My Name Was Five

by Heinz Kohler

  At the time, of course, except for what we learned in school and or heard on the radio, I knew relatively little about the kind of history he was making. My mother knew plenty more, given that her sister Martel worked at Gestapo headquarters and kept her abreast of secret things. Thus, as I later learned, she knew even then that Hitler had approved euthanasia centers, code-named T-4 hospitals, where “unworthy life” was to be destroyed, and had done so on the very first day of the war. People with mental diseases were to be sent there, along with elderly “useless eaters” and others exhibiting antisocial tendencies–being divorced too often, changing jobs too often, drinking to excess. They were herded naked into small rooms there, pumped full of carbon monoxide, and cremated.

  But there I was, ringing that bell and loving it! And I loved wearing my grandfather’s Pickelhaube, too, a pointed military helmet from World War I that I had brought along for the occasion. It had an eagle on it, clutching a scepter and a globe with a cross. There was an inscription, too. “With God For King and Fatherland,” it said. Many people admired it.

  “You’ll make a fine Prussian soldier one day,” Mr. Wagner said when he came by to make his sacrifice. My mother said nothing.

  An early World War II poster:

  With Our Flags is Victory!

  8. The Incorrigible One

  [February 1940]

  After my mother and I had collected all that money for him, the Street Warden may well have put in a good word on behalf of my father. I don’t know, but I do remember the day my father returned. I was in the second grade by then and should have been getting ready for school, but my mother told me to sleep in that day. When I heard the singsong of the chimney sweep, I was up in an instant. I loved to watch him from our pantry window in the back of the house. He would appear on the roof of the side-house first, all dressed up in black, top hat included. In his right hand, he carried a black ball covered with bristles, and a long wire was coiled around his left shoulder. He walked as easily as the men on the tightrope at the circus. By the time he got to the tall chimney, I was half hanging out the window, waving my flag at him. As always, he took off his hat and made a deep bow in my direction. His left hand seemed to have melted into his hat, both were equally black, but I could see the white teeth in his sooty face when he smiled at me. He always smiled; chimney sweeps brought good luck. I wanted to be one, too.

  “Oh, no!” my mother said. She yanked the flag from my hands. “Where on earth did you find this one?”

  “Right here, behind the canned cherries and beans,” I said.

  “And that’s where it’s going again,” she replied.

  I felt tears coming to my eyes and when she had finished rolling up the black, red, and gold, she looked at me and pulled me tightly to her chest.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “I guess we’ll have to have another talk. Come, have a drink of this wonderful cherry juice.”

  She poured me a glassful and I took it eagerly. Just then the rumbling began behind the wall, and my mother dashed off to finish taping the kitchen stove to keep out the clouds of soot.

  “This is a lucky day, Hansel,” she said when she had finished. “This afternoon, Vati will be back! Mr. Meyer has promised to take us to the station. And that’s why I wanted to talk to you anyway. Come here; sit with me on the couch.”

  Her arms felt warm around me, just like the featherbed before falling asleep. But I was wide awake then.

  “Remember the time we talked about the tyrants?” she asked softly. “Remember when we talked about the bad men who took Vati away? They are just like the Wanselow kids downstairs who are mean to you and Dieter. They like to bully the whole world, the Nussbaums, the Meyers, and everyone else who doesn’t agree with them. They like to tell everybody where they can play and how they should live. They like to take everybody's toys away…”

  She saw the surprise on my face.

  “Yes, I know about it,” she said and held me tightly. “Well, Vati had a different idea. He thought people should be kind to each other, listen to each other and decide things together, and not allow any tyrants to rule. There was a time, before you were born, when this almost happened. That’s when Germany had the black, red, and gold flag. Right now, though, the tyrants are in charge, and we mustn’t wave that flag. If they see it, they will come and hurt us. But this is supposed to be our lucky day when Vati comes home!"

  My mother hugged me and gave me another glassful of cherry juice.

  “Shall we open a box of Leibniz cookies?” she asked.

