say sorry to my grandmother. She had a blouse with a lace collar, which was fastened all the way up with press-studs. Sometimes she had trouble doing it up, as her fingers were stiff. One day, while I sat on her lap, I pulled it all open. I was fascinated by the press-studs and wanted to see them pop open. But of course, as her blouse opened I saw her underwear. She was old-fashioned and very proper and private about things like that, and I felt so ashamed of what I had done. I can still recall the feeling of prickly embarrassment, but I can also remember seeing the most beautiful cream-coloured vest trimmed with lace that she had made herself. It was like the camisoles that young girls wear today. Omi did not really get angry with me, but I knew she did not like it. That night I said I was sorry in my praye
rs, and the next day I gave her a big hug and told her I would never do it again. She forgave me, of course.

  I think we enjoyed Opa’s lessons the most. He had been at sea for many years and he had wonderful stories to tell us about foreign countries. We had a globe with a light inside it – I’ve no idea how we came to have such a thing. He would plug it in and we would all crowd round him, near the warm stove in the living room. ‘Where are we travelling today?’ he would ask and we would roam the world with him, hanging on every word.

  The women were all very good cooks and I learned from them too about how to run the house and conjure up delicious meals. There must have been food shortages, but we were protected from them and I was never aware of lacking anything. There was always something to eat on the table. I’m sure the three sisters and my grandmother had to be very resourceful, but we children took it as normal. The house we lived in had a garden full of fruit trees – apples, pears and many others – and there was a vegetable plot where we grew food. Despite the war raging around us, the most traumatic event for me in those blissful months was lightning striking our beautiful pear tree and splitting it in half. Luckily, one half continued to bear fruit. On the front of the house, growing up trellises, were grapevines, and I could reach out of our bedroom window and pick grapes.

  Every time the big farm sent deliveries of produce to the market, their lorry would drop off a large wooden box in the entrance hall to our house (which was never locked) at six o’clock in the morning, full of tomatoes, celery, swedes and potatoes. I can remember the lovely smell of the fresh tomatoes and the taste when I helped myself to one.

  My father had arranged the deliveries before he left, and we always had money to pay for them and to pay the Polish family for their help. We had a bank account in Poniec, a thriving town with shops that could supply most things. Because we lived a few miles away from the town, we always had plenty of cash in the house.

  While Father was still with us we had a supply of meat from his hunting. He went on organised shoots, and came back with rabbits and pheasants for us.

  Sometimes we were all invited to a local farm for the ‘schlachtfest, or slaughter festival. It was the three or four days of the year when the farmer would employ slaughter men to kill the cattle and pigs that had been reared for their meat. Of course, we never saw the gruesome reality of the kill, but the whole event was turned into a big celebration, with spit roasted pigs and huge barbecues of steaks, chops, and sausages. There were tables laden with potatoes, salads, bread and butter, and lots to drink. We sat at trestle tables and benches, tucking in to the food, and then we children spilled around the farm, laughing and playing games together. There were demonstrations of sausage making, and the grown-ups would order the meat and sausages they wanted to buy. The supplies would last us for weeks.

  We kept our own goat, which provided us with milk, and we also had cows’ milk delivered from the big house. We made our own butter, the grown-ups sitting around passing the churn from one to another as their arms became tired. We grew sugar beets and boiled them in the small back kitchen to make a syrup, which we used to sweeten things. The smell of boiling beets is another powerful memory. It was a very self-sufficient, happy life. I have since learned that we were incredibly lucky. In Europe’s big cities food was scarce and rationing severe. But if you lived in the country, as we did, things were relatively easy and we always seemed to eat well.

  We lived in our large and comfortable home for eighteen months and life seemed almost normal. At one point I developed a growth behind my left knee and I was taken in the carriage from the big house to the nearest hospital, in Poniec, to have it removed. It has never troubled me since, but for several weeks I was in a plaster cast from my thigh to my toes, because the scar had to be stretched to prevent me having a permanently bent leg.

  We even had a birthday party for my grandfather’s eightieth on 1 November. Eva was able to come, and Thekla and Uncle Willi (Aunt Hilda’s husband), who was on leave. We had a wonderful day and in the afternoon the Boetels family came down from the manor house to have a birthday tea with us. Eva being there made the day even more special for me as I loved it when my elder sister was around.

  Life was very happy, and Christmas was approaching with all the excitement and celebration that it brings. But unknown to me, our cosy little world was on the brink of collapse.

  3

  The War Draws Closer

  A few days after my grandfather’s party, Eva was asked to report to Weimar, a city about 150 miles south of Hamburg. She was to meet up with the woman who was in charge of the evacuation of BDM girls to that region and receive further orders.

