When the Flagpoles Bloomed

by Vera Oredsson

  Our travel day came and towards dusk the train chugged towards and into a darkened Berlin. Father greeted me with the words, “Mother is at home with the flu”. No “Welcome home”, no tender words of endearment. In the distance I saw how Karin was hugged by her relatives with exclamations of joy. She disappeared with her family in the crowd towards the exit and we never met again. Father and I walked down the stairs to the subway and our train, which would take us to Steglitz and the bedridden Mother.

  SS

  I encountered the SS three times. Not in the way one would think after hearing all the propaganda against National Socialist Germany, that the SS was everywhere and made life miserable for the citizens. Quite the opposite. First, it was quite rare to meet them and second, the SS were absolutely not some kind of horrifying figures that were generally feared. On the contrary, they were seen as decent, helpful citizens. That is my experience. The reader can form his or her own opinion after reading my stories.

  The Autumn Leaves

  I had had enough! That bloody School of Commerce whose teachers gave me the most unfair grades. But I did not dare take these awful grades home and show my school-obsessed parents. I must get away! Away! I checked out what would be appropriate to take with me when I ran away. A big net bag would have to do. A blanket, warm clothes, food, toiletries, and my favourite book, The Girl in the Soldier’s Coat, which was partly what inspired me to make my decision to be a soldier on the front line. If it was possible during the Napoleonic war, it should not be so impossible in the fall of 1942.

  I biked off to the east, according to my compass. I neither cried nor felt afraid. I just felt an angry decisiveness as the wheels rolled along through the crunching autumn leaves that lined the streets of Berlin.

  Hour after hour eastwards, and soon my journey took me through rural suburbs and the darkness began to fall, even darker in the compact blackout time. I slowed down and with a weak flashlight I tried to make my way to a suitable spot to spend the night. A soft rain had started to fall, so I had to hurry up and find a dry spot. I chose my sleeping spot under a thick pine in a hollow with grass, and with my raincoat on as protection I had it quite good and enjoyed the stillness, as I listened to the subsiding rain and fell asleep.

  I was suddenly awoken by a clattering cooking pot and voices in the dawning light. Behind the pine I found a barbed wire fence. At first I could not understand the context, but I understood from the foreign voices that I had spent the night right beside a prison camp. Carefully and as quietly as possible, I packed up my things and led my bike carefully away from there before mounting my bike and riding away to the east.

  ###

  It turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. I was hungry, and looking for a good place to stop and eat made me bewildered. There was a fence on both sides of the road. Where was I going? The forest in the distance looked inviting and smelled good in the warm autumn sun. I found a big hole in the fence where I—fortunately or unfortunately—could crawl through with my bike, despite the trouble with the pedals and handlebars, which always wanted to get tangled up in the barbed wire, no matter how I tried to avoid it. I could have gotten badly tangled up in the wire. I had not thought of packing any band-aids or a first-aid kit, but I got through in one piece, and after that sweaty task I could finally find a place to rest in the sun.

  I sat down beside a creek and enjoyed my surroundings as my hunger subsided with a few pieces of bread and sausage. My surroundings seemed to me to be a little too well-kept for undisturbed nature. The creek was well-shaped and the trees and the bushes reminded me more of a park than a wild forest. The ditches and embankments seemed to be planned. I thought about this unusual environment but did not reflect any deeper about it, and somehow I started to regret that I ran away. What is going to happen? What is going to happen now? My lunchbox will soon be empty. And how will I, a 15-year-old girl, become a soldier? I am probably quite crazy anyway, but what is done is done, and it is getting more and more ignominious to come “crawling” back home and meeting not only spankings but also laughter and scorn. Given that my current surroundings seemed so interesting, I decided to go exploring. But first I would wash up in the creek and comb my long hair.

  The creek was shallow and I could easily jump over to the other side where the water looked clearer. I quickly planted my one foot down in the middle of the creek to get ready to jump … and sank! Quicksand, my one leg was stuck, inexorably stuck! I desperately tried to get a hold of my bike which was lying on the bank, when I heard a lofty voice talk to me, “What is this girl doing here?” I looked up and saw a tall man in full soldier’s equipment with the shiny tag that glimmered blindingly in the sunshine. A pair of strong arms helped me out of that precarious situation and I found myself suddenly with soldiers who looked at my piteous figure with surprise.

  The feeling of wretchedness in this situation gave me tears of anger, but humbleness also radiates courage. “I want to be a soldier—and then it turned out this way”, hick-upped my voice while I was led to a security building with an office. In the office there were several men with shining SS badges on their uniform coats. One Scharführer (squad leader, translator’s note) ordered a warm drink for me, and over a steaming cup of hot chocolate I had to tell them about my trespassing on the practice field and why I ended up in the SS barracks area. An order was given to mend the fence. To my story he made the laconic comment: “A girl like you should not be beaten, but what to do to avoid mixing in people and paperwork?” He got up and disappeared for a few minutes. A couple of the other men talked calmly with me and tried to get me to forget my wretched situation. Young, handsome soldiers that did not leave me unaffected and who made me angry in my wet, dirty clothes.

  The Scharführer came back looking happy and relieved. “We will drive you, bike, and baggage to the intersection of Markelstraße. From there you will continue on home. We would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about your stay here. Just tell your parents about a normal running away from home that you regret. Your shame is something you’ll have to live with, but we’ll do what we can to discreetly get your father to stop hitting you. It shouldn’t be hard to do, given that your father is a member of the SA. Your parents have probably reported you missing to the federal police, in which case you will tell even them about a normal running away from home. We trust you.” And with a certain lightening in his look he continued, “because a soldier has to be able to keep quiet, right?” I nodded and was driven in the back of a truck, together with my bike and bags, to Berlin and Markelstraße.

