I had never heard such nonsense, where did HE come from?
But he continued: A young man such as I was, with rich parents, should not boast about having traveled everywhere. Wealth was not everything in life. God would reward modesty, but God had to punish bragging.
The last straw was that he added that I should dispose of this suitcase and not make myself Satan's tool. I was totally speechless. That had been just about the same those days in school that a religion teacher simply gave me a grade of 5 because he never saw me in church. Actually we did go to church regularly but in the neighboring village. Worship service in church in our village was in the afternoons and there was a service early in the morning in the neighboring village. My brother and I always went to the neighboring village for the early morning worship service. It was due to this reason, the religion teacher in our village did not see us in our village and gave us low grades. A hasty judgment was made without examining and that was the case with the somewhat loony pastor with me in the train. He simply condemned me without having any idea about the person in front of him.
I explained to him what it was all about regarding the suitcase and myself but he was not impressed.
I told him that I had been closer to God in my life in the last two years than he would have ever been. That hit home since he got up and left the compartment and I was left in peace. The married couple only shook their heads but were cloaked in silence.
Bad Wiessee, the spa hotel and Karin
Having arrived home, I was very happy to see my parents in good health. Was I actual at home or rather a guest at my parents' place? I did not know. On the whole, I was only a guest because the letters that my mother gave me confirmed this. They were offers from hotels, which had job vacancies. The stay at my parents' home ended in the middle of the month again.
A hotel in Bad Wiessee had sent me a contract, which I was to sign and send back. On the 15th of April, I was able to begin a seasonal employment as Pâtissier. The contract was up to the end of October. I wanted to make a fresh start and knew that I would have to change my life drastically.
It was a big transition from being a ship's cook to becoming a hotel confectioner. Everything was somewhat finer, better, fresher and arranged more decoratively in the dishes or platters. Here you didn’t have to deal with sailors; these were paying hotel guests with a lot of money and influence in politics and business. Because of my uncomplicated character, I quickly made contacts to men and women colleagues. I also got a good name from the owners of the distinguished spa hotel quickly, which probably came due to my acquired professional knowledge.
The master chef was a nice superior to me and was understanding when I did not do things the way he wanted. I was satisfied and so was everyone else; what more did I want? I was in a totally different world. The horizon was only a few kilometers away. Not like on the sea, endlessly far away. Instead, the mountains were fascinating. I had not experienced such a landscape so far. It also became clear to me that we had to work seven days a week in a seasonal business enterprise; that meant that I would not have a single free day in the next six months. But our master chef was a fantastic man and offered to give me a free afternoon now and then if good preparatory work had been done. That sounded good. The master chef was a Bavarian and was very proud of his homeland. He somehow appeared happy to show his homeland to a lowlander, as he called me, even if it was only on a free afternoon.
He knew that I would take a look at the area nearby or which was far away. He was pleased that I was so enthralled by his homeland. But not only the landscape fascinated me; I also got to know people apart from the region.
There was Karin, the waitress at the restaurant – whom I was very much attracted to. Karin was two years older than I and had a car. That again increased my enthusiasm even more. The fact that Karin was a nice, pretty woman owning a car, could be very useful for the excursions I was planning. Well, I had to convince Karin that I was the nicest guy in the whole of Bad Wiessee.
Since Karin did not have any boyfriend, which I found out first, the way to her heart and of course to her car was not so difficult. Karin had a weakness for candy and that my strength.
After a week, I sat in Karin‘s Opel Rekord Coupé on the passenger seat on my first free afternoon, and we were on the way to the Achen Lake (Achensee). Such or similar excursions were a welcome change on our free afternoons and I got acquainted with the hill country around the Tegernsee.
The hotel personnel lived on the top floor, in the rooms with sloping roofs. And mine was located directly vis-à-vis Karin’s. So it was not uncommon that I did not sleep in my room. It was strictly prohibited for us to enter the rooms of the feminine employees or to even spend the night there. Yet where there is no complainant, there is no judge. We were very careful, we thought. It was a good time, I did further studies through seminars for cooking and management. The guests and the master chef were satisfied with the quality of my desserts. I was in harmony with myself and my new world.
My love life was not at a disadvantage in all this. Everything was close by; excursions in the afternoon with Karin, the conviviality in the different taverns in the evenings and the wonderful hours with Karin in the room during the nights. The new life in the countryside was so beautiful. I did not need to be alone for so long in the sea, to then go to the next whorehouse in the harbor after getting so completely drunk out of my mind. Here everything was more beautiful, cleaner and also more diverse. Yet I did not have so much of experience in contact with people. I could bring my experience in the opposite sex to play, to Karin in other words. As everything in life there is not just sunshine as the order of the day, but there are downsides again and again. So something dark was brewing over Karin's and my head.
The joy over my paradise-like life became somewhat diminished, since a colleague blackened my name with the hotel management. It began with the incident where I was not able to hold my tongue during a drinks get-together in a restaurant with colleagues and I told them of my relationship with Karin, which was nothing new. However to tell them that I slept in her room had been totally stupid. I did not know that the colleague had been met with a rebuff by Karin and thus he was jealous of me. Suddenly my creams tasted salty, the chilled soup tasted of soap and allegedly I had opened the lid from the ice-cream cabinet, so that the ice-cream was spoilt the next morning. While baking, the oven was suddenly open and all of a sudden, the sponge cake base became squidgy.