  It was sad to say goodbye to Eva again, especially after we had had such a wonderful family celebration. She recorded in her diary that grandfather’s birthday was ‘a very special day’ and wrote of our house near the brick factory as ‘home’, although she had never lived there full time. With the destruction of our flat in Hamburg it was the only home any of us had.

  Eva went at once to Weimar as instructed, and there she was told to report that day to Tabarz, a small village near the city of Gotha, a few miles further south, in the region of Thuringia, which is renowned for its beauty. There was a home there for children sent to the countryside, the equivalent of British evacuees. She went straight away, travelling by two trains, and when she arrived at the station at Tabarz she was met by four of the ten-year-old girls who would be her charges and one of the women who worked at the home.

  She described her new post in her diary:

  The house is situated in a very beautiful road looking out on to woods. There is a lovely view over the Thuringian Countryside. I am in charge of a group of ten-year-old girls. They are very young and still like to play, and it is easy to get them interested in things.

  Her diary entries describe the routines of life in the home. Despite the war and a country drained by years of fighting, children were still children and for the girls in Eva’s charge, just like me and my cousins in the Wartegau, life was made as normal as possible. There were celebrations of St Nicholas Day on 6 December. On the evening before children would leave shoes or slippers outside their bedroom doors. St Nicholas, who is a helper of Father Christmas, visits in the night and if they have been good they are rewarded with sweets or chocolates in the shoes. If they have been naughty they are given a small broom made of twigs, the kind of thing that is used to sweep or to beat carpets. It is meant to be a warning: if you don’t improve you will get a good hiding.

  Eva included a little verse in her diary that day, probably something given to all leaders in the BDM movement:

  Our task is to guide the youth to go straight and aim for the finish; The big finish is to win the war and be at peace.

  Eva also recorded that rehearsals had started for the Christmas panto and she describes a St Martin’s celebration when all the girls processed through the house with flaming torches, which is possibly a local tradition as I never did this myself.

  So, in the midst of war, these festivals were maintained and the routines of everyday life were preserved for the young girls, even though they often had to spend their nights in the cellars because of what Eva describes as ‘vicious’ air raids.

  She copied out a poem about the bombing of the big cities. Eva lost six of her friends in the raids on Hamburg, all young women doing the same job as her, teaching groups of young girls. One of the six, Magda, was a particular friend of hers, even though she was six years older than Eva and already married. They had a large funeral which Eva was unable to attend, but our mother went. Eva pasted into her diary a newspaper report of their funerals, on which is written in our mother’s handwriting ‘These also died for Germany’.

  The poem about the bombing of Germany that appears in Eva’s diary is called ‘Köln. Allerseelen 1944’ (‘Cologne. All souls 1944’) and was written by Otto Brües. It begins:

  We have now left our house, It became a ruin, brick by brick, And this de
stroyed the parents’ pride, the children’s happiness.

  The verses describe neighbours scrabbling to collect possessions from the rubble, watching their past lives disappear.

  She also wrote out another poem, ‘The Dream’, which starts:

  Last night I found great happiness I dreamed we were at peace.

  The poem describes a world where the shops are full of supplies and the bars are stocked with drink, and everyone in the streets is happy. It is, of course, only a dream and the writer is awakened to another air raid. Eva wrote poetry herself, as well as collecting other poems that she loved. As there is no name of an author on this one, I wonder if it is one of hers. I like to think it is. I know, from the other entries she made in her diary, that she did dream of peace.

  Nothing could stop the war advancing upon us. It was now the winter of 1944 and defeat was staring Germany in the face, although not everyone, including Hitler and his High Command, could accept it. My family had never been Nazi supporters, but they were loyal German citizens. My mother and both her sisters had husbands away fighting: they prayed for the war to end and for our families to be restored to normality. I don’t think they prayed for a German victory. What they wanted was peace and a safe world to bring us up in.

  The British, Americans and Russians were now pressing in on Germany. The Russians were moving the fastest and they were to prove by far the most ruthless. We were afraid of them, but we were also afraid of all the conquering armies. We had no idea how we would be treated. In June 1944 the Red Army swept into Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland. At roughly the same time the British and Americans launched the D-Day landings and were progressing across France and Holland towards Germany. It was a pincer movement and the Germans were effectively trapped.

  Despite the disastrous circumstances that led us to be in Poland, life for us children was idyllic. We were unconcerned with the war, although I was aware that the women would weep at times, and occasionally we would hear the sound of planes, lots of them, high in the sky, a monotonous droning sound. We all ran out to see whether they were heading towards Russia. We would crane our necks to watch them and I once toppled over backwards into the grass because I was straining my head so far back. The direction meant nothing to me, but it was what the grown-ups did, so I followed suit. They encouraged us to wave at the planes: they did everything possible to shield us from the realities of war and waving at the planes made it seem like fun.