When the Flagpoles Bloomed

by Vera Oredsson

  When the Flagpoles Bloomed

  when the

  flagpoles

  bloomed

  BY

  vera oredsson

  translated by lisa hellman

  LOGIK FÖRLAG

  When the Flagpoles Bloomed

  © 2018 Logik Förlag

  Box 22120

  250 23 Helsingborg

  Sweden

  Original title: När flaggstängerna blommade

  English translation by Lisa Hellman

  The first English Edition

  ISBN: 978-91-88667-67-0

  With this book, I would like to rebuke all the terrible revelling in lies that were aimed at Germany’s most honourable time in history. This compilation of stories is for the most part things that I myself have experienced, but also includes what others have told me about that period of a few years that was filled with devotion, work, struggle, and ideological upbringing.

  In the abundance of flourishing horror stories, defamation and sob-story propaganda whose main objective is to extort money in the form of repayment allowances from the defeated German people, I would like to light candles of truth in hope that they will radiate greater clarity and constrict the dark atmosphere of persecution and hate that is built up from these infernal lies.

  The Author

  The Translator’s Foreword

  You are now holding a very important historical document in your hands. This book contains the unique story of an extraordinary woman who lived at the time of the Third Reich and could see how it worked with her own eyes. Vera Oredsson tells us what it was like for her to grow up in National Socialist Germany. She was five years old when the National Socialists came to power and thus experienced the great changes that took place at that time. Her story will keep you captivated from start to finish. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It will make you wonder why you never heard about such things when you studied World War II in school. It will, in other words, open your eyes to the other side of the story, a side that is severely denied and suppressed.

  We have learned many things in school about the World Wars. We are always told to remember what happened then so that it will never happen again. At the same time, we are taught that we should listen to both sides of a story before passing judgement in a dispute. But when it comes to the Third Reich and the events of World War II, we have only been fed one side of the story, the victors’ side. German survivors of the war are few in number and soon they will be gone. It is of great importance that their voices be heard so that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated.

  We are in a day and age when there are a number of genocidal wars going on. History, in other words, is repeating itself right before our very eyes. Thanks to Internet, we are much more able to hear both sides of a story. If we only rely on mainstream media for our information, we are at risk of only hearing one side. If we want to hear the other side of the story, we need to go beyond massmedia and Wikipedia and seek other sources, even if those sources are not always seen as politically correct. In doing so, we risk being classed as horrible people who want to exterminate other people simply because they belong to a certain religion or ethnic group. This is one of the greatest crimes of our time. One clear example of this insanity is the case of Monika Schaefer, the brave woman who proofread this book and who was to write this foreword. Unfortunately she was arrested on January 3, 2018 for apologizing to her deceased mother because she reproached her for not doing anything to stop all the horrible things that the Germans are said to have done during the war. She is now sitting in a high security prison for having the wrong views of historical events. She is sitting in prison, together with murderers and rapists, for using her intellect and coming to her own conclusions, rather than blindly following the indoctrination that we have all been subjected to. We often boast about how free our Western countries are, how we are able to criticize our leaders and their ideas. But as in the case of Monika and others like her, we are obviously no longer free to question what our rulers want us to believe. No matter where you stand on this issue, the very fact that our rights and freedoms are quickly disappearing should be a wake-up call that something is terribly wrong here.

  We are at a crossroad now. We are living in a time when many sovereign nations are being destroyed and millions of people are suffering because of it. It is up to each and every one of us to decide if we want to allow this to continue or if we want to fight for our right to exist in our sovereign nation states. Some of you might feel a chill running up your spines because all the information you have been fed brings up horrible pictures from the war. But please, before you fall victim to that, calm your nerves, clear your mind, and read Oredsson’s book with an open mind. She shares with us her experiences of growing up during the war, and thus gives us a very different picture of the Third Reich and its leaders than what we have been taught in school.

  Remember what we in the West have always been taught about our justice system: One is innocent until proven guilty. Proper evidence must be submitted to the court. If a person is to be found guilty, he or she must be guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. If there is a shadow of doubt, the person is to be freed. Is that really how our justice system works today? Sylvia Stolz, a German lawyer, was arrested and put on trial because she defended her client, Ernst Zündel. Her crime? To ask the prosecutor to present evidence that the Holocaust had in fact happened (asking the prosecutor to present evidence that proves the guilt of the accused is standard practice for a defence lawyer). Instead of presenting the evidence that Stolz asked for, and which was necessary to either free or convict her client, she got arrested. Her client was later convicted, even though no evidence was produced that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was wrong. Regardless of what you believe about the Holocaust, this is not the way that the justice system is supposed to work!

  For those of you who already hold strong beliefs about the true nature of National Socialism, enjoy the ride! For those of you who are new to the subject, let Oredsson’s story open up a new world for you where you dare to ask important questions about historical events. Let her book inspire you to seek more information about what really happened in Germany during the wars and what the wars were really about. Do not be afraid if the information comes from non-politically-correct sources. Remember, both sides need to be heard. Now is the time for that to happen.

  Lisa Hellman

  February 22, 2018

  Foreword

  During my many years as contributor to both the Nordic Nationalist Party’s magazine and the Norwegian newspaper Folk og land I have occasionally written about my childhood days in National Socialist Germany from 1933 to 1945 in order to repudiate defaming and irresponsible articles in the mass media about that country. My articles have also refuted the Zionist-owned publishing companies, as well as movies, radio, and television programs. My reaction to such an overwhelming superior force has often resulted in letters from my readers telling me that I “must” write a book about my experiences. Others have also quietly wondered if I could have experienced so much. I have really had to be pressed to take on this project of writing a book, given that I am aware of what people expect from the task, but once I was finally persuaded to do it, I took up my pen.

  ###

  I was born on February 21, 1928. I was thus 5 years old in 1933 when Germany said its final farewell to the past and a new National Socialist society took shape. I had the privilege of living quite literally right in the middle of this society’s starting point, namely Berlin. I remember the long deployment along Unter den Linden as if it were yeste
rday. Torches burned and songs spread joyfully along the parade route. For a 5-year-old girl among all the spectators along the parade route it was an eternally overwhelming rapture. In the time that would later come, I was literally drawn into the center of activities, particularly the political ones.

  One of the main reasons was that I did not find my childhood home particularly happy and harmonious. The reader should not believe that there was alcoholism or other loathsome habits in my home. No, far from it. Many of today’s children from our society would surely be quite happy about the living conditions I had at home. The fact that I did not feel at home there could be because of my own personality.

  The parental love that there was in a strict so-called middle-class home, especially a German one, was for me simply preposterous to accept and live up to. Perhaps my Swedish blood from my mother’s side unconsciously rebelled against the German side. Parental love, if I choose to call it that, was intensely focused on one thing: school! School meant everything. This fixation on school resulted in my father using forcible means against me and my mother being passive. On top of that there were the complaints from my relatives over “the uneducated kid”, which resulted in my hating school with a passion. “Parental love” really made my school years a complete living hell.

  On my way home from school I childishly counted on a hope that I could count to a certain number of men wearing glasses before I got home so I did not get punished for that bloody homework assignment. Another time I could in the same way count “schimmel”, horses that pulled the beer wagons down the streets of Berlin.

  The Hitler youth was so freeing! We were called to singing classes, sports, and games two evenings a week, as well as to political educational classes, parties, and positive tasks with a clear National Socialist form.

  ###

  Furthermore, there were differences in character between my parents. Father was a typical methodical person who was raised in an officer’s family in a strict Prussian spirit. Mother was mild, spontaneous, and spasmodic when it came to her household duties, which gave rise to chaos when we needed clean clothes, whole socks, or punctual meals. How these two people could join their fates from 1927 to 1945, when their unavoidable divorce drew near and happened in 1950, is still a mystery to me. Mother was a tall and stately brunette with big, clear, blue eyes, while my father was small, stocky, and bald. Both were intelligent and learned, but when it came to their temperaments, they were totally incompatible. Father had satirical humour, while Mother was melancholy, tearful, and after the birth of my brother in 1936, completely son-fixated. Since then I hardly had a place in her thoughts.

  As for me, I was not like a typical child, affectionate and wanting to be hugged. I appreciated more order and cleanliness as proof of one’s love for me, which is something I missed in my home. Those times I sympathized with Father were the ones in which he was upset by and argued with Mother over the lack of order in the home.

  But no matter how angry Father was, he never lifted a hand to Mother. I have never witnessed any wife-beating, neither at home nor in any home of my own. And now I must emphasize and to be fair point out that the disorder in our home was never constant. When Mother put her mind to it and got going, she could turn the whole house upside down: paint, wallpaper, and clean. But the continual upkeep, which perhaps is the foundation of harmony, was missing.

  ###

  My maternal grandparents lived next door to my paternal grandparents in an apartment in Gosslerstrasse Friedenau, but they never associated with one another. This too was because they were opposites when it came to personalities and interests. My Swedish maternal grandparents were open people, good-humoured and well-liked. Grandfather--a Swedish architect--had left Sweden with his beautiful bride because of the tough competition in his field and settled down in Berlin at the turn of the century. At the beginning of the 1930s he got a job with the German historical museums and was given the task of travelling around Europe in order to study and sketch historical buildings for further revisions in Berlin. Later, when worry began to spread over Germany and the war came, he drew bomb shelters and was authorized to inspect the durability of existing bomb shelters for the civilian population and for industries.

  Grandmother was somewhat of a copy of my mother, but contrary to the ideal of the typical German man at the time, Grandfather loved to help out in the home. He gladly cleaned the house and showed his interest in the household chores by doing them. He happily cooked the meals from his own ideas and skills.

  When I visited my maternal grandparents, Grandfather knew that I enjoyed his sandwiches cut into small squares with different toppings. My grandparents never quarreled, at least not in my presence. Their four-room apartment, like my paternal grandparents’, was located across from a lyceum (a girls’ secondary grammar school) and its school yard. The area of Friedenau was adjacent to Steglitz, where we lived.

  I liked my maternal grandparents’ home, their Swedish interior decorating taste, and Grandfather’s oak furniture that he designed and drew with his own hands (and is now, after a few detours, in our son’s home in Östergötland in a fitting country setting), gave then, as now, a feeling of joy.

  My paternal grandfather had a totally different character: stern, unavailable, and reserved. He hardly ever set foot in the kitchen. My paternal grandmother was a pretty girl from East Prussia, but cataracts shortened her youth considerably. Despite knowledge of the girl’s fate, Grandfather married that sweet farm girl and was faithful to her his whole life. They both worshiped each other in their humdrum existence, where the stroke of the clock decided set times for walks, meals, and rest, etc. One could only visit them between 16:00 and 17:30. While I talked to Grandmother, Grandfather played Solitaire.

  My maternal grandparents liked beautiful clothes, whereas my paternal grandparents did not care a bit about them. If I saw that my paternal grandparents were out for a walk, I hid myself. Their clothes embarrassed me. They were worn-out, shabby, and ugly, despite the fact that they could afford to dress differently. Their household consisted of Grandfather’s mild sister Hedvig, who was an incredible cook, clean, and orderly. My aunt Grete rented a room from her parents, but we only met for short periods. She worked for the Ministry of Propaganda and was, like my father, a party member. She died soon after the war because of the after-effects from her time in American concentration camps. My maternal grandfather was loyal, but never politically active.

  My paternal grandfather remained faithful to Bismarck. After World War I he was banished from West Prussia, which was later called the Polish Corridor. One could never decipher his political stance. His unavailability prevented such confidential conversations.

  ###

  I hope this introduction has sufficiently presented my family’s background and I hope it gives a bit of guidance in my coming stories. I would like to add a bit more data to my introduction:

  Vera Martha Birgitta Schimanski

  Born in Berlin-Schöneberg in 1928

  Early childhood years: Berlin-Steglitz

  Street addresses: Opitzstraße, and after 1934 Markelstraße

  Through the Swedish Church, the so-called Viktoriaförsamlingen in Berlin: summer vacations each year in Sweden. My last summer vacation in Ljusdal, Sweden was in 1939, just before the outbreak of the war.

  In 1940, after the liberation of West Prussia, I travelled to my father’s birthplace, Bromberg, for the first time.

  Because of the danger of bombings, the children from the larger cities were moved to the southern part of Germany. They were grouped according to their school classes.

  KLV (Kinder Land Verschickung, (Child Land Dispatch, translator’s note) was founded by Dr. Goebbels. It was perfectly organized and safe.

  In the fall of 1940 I was moved to a mountainous area in Schlesien, where I stayed until the spring of 1941. I was later moved to Steinau, a lowlands area by the river Oder. What these citie
s and towns, as Polish stolen goods, are called, is not of interest to me. In 1945 Lauban became an enormous battlefield.

  In February, 1942 I had to leave my safe life in KLV because I was then of age for vocational training. I returned to a freezing Berlin with night bombing raids and the cursed School of Commerce with its accompanying tests on our homework and corporal punishment in the evenings, which were a dark contrast to life in the KLV.

  In the fall of 1943 my whole family was evacuated and we were scattered again. I went to East Prussia and then to West Prussia until January, 1945.

  1943: my maternal grandparents, Ragnhild and Wilhelm Svensson, moved home to Sweden, a move that my grandfather regretted deeply for the rest of his days. He went from being a highly appreciated and idolized person, popular with his relatives, who often visited him in Berlin, to being frozen out. The rich relatives in the circle of the owners of the conservative newspaper Karlshamns Allehanda knew their place … Penniless and bitter, he died in 1953 surrounded by all his blueprints where he dreamed about the rebuilding of Berlin. He died in a hotel in Karlshamn. Grandmother lived for two more years, very broken down because of her rheumatism. They were both buried in the family grave in Karlshamn’s cemetery.

  After the liberation of West Prussia, my paternal grandparents moved back to Gnesen, where my grandmother died in 1944. Grandfather lived through yet another escape and deportation, and died in Berlin in 1949. Grandmother and Grandfather did not get to share a grave.

  My father’s workplace moved to Schwarzbach, a town close to Dresden.

  My education was somewhat chaotic. I felt quite comfortable in elementary school, with its National Socialist direction, but my time in junior secondary school, with the pressure from my parents, was a disaster. I did not feel comfortable during this period of three terms, with both my teachers and classmates. My homeroom teacher looked like the British Prime Minister Chamberlain and the female teachers, with their snobby pointy noses, drove me to skip class a good number of times, which ended in expulsion. My relatives were appalled, and my parents’ dissociation became more obvious.