  -----

  That afternoon, while Dieter was still in school, we met Mr. Meyer outside his fruits-and-vegetables store, just around the corner from our house. He was sitting in his green delivery van, the funny one with only one wheel in the front. There were only three seats, all in front as well, and I made sure to get the right-hand one. That way I could put out the red arrow whenever we turned right.

  Before we took off, however, my mother had a surprise for me. She had made a copy of my father’s driver’s license, but had changed the name, birth date, and place of birth to mine and had even put my picture in it.

  “Having passed the practical driving test and having paid a fee of 4 Reichsmark,” the document said, “Hansel is hereby given permission to operate a gasoline-powered vehicle of class #3. Signed at Berlin, February 14, 1940, by J. A. Hoffmann, Chief of Police. List Nr. 18730/40. Fee Register Nr. 282/I/40.”

  All that was left to do was sign underneath my picture and we were ready to go. I had so much fun putting out the red arrow whenever Mr. Meyer told me to that I was almost sorry when we pulled up in front of the railroad station. I had never seen it before and it certainly looked as if Silesia Station had been made for giants. The crowds of people in front of the main entrance reminded me of dwarfs. A huge eagle clutching a swastika was perched above them way up near the roof and I wondered what kept it from falling down. I read the signs.

  “Frankfurt-on-the-Oder,” and “Breslau, Dresden, Halle, Erfurt.” I knew the places; all of them were on my map at school. There were other signs, too.

  “Wheels Roll For Victory!” said one. “Keep Germany Clean!” said another, and I noticed an old woman with a broom sweeping up cigarette butts and used-up tickets and such. There was even an ad for my mother’s favorite scouring powder, “VIM Polishes Everything.”

  My mother put a 10 Pfennig coin into a metal box and got me a roll of mints. Then we bought tickets for the platform, and the railroad lady was kind. She gave me a book of stubs for our games at home. Platform 3 was empty when we got to it, but there was a lot of hustle and bustle on platform 6 across the hall. I decided to sketch the inside layout of the station on my notepad that my mother had brought along. Way on the left was Platform 1, right next to the side wall that seemed to have dozens of tall entrances, three meters tall I figured, with curved arches made from red brick. Above each of these arches was a large window, equally tall and equally arched at the top. And above that rose the roof that itself arched to the center of the giant cavern in which we stood, only to descend again on the other side to another side wall that was a mirror image of the first.

  On the ground, two railroad tracks ran parallel to Platform 1, they were followed by Platforms 2 and 3, two more tracks, Platforms 4 and 5, two more tracks still, and, finally, Platform 6 next to the far wall on the right. I tried to count the brick columns between the arches along our side of the building, but I gave up when I got to fifty-six. They got in each other’s way at the far end near the three big openings through which the three sets of double tracks came into the station. Counting the glass panels in the roof wasn't any easier; they were so black with soot that I couldn’t keep them apart. I kept thinking of the chimney sweep.

  -----

  My mother held my hand tightly when the big locomotive entered at the far end.

  “We must be careful not to fall onto the tracks,” she had warned.

  The locomotive filled the station with the l
oud sound of its horn, crawled past us inside a cloud of hissing steam, and stopped a few centimeters short of the barricade near the doors through which we had come. I wondered why the locomotive didn’t have red wheels. The one in my picture book did.

  My father didn't look like his picture either. His hair was very short, and he didn’t wear his favorite tie with the sailboats. My mother ran into his arms, but I didn’t know how to act toward him. He seemed like a stranger; so I put my arms around my mother. I noticed that she was crying, which I didn’t understand. I thought this was to be a happy occasion. Perhaps, I thought, she didn’t like his short hair.

  Mr. Meyer gave my father a slap on the back, as he always did when he met other men.

  “So they take you from Oranienburg to Berlin by way of Frankfurt-on-the Oder,” Mr. Meyer said with obvious sarcasm. “Why not take the long way? Makes a lot of sense to me now that we are supposed to conserve fuel.”

  “Had to have a week of re-education first,” my father said and my mother said “Hush, you two, let’s get out of here.”

  My father took me by the hand till we found Mr. Meyer’s delivery van. My parents went into the covered section in the back, right above the two back wheels; I resumed my position in the front, next to the right turn signal.