  On our way one of the young SS men snuck a paper into my hand with his name and field post number. “Write, write and tell me” he whispered in my ear. Herman Hacke and field post number. At the intersection of Scholstraße and Markelstraße the small military truck came to a stop and I continued on alone. With both dread and the feeling of being abandoned somehow, I approached my home, but my “secret” gave me some sort of comfort and strength, which I was a little proud of.

  I met my upset mother at the door. I had to get washed up and change my stiffly dried clothes to “good clothes” to go to the police for an interrogation. The police station was a little ways away from our place. I told them about a normal, regretful running away from home and they were not the least bit troublesome. It was, after all, just for a day. My prank was not reported to the school or the Hitler Youth centre, it was kept within the family. Father was of course outraged, but his obligatory spanking with the bamboo cane, which he always took down from the bookcase behind the clock, did not happen. Spanking never happened again, but after his thorough scolding, he did not say a word to me until the Christmas of 1942/43. His spankings must have immediately stopped because he was contacted by someone after this episode, and it must have been a person or people he highly respected.

  This was one of my confrontations with the SS. The story could have ended here, but it had a sequel, a romantic one. The
field post number. Herman Hacke gave me many moments of support and hope, but I did not dare get his letters sent to my home. Instead I exchanged letters under general delivery in another name—Sigrid Lampion—and it had a catch to it: I could not pick up the letters myself, I had to get someone who was older than me to do it.

  The Big Dipper

  The field post number and Herman Hacke gave me many moments of comfort. As I said, I did not dare get his letters sent to my home address, so our exchange of letters was done under general delivery. My letters were picked up by a neighbour’s girl who was in on it all. Our letter-writing gave a worthwhile exchange of ideas, hopes, both personal and political, and went on for a few months. But a secret never stays that way forever when a third person is involved. The neighbour’s girl, Inge Selle, met a few of my classmates during a preparatory job on our school holiday and told them about it. Their mothers knew my mother and my letters disappeared from their hiding place under the sturdy wardrobe. I was both sad and lonely again. My letters went “unanswered” until one letter reached me anyway through Inge Selle—the last one. Herman wanted to meet me at the Feuerbach subway station, which still goes by that name, just like the subway.

  It was one of those early spring evenings at the beginning of March when the weather can still turn cold. I told my parents I was going out for an extra job with the Hitler Youth and with that white lie I could go to my first date, a little shaky with hope. Like a normal teenager I wanted to wear a little more attractive clothes than the HJ uniform on my first secret date, but the circumstances did not allow that. Herman met me at the station dressed in the familiar black uniform and held his peaked cap under his arm. He looked at me seriously and said, “Our meeting will be short. I’m not allowed to exchange letters with you without your parents’ permission until you turn 16. As for me, I’m leaving for a mission far away that I’m not allowed to talk about. You are young and sweetly innocent.” He put his pointer finger under my chin and gave me a gentle kiss on the lips. As if he had done something improper, he quickly put his hat on his head and disappeared down the steps towards the platform. Before he disappeared, he turned around and made a friendly gesture that changed into a correct Hitler greeting.

  In a daze, I went home on darkened streets that were hardly lit up by the stars. I pressed my fingers to my lips. I did not know if I should be happy or sad. I had a strange feeling where I was walking. I remember the Big Dipper well with its seven twinkling stars. The facades of the houses were still in one piece and some of the beautiful ornaments were so typical for the turn of the century architecture. Only a few weeks later would many of them gape empty with burned out stinking holes or lay in a pile of ruins. The stars would then no longer be mirrored in the blacked out apartment windows. The terror bombings would begin and even our street would be affected.

  And the Wall Cracked ...

  One evening at the end of March when the victory-certain winds howled through the ridges of the roofs in Berlin, I followed the starlight with my eyes through the windows, the weather vane, like praying angels, turning to the east and the west and the east around the edges of the chimney. The radio was on loudly in the living room where my parents sat listening. My brother slept soundly on the other side in our common room. A small sliver of light from the living room came through the door and lit up my portrait of the Führer that hung over my bed. With its Rembrandt colours it made a golden impression with his blue eyes looking out over the room.

  Because there was a blackout, I had to be careful not to allow too much light from the living room into my room when I rolled up the blinds to see over the roof tops. We lived on the top floor, the fourth floor.

  I was just about to fall asleep when my father with an angry exclamation turned off the radio as an off-key soprano drowned out the orchestra—or so he thought! Just after the apparatus was turned off there was a deafening explosion that shook our building so that the wall over my bed cracked diagonally from the floor to the ceiling. The portrait of the Führer rocked and in my childish belief I was convinced that it was his portrait that held the wall together so it did not crumble over me and my bed. It was that picture that I had wanted and gotten for my birthday.

  I quickly jumped into my carefully laid-out clothes while my mother helped my brother put his on. At the same time the doorbell rang and our neighbours asked if we had not heard the sirens. My father could do nothing but laugh. The supposed off-key singer had gotten her song mixed up with the sirens. The mistake was not that strange since we were used to a radio voice always interrupting our program and informing us of the enemy approach. That did not happen this time and we were literally caught napping.

  ###

  We hurried down to the bomb shelter to the accompaniment of anti-aircraft fire, droning airplanes, and exploding bombs. Our apartment building miraculously made it through the whole war, with the exception of a later stage when our floor was hit by firebombs that were quickly extinguished.

  As soon as things had calmed down to a certain degree, Father went out to patrol the neighbourhood, which was his duