The church in Berlin was now led by a little repulsive swarthy type: Reverend Myrgren. Obviously instigated by the retreating German front, he boasted about how many “Nazi-Swedes” he managed to deport. Amongst them was a family with several children whose parents had been connected to the Ministry of Propaganda.
I was quite offended when he declared that he was prepared to raise the Swedish flag to welcome the Red Army’s impending assault on the country’s capital. All this while the Berliners built barricades to stop the assaulting Bolshevik hordes that a few weeks later would plunder, rape, and desecrate Berlin in a way incomparable to any other episode in history. Upset, I impulsively left the church gathering to apply at a “Volksturm” recruiting office, but sexual discrimination was still widely spread in Europe when it came to women’s abilities to fight, and I was rejected.
As a matter of curiosity, I can mention that the Reverend Myrgren, in a long interview in the Swedish newspaper Kristianstadsbladet a few decades ago, still boasted about his exploits, but that he bitterly regretted helping Vera Oredsson, who is now married to the leader of the Swedish Nazis, Göran Oredsson, to come to Sweden.
He can save that regret. I have never needed a reverend’s help to come to Sweden. I have always been able to travel here whenever I wanted, and when it comes to his “helping” me and other Swedish descendants, the truth is this: National Minister Heinrich Himmler negotiated with Count Folke Bernadotte at that very time of the evacuation of Jews to Sweden during the Allies’ bombings, even of the internment camps. Himmler was informed of the Swedish Church’s plots and sorting of Swedish-Germans according to their political views. Himmler was infuriated and roared at Folke Bernadotte that all negotiations of the evacuation of Jews were terminated. Folke Bernadotte was dismayed over the information and made it known that no differences were made here. All Swedish-Germans shall be allowed to travel to Sweden. So Reverend Myrgren’s efforts are marginal at best.
The Swedish Church in Berlin, where I was once baptized, was burned by the Allies. Myrgren did not need to raise the Swedish flag. But I guess he was satisfied when he could watch, later on in the newsreels, how the swastika banners were dragged around in the dirt, in Communism’s and democracy’s dung pools.
Vera’s baptism certificate from the Swedish church, Victoria congregation, in Berlin.
The Starling and the Olympics
Once more I would like to mention the beautiful parks in Berlin where, in the spring, the singing of the birds drowns out all the other sounds between the trees and the bushes. Father had a great interest in birds and he taught me the names of many birds and how to recognize their songs, knowledge that I have carried with me all my life and which gives me great joy to this very day.
I was eight years old in the year of the Olympic Games of 1936. I do not remember much about the sporting events or the athletes’ achievements, but Leni Riefenstahl’s film gives a complete history of the event for future generations. It shows the ideal of beauty and the lust for life as they are envisioned by the National Socialist ideology. Besides Leni Riefenstahl’s film there are also many picture books about the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin that document this epoch in German history, and of course the editions from before 1945 are the ones that contain genuine content and truth.
What does a starling, or more correctly, a couple of starlings, have to do with the Olympics? The Olympics are otherwise merely associated with the introductory dove cavalcade, but not so in my memory.
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My father had taken care of a couple of starling chicks that he had found piteously peeping under a ruined birdhouse in the park. He took them home and took care of them tenderly in the storage room. With a sewing machine lamp and a bed of cotton batting, they had a comfy nest and were fed with a pair of tweezers. The starlings survived and were influenced by their human surroundings.
As most people know, starlings are imitative birds that, like parrots and budgies, can learn to say a few words or shorter sentences. But even birds are individuals. Father taught them a few bars from a simple Swedish folk song. One of them whistled happily while the other just managed to a certain point about half way through. The better bird noticed its superiority and “boasted” by repeating the song, which made the lesser bird angry and they started to fight. We had a lot of fun with them.
During the Olympics we had a couple of journalists from Karlshams Allehanda in Sweden staying at our place. They were our relatives and owners of the newspaper, which was a conservative newspaper in Blekinge.
There was a festive mood in Berlin. One morning Uncle Bengt and I sat in the living room listening to the starlings as they sang and fought about different things. Uncle Bengt was impressed by their singing a Swedish folk song, but the birds had also learned a few words (!) … and when Uncle Bengt went to study them a little closer and approached the cage, they fell silent, but one of them said loud and clear “Heil Hitler!” Uncle Bengt furrowed his brow in dismay and said: “Cut that out!” … “Heil Hitler!” the bird replied. He turned quickly to me and said almost terrified: “Now things have gone too far! Have even the birds started to say ‘Heil Hitler’ in this country?” We laughed at his wonder and consternation. He knew that starlings could whistle and learn melodies, but not that they could even learn to talk like parrots can.
Shortly after the Olympics the starlings were released into the park and I often wonder if any of the visitors strolling through the park have ever heard the Swedish folk song or suddenly noticed a “Heil Hitler” from the tree tops.
The talkative starling.
The Streamers
The sun may have been shining on May 1, 1938, but that day my legs, in their short, white socks that belonged to the HJ uniform, had goose bumps on them from the cold cutting wind. Despite that, my mood was at the height of excitement. I was now going to see the Führer for real. I had however a memory of seeing him on January 30, 1933 in the torchlight procession when I was just 5 years old and was mostly fascinated by the rhythmic steps of the SA boots, the march music, and the songs.
Now I was going to see him and listen to him speak at the Olympic stadium and I was on my way to the S-bahn station where our group would go together. Laughing and singing, healthy and happy German children and youth, united in their belief in the future and lust for life, filled the train cars.
The Olympic stadium! We were there. Lots of youngsters in the HJ uniform’s brown jackets filled the seats of the arena to the very last seat. One down-side was that I ended up belonging to the group of youngsters who were to take off their jackets. The cold cutting wind made me shiver even more, and in my thin white blouse I had a hard time understanding the information that came from the leaders, but all of a sudden I read across the whole stadium the word “Grossdeutschland” (Great Germany). It had been formed with brown letters. The ones who got seats where they could keep their jackets on were lucky!
And the streamers around the bleachers flapped in their happy colours--the song arose--our youth hymn--and in rolled the well-known Mercedes convertible with a standing, smiling man. An incredible, infinite cheer broke out! What a day. The sun started to warm things up, including our hearts, over all this happiness and lust for life.
The Führer’s speech was interrupted continually by our cheers and now that I am older I have understood that Adolf Hitler had to improvise his speech a fair bit because we cheered about everything he said. When he mentioned the Communists, we cheered and when he mentioned the opposition we cheered. Those listening to the radio probably got a heart-warming laugh when the speech changed out of its rhythm, and the Führer may have experienced that when he was talking to the youth, he should not use too many complicated political terms. Not that it hurt anything, but the opposition, in their zealous ability to misrepresent things, probably wished to impute to the rest of the world something that was not at all meant. This is exactly what happened with the s
ong we youth sang so often: “Today Germany hears us … Tomorrow the whole world will hear us”. This is misinterpreted to “Today Germany belongs to us … Tomorrow the whole world will belong to us”. This song was later banned because of this perpetual “misunderstanding” that the rest of the world put in their propaganda.
But all good things must come to an end, as even this experience of May 1, 1938. We gathered in line-ups for food and the trip home. A good Eintopf stew, which consisted of meat and vegetables, was served. The banners were rolled up and the trip home began. A wonderful day full of memories for a lifetime was over.
I will never understand what was so dangerous with the Hitler Youth. It was a movement built on character, healthiness, joy, and beauty. These are goals that should be worth aiming at for all the youth in the world, in contrast to what we are facing today, as we are on the threshold of a new millennium. Why can one not naturally tell whoever: “I remember when I was a member of the Hitler Youth”? This should not be something to keep quiet about, when the truth about the Hitler Youth is told as it really was and not as it is described in the propaganda lies put out by the victors and the enemies.
Adolf Hitler speaking at the Olympic Stadium, 1938.
Vera, 10 years old, 1938.
Sammeltassen
This word is difficult to translate from German, but it means “a manic collecting of coffee cups,” and in porcelain shops one could order “Eine Sammeltasse” as a present or to one’s own collection. A bunch of beautiful cups and saucers, unique in their design and colour, were then displayed.
My choice of titles for this chapter derives from what I am about to tell about my experiences with a West Prussian farmer’s daughter by the name of Friedel Keller. I will here retell what she told me. I cannot think about her without also thinking about her beautiful coffee cups, which she set the table with on special occasions. A long table was covered with a shiny damask cloth and covered with several of her decorative coffee cups and saucers. One could tell that she was proud of her collection, which she managed to save from the Polish mob’s destructiveness during those awful days at the end of August, 1939.
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The farms in central Europe lie, like in Sweden before the days of the mapping department, in groups and the fields were adjacent to the villages. Friedel Keller’s farm was situated in the village of Kruschdorf, about 20 km outside of Bromberg. The name “Bromberg” cannot be mentioned to the older generation of Germans without it causing shivers to run up and down their spines. In Bromberg the Polish performed a murder orgy on the German population that can only be compared to what is today described as the ethnic genocide going on in former Yugoslavia. The pogroms in Bromberg caused the German invasion and liberation on September 1, 1939, which put an end to the bestial riots.
Kruschdorf, a village on a ridge by the Bromberg Channel, consisted of a church, an inn, and a country estate that was located right by the church and the barns. The farms were owned by both Germans and Poles, but predominantly by Germans.
One could clearly see the difference between the German and Polish farms. In front of the German farms, along the street of the village, there were dazzling little gardens with flower beds. Inside the houses were wooden floors or stone floors in the kitchen area. At the fronts of the Polish farms there were no yards and the houses had dirt floors.
There was something special about Friedel Keller’s farm. Even if the farm’s red brick looked like that on the other farms, the house’s gable showed off a veranda with colourful lead windows where the sunbeams danced. Her yard in front of the veranda was the apple of her eye. Enclosed by a fence and locked gate, no one was allowed into her yard without her permission.
Friedel was not a particularly distinctive down-to-Earth “farm girl”. She was more orientated towards the beautiful and decorative, but her mother ruled with an iron hand, and neither sloppiness nor laziness were tolerated. The combination was surely needed and the best for both the running of the farm and the comfort of the home.