  “Ready, Captain?” Mr. Meyer said.

  I could see my parents through a little window behind my seat. My mother opened it and I asked my father about the tyrants, but my mother said that my father was tired from the long trip and I shouldn’t bother him.

  “We'll talk soon,” my mother said. “We’ll go to the Baltic, and Oma will come, too. Today we celebrate.”

  In fact, Mr. Meyer didn’t take us home right away. He dropped us off at Glogauer Strasse 33, where my grandmother and Aunt Martel lived. I knew the place well because my mother and I had visited there often. It was an old building, much older than ours. My grandparents had moved into it way back in 1895 when they came to Berlin from Silesia, looking for a better life. That was also the year Aunt Martel was born, the first of six children, which is why they always called her “the old one.” Uncle Walter was born next; then came Lotte, Liesel, Gertrud, and Fritz. But Fritz died in the very year I was born. And my father never called my mother “Gertrud.” He called her “Trudchen.”

  “Who’s here to celebrate?” I asked as we entered the dark hallway. I pressed the phosphorescent button to activate the lights in the stairwell and my mother said “Just Oma and Aunt Martel today.” I ran ahead, pressing the buttons on each level as we slowly made our way to the fifth floor. When my parents weren’t watching, I also stuck my tongue out at all the peepholes I passed, just in case someone was looking.

  “It’s not getting any easier,” my mother said, quite out of breath and with a weak smile. My father was still holding her hand when the laborious climb had finally ended and he rang my grandmother’s apartment door.

  Aunt Martel opened it and let out a shriek, but I didn’t have time to watch what happened next. I had to race to the bathroom and I knew my grandmother didn’t have one. No one in the building had a private toilet, much less a bathtub or hot water, but there were common toilets on each landing between the main floors. I ran to the nearest one and found it unoccupied. Unlike ours at home, my grandmother’s toilet had a water tank near the ceiling with a long chain hanging from it and a porcelain handle at the end. I liked to pull the handle and watch the water swirl in the basin below. I noticed the sign on the inside of the door. It was a war decree from the Mayor of Berlin, dated January 15, 1940, asking his fellow citizens to conserve coal by taking baths only once a week, on Saturdays or Sundays. That didn’t make sense to me because in my grandmother’s house there were no bathtubs, nor were there coal-fired water heaters such as the one we had at home.

  By the time I finally got to my grandmother’s apartment, the festivities were already underway. Although the heavy brocade curtains were drawn, the usually dark living room was brightly lit by the chandelier hanging above the large table in the center of the room. A perfectly ironed white table cloth made a stark contrast to the red oriental carpet underneath. And the table was set with my grandmother’s finest china and silverware and there were pretty white napkins next to each plate. Most importantly, the table was laden with all sorts of goodies to eat. I spied a bowl of crisp hot buns and a butter dish and a large platter filled with favorites of mine: blood sausage with white chunks of lard in it, raw hamburger with diced onions mixed in, and, of course, liverwurst. A real Berlin treat!

  Just then my grandmother appeared with a steaming pot of “peel potatoes,” fresh off her cast iron stove. I knew the drill. Whenever potatoes had been boiled with their skins, rather than peeled when raw, guests were expected to peel off the skins at the table—after all, potato peels were only for pigs! I also knew what would come next. On another plate, my grandmother brought in the inevitable eel and she also had red herrings that had been smoked to look golden like the ring on my mother’s hand.

  My mother brought me a bottle of the green woodruff soda that she knew I couldn’t live without, while my father placed bottles of black malted beer next to the other plates. Meanwhile, Aunt Martel was busy concocting a special welcoming drink, a genuine Berliner Weisse, produced by a carefully measured mixture of light beer, white wine, and a bit of raspberry syrup! I knew the recipe, although other people preferred to leave out the white wine and add woodruff instead of raspberry syrup.

  “Eat, eat,” my grandmother said, and we did, but not before my father had said a prayer and we all held hands in a circle and said “Amen.”