I got a dressing-down from my master chef for the first time. The free afternoons were struck off and Karin was given notice. I was told that she was the reason why I couldn't concentrate on my work because I slept at night in Karin's room.
It was written in completely unambiguous terms that it was not permitted and was a reason for the notice. A colleague at the personnel office told me that a cook had run me down to the owners. Immediately I knew whom he meant and I worked out a plan for taking revenge. Karin was still in Bad-Wiessee and slept at her girlfriend's house. So we still saw one another. Karin confirmed to me that it was this cook, whom I had kept my eyes on anyway. Karin had sent him packing, so he was jealous of me and had badmouthed us to the hotel management. Such a thing would have never happened on a ship. One would have had to have the courage to snitch on his colleagues! The fear of a retaliation was too big or the comradeship was too strong.
There had been cases where some sailors did not appear for breakfast! Where had they ended up on the high seas? Certainly they had not drowned during a tavern tour or overslept. They simply fell overboard, with emphasis on 'fallen"! A sailor does not come for breakfast while at sea and he can't be found even after his room is checked. That is, the sharks have had a delicious breakfast - it is as simple as that. Who can prove anything? By the time we reached the next harbor, it is guaranteed that possible tracks are eliminated. Of course that may possibly be the laws of the sea. There were other laws here in Bad Wiesse. Yet I wanted to teach the son of a bitch a lesson, I had to do it. I did
not harbor any hatred, I just wanted only some kind of justice.
You can't be a backstabber.
If someone, like the cook, is running around with so much maliciousness within himself, something simply has to happen to him. I had to only come up with something. And at the same time I had to be careful because the traitor shouldn't know that I had exposed him.
My plan was to invite him for a booze-cruise, to start an argument with him and then give him a good thrashing. Not very imaginative but instructive. But something entirely different happened. I did not have to lift a finger, since a higher force punished him, it was his Karma or the so-called fate. I heard in the hotel that he had an accident. A truck had hit him while he was taking a turn my on his bicycle. That is not something that pleased me. But I wasn't sad either. And I certainly didn't want to pay him a visit at the hospital. So that is how it ended.
Karin left Bad Wiessee and got a contract for the winter season in St. Moritz. I never saw her even the others from my seasonal job in Bad Wiessee ever again. The summer season was over and with that, also my contract at the Hotel and it was time for departure from there.
Of course I went back to my parents' home. Would it be a longer stay or only a stopover short till my next adventure? On the 30th of October, I was at my parents ‘place and celebrated my 21st. birthday. It was a beautiful day. I could only check off things, which were definitively over and were not reversible any more. So it was with Karin - she did not respond to my letters and after my last telephone conversation with her, it became clear to me that there was nothing between us anymore. What had been so beautiful only remained in my memory.
Each time if somewhat dearly won came to an end, I had the feeling that I had crossed over a bridge, which had collapsed behind me. I had learned that you must only look forward. Looking back is worthwhile only if good memories remained.
I had already posted applications from Bad Wiessee and now waited now for replies.
Among others, there was a vacancy open from a hiring agency in Bremerhaven. In general, they were looking for cooks, bakers, pâtissiers and service personnel for a passenger ship on the North Atlantic route. My application was accepted and I was asked to sign up on the 15th of November on a ship named "Arkadia" as a second pâtissier. I didn't have to convince my parents at all; it was clear how I would decide. Although the Americans and the Russians had differences of opinion, a crisis was underway due to or because of Fidel Castro, I did not fear any incidents and reported at the shipping agency to go into service on the "Arkadia".
The "Arkadia" sailed under a Greek flag and transported emigrants to Canada and North America. The route was between Bremerhaven and Montreal or Quebec, New York and back. We had a superior whom we called Master Zwick. Then there were two confectioners who did pâtissier work; in addition, there was a bakery with five bakers and a bunch of cooks, who all tried my pudding in the cold storage. So I had to always sprinkle a layer of salt on it, so that they kept their hands off from it. Afterwards I carefully scrapped off the cold pudding. So I saved the dessert for my emigrants. There was only one class, but considering that, there were thousand or more passengers on every trip to take care of. They probably did not have to pay much because our standard was very low and the passengers were not demanding. The standard was better on the eastward route from New York to Bremerhaven but I had not expected the passenger shipping services to be like this.
I missed the luxury on board. We did not have any contact with the passengers and the few women in the crew were already in a relationship. Anyway there were not many, just two nurses, two female hairdressers, a couple of chambermaids and a few at the reception.
That was all that was as regards female crew. The kitchen was located somewhat further behind of the ship waist and a few meters over the water line. The portholes had to be closed with a panel during turbulence in the sea. Then there was only artificial light and we couldn't see anything of the sea. If the workday lasted up to 16 hours, we were happy about every hour of shore leave. Yet that was almost Utopian, since the ship never remained long in the harbor. Three of us shared a kitchen, which was in the middle of the ship and which didn't have any windows or portholes.
I felt like I was in a huge tin can. There were also rats on board. I saw them often, when the ship had anchored at the pier that these cute little creatures came to us through the lines. But as the old Seaman's Law goes: You don't hunt rats from on board. And woe betide us if they leave the ship voluntarily, then it better, you go with them. The saying is also known as: Like rats leaving the sinking ship. But it didn't get that far yet.
If you had seen the Hofbräuhaus (beer hall) in Montreal and had visited the castle in Quebec you wouldn't go on land for the second time and you would leave out New York completely. The prices were to blame and I also had had the pleasure of getting to know New York during earlier trips.
Yet back in Bremerhaven, all hell broke loose. The barmaids made their sales with us and of course the women doing "horizontal trade" as well.
After some trips over the North Atlantic, I was fed up - it irritated me anyway with its bad weather. So I wrote to Trans-Ozean that I was looking for another ship with another route or would get off the ship after the next trip. My old master Zwick calmed me down and told me stories of his time as baker on the "Columbus". They were long stories and those were also long trips, regarding which Master Zwick narrated to me. That was before and during the last war and good enough for an entire book. Indeed we could see that he had survived everything and was making a 'mercy trip' in this ship at the age of 65. He was certainly also such a person, whom the shipping company allowed to continue to travel. I was not interested in all of that; I wanted another ship. After all I had crossed the Atlantic a few times; I was very delighted when I got the news from the agency that I was released and would get a new ship.
My new love - the "Lakonia"
The “Lakonia" was the shipping company's newly acquired vessel but it wasn't new. It also belonged to the ship-owner Golandries, who also owned the "Arkadia". I came to know in Bremerhaven that I had to fly to Genoa, to be transferred to the "Lakonia". I reached the Mariotti shipyard after a lot of palaver with my taxi driver. He probably wanted to give me a Genoa-city tour with detours into the surrounding area as well as sell a harbor tour. But then I finally stood in front of the "Lakonia", which looked magnificent in new white color, in its full size. I came to know of the dimensions only later but they were gigantic for that period: 200 m n length, 25 m in width with a displacement of 25000 t, two bolts, two Sulzer-diesel engines with 10 cylinders each and together 14000 PS, which would take the ship at 20 nautical miles in an hour. There would be room for 1,200 passengers and up to 800 crew persons on cruises.
A cabin was allotted to me and I was surprised that it was an outer cabin with a porthole. So I could look outside. I occupied it alone too - and was happy for such a nice place to work. The kitchen, the bakery and pastry shop were brand new and had a perfect design. There were still some large machines missing, which were to be installed later in Southampton.
Now my childhood's dream was fulfilled. I worked on a passenger ship. Though it was as a confectioner, it was even better than as a cook. There were many cooks on such a cruise ship but not confectioners. Sincere there were no passengers but only craftsmen were on board the ship, I could explore the ship in peace. It was just beautiful and super large. We had very bad weather on the way from Genoa to Southampton in the Bay of Biscay. Where else? The piano became dislodged from its position and loved from one side to the other - and smashed everything, in so doing. Neither the crew nor the workers who stayed on board could hold the wild piano without getting struck. But then there was a final loud crash and the piano gave up with a final note. It was broken up so badly that it only moved back and forth without its feet and then collapsed into separate parts. The newly outfitted restaurant needed a renovation once again in Southampton.
"Lakonia" didn't look like she was 33
years old. She had been on her maiden voyage in May 1930 as she was still called J.V.O. or "Johan van Oldenbarneveld" and had collided with a freighter. There was also a Dutchman on board, who had witnessed this firsthand; he told me these stories. I also heard from him that the original name of the vessel was in connection with the liberation of the Dutch from the Spaniards.
In the beginning of the 16th century this van Barneveld had founded the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (The Dutch Republic) well as the "East India Company". And now the "grand old lady", as she was already called affectionately, was called "Lakonia". The shipyard workers completed the repairs in Southampton and we were ready for the cruise. We left Southampton with many English people on board in the last week of April.
It was the first of the 25 planned trips to the south. Places such as Madeira, the Canary Islands, Casablanca, Tangiers, Valencia, Lisbon were on our itinerary. On the way back, the route was via Cherbourg, Bremerhaven and Southampton, however, the places mentioned last only occasionally but otherwise always Southampton. We had completed 17 round trips and everything went off normally. It was November and now after six months at sea, a dock-period was called for. It was tinkered around in the kitchen as well as in the engine room and in the compartments. The crew was trained during this time a few times for emergencies. "Man Overboard", fire safety and general safety training courses were the order of the day. Each member of the crew was assigned a specific task. Even I had a fire-fighting task, which was to close a so-called fire-escape door, a so-called bulkhead, in the event of danger. Normally an automatic order would be given as well from the bridge, however the door had to be operated manually. I had the number 9 for the lifeboat on the starboard side, that is, in the direction of travel on the right-hand side, where the navigation lights are green.
My Dream to Be Free Page 9