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At one of the well-laid coffee parties on the farm, Friedel Keller told us about how she survived the Polish mob in those August days of 1939. The Polack’s irritation and spitefulness intensified and got worse and worse every day. German men just “disappeared” and German children were harshly bullied and lived in constant fear. She said:
We worked more intensively, like some sort of therapy that kept us from worrying and feeling a nerve-wracking panic. But the worry we felt when a family member was away on an important errand gnawed at us and disturbed the rhythm of the day, given that we continually interrupted our duties and looked down the road of the village or continually looked out the window. In our evening prayers we prayed deep down, ‘Dear God, send us the soldiers from the Reich and bring us peace and freedom’.
To be on the safe side, we hid some of our possessions under the wooden floor of the veranda and covered the hole with dirt so that in case of a fire-raising, they wouldn’t get damaged. Only Mother and I knew about the hiding place. So late one afternoon, just after finishing the afternoon milking, they came! Howling and screaming a whole armada of insulting words, tens of dozens of them rushed into the yard. Everything was to be smashed to pieces they said, but Mother, who spoke fluent Polish, answered, ‘Smashing and destroying everything doesn’t give you any profit, does it? Why not take what you want instead!’ These surprising words from my mother left them speechless and calmed them down before the plundering began. When it was over, they tied us up to the wagon wheel outside in the yard. At that very moment, a troop of Polish soldiers rode into the yard and the leader of the troop wondered what was going on. We were relieved because we hoped that the soldiers were disciplined, in contrast to the mob. But we were mistaken.
Sure, the order was given to free us from the wagon wheel, but instead we were to be bound to the solid wooden legs of the kitchen table and the farm was to be burned to the ground. There we sat, Mother and I, and looked at each other in agreement: ‘Don’t show your fear. Don’t cry. Don’t show any weakness’. But good grief how close to panicking we were!
Suddenly the leader of the troop called out: ‘Untie them and bring them here!’ We were pushed into the room. The leader of the group pointed at the wall and the picture hanging there. It was a portrait of Pilsudski, the Polish Head of State. ‘This saves your lives,’ he said. ‘He is my idol.’ And so the mob and the soldiers left us and our farm, but our hands and feet were once again tied tightly. The terror we felt may have left a bit, but we wondered how all this would end. After about an hour, Ratz Werner, a neighbour, came sneaking in. He untied us and we snuck, ducking along the thicket and the ditches, out to the forest and the darkness of the night. Here and there the sky was lit up by burning houses and farms, but many people from our village had gotten out in time and, like us, had escaped into the forest to camps with security guards in out-of-the-way glades.
Mother told me later that she looked at the picture of Pilsudski in terror and hoped that the Polish troop leader wouldn’t take it down or turn it around, because on the other side was a picture of the Führer. The picture was turned around to be on the safe side.
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Our time in the forest was not very comfortable, and every now and then one of the courageous people snuck back to the village to get supplies from what remained of his home.
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A few days into September, my mother resolutely took a cow and made her way to our farm. It was silent and remarkably calm in the village when Mother arrived at the farm, but when she was at the height of her rummaging, she heard a deafening rumble in the yard and instead of quickly sneaking away, she sang a Polish song at the top of her lungs, thinking that the Polacks were once again visiting the farm. ‘After days in the forest I looked awful and dirty, least of all I looked like the farmer’s wife’, interjected Mrs. Röseler.
Mother sang at
the top of her lungs to mislead what she thought were the Polish troops or mob, when a strong voice roared out in German: ‘What’s going on here?!’ She stood in front of the pantry and quickly turned around. A German soldier was standing there with his rifle threateningly pointed at her. She got quite a shock, but quickly pulled herself together and got angry instead: ‘Here we’ve been longing for you, praying for you, and picturing your arrival as liberating, being greeted with flowers and song, but instead you point your weapon at me! I am Mrs. Röseler and I own this farm!’ A couple of officers came in and looked suspiciously at the dirty woman standing on the step below. ‘Come here,’ said one of them gruffly, and Mother followed them into the room.
He pointed at the portrait of Pilsudski and wondered if this really was a German farm. Mother turned the picture around and asked sharply: ‘Is this better? But I’ll say this: Pilsudski will remain on the back side of this picture for as long as I live because he saved both the farm and our lives.’ She told the officers and the group of German soldiers that had gathered around the whole story. Some of them were ordered to follow her into the forest to get the rest of us, but that wasn’t necessary. Our guards had already seen the German soldiers and met them with shouts of joy.
What a day it was. We got help with the clean-up, and food and drink. There are no words to express our joy. The swastika banners came out of nowhere, decorated with flowers, and were raised. We searched for our poor animals that had run into the field.
There were no limits to our grief when we were able to bury our murdered neighbours and villagers who hadn’t managed to escape the Polish mob. In Bromberg, where my sister and her daughter live, it was even worse. The Polish masses had carried out an indiscriminate witch-hunt on all Germans. Children, women, and even pets were broken on the wheel, stoned, and assaulted to death.
When the Flagpoles Bloomed Page 4