  Not much was said during the meal and I occupied myself studying the four angels sitting on Plaster of Paris clouds way up near the ceiling at the corners of the room. I decided that their faces looked exactly alike, but two were playing the trumpet, while the others each held a lyre between their legs. By the time I had studied the rest of the stucco decorations on the ceiling, it was time to take the dishes to the kitchen, but my mother said I needn’t help with the washing and drying today. I could go into Aunt Martel’s room and look at her jewelry box.

  I went reluctantly because I was eager to hear what the adults were going to talk about. So I skipped the jewelry box and briefly took a look at a few more interesting things. For one thing, the ceiling decorations in Aunt Martel’s room were different, consisting of many kinds of flowers and birds. Because they were all white, I had a hard time identifying them, despite the fact that I had studied my mother’s Flora and Fauna book at home.

  I also studied my grandfather’s picture on the wall. He had been a big man with a big head and a handlebar mustache, but he had died before I was born. My mother had told me that he had worked as a leather worker when he first came here from Silesia, tanning hides and dyeing leather for a shoe factory. Later he had been a policeman on foot patrol on Berlin city streets, and later still, he had become one of the Emperor’s Guards. My mother said he had worshipped the Kaiser, but had changed his mind after he met him in person. In the Kaiser’s palace, there were spittoons in the corners of all the rooms and the Kaiser had made it a habit to spit into one whenever he was pacing back and forth thinking about important things. One day, he had entered a room in which my grandfather was standing at attention and the Kaiser had angrily yelled at him.

  “Wherever I want to spit, there stands another cop! I’d rather be guarded by a cuspidor!” the Kaiser had said.

  From then on, my grandfather hadn’t liked the Kaiser anymore.

  As I looked at my grandfather’s picture in the Imperial Guard uniform, complete with spiked helmet, high polished boots, and sword at his side, I wondered whether he had died from a broken heart. I also noticed that my grandfather looked just like President Hindenburg, whose picture was hanging in the corridor at my school.

  Apart from my grandfather’s picture, Aunt Martel’s room was rather bare, containing only a bed, an armoire, and an interesting little cubicle with a big curtain in front. Of course,
I investigated and found only three items behind the curtain. There was a pail that I knew Aunt Martel used for going to the toilet at night. That way she didn’t have to go down the creepy stairway to the common toilet below. There also was a wicker rug beater that everyone always used in the backyard to beat the dust out of rugs, although I knew that bad children often made their acquaintance as well. I guess the rug beater was a relative of the Yellow Uncle at school. And then I found something really fascinating: a brand new black, white, and red flag! In a second, I took it to the kitchen where everyone was still doing the dishes, but nobody was happy with my find.

  “My God,” my father said to my grandmother, “you still have that flag! You know what kind of trouble you can get into? Get rid of it fast!”

  “Over my dead body will we get rid of that flag,” my grandmother said excitedly. “It’s one of the few things of Paul’s that I still have. No one is going to disrespect the Kaiser’s flag in this house!”

  With her gnarly hands, she grasped the flag, took it to her bedroom, and leaned it against the wall, right next to the crucifix. And that was that!

  “Why isn’t the flag black, red, and gold, like ours at home?” I asked.

  My parents gave each other that strange look.

  “Ours is the flag of the republic that came after the Kaiser left,” my father said. “I’ll explain it later.”

  “Don’t worry about flags right now,” Aunt Martel added. “Go and finish polishing my jewelry. You always do such a splendid job. I would be really grateful.”

  I pretended to comply, but I left the doors open a crack and was all ears.

  “You really should get rid of that flag,” my mother said to Aunt Martel. “Did I tell you that Fritz Wagner turned in his own brother last month? Just because he had raised his glass to the Kaiser at Lotte’s wedding! What this world has come to…”

  “We should bring Arthur up-to-date when he is done shaving,” Aunt Martel whispered, but I heard every word. I also saw my father hunched over a mirror in the kitchen, his suspenders looping off his sides, lathering up his face with a brush. While his face slowly disappeared under the soap, he sharpened a straight-edge razor on a leather strap. And while he slowly made his face reappear, my mother gave him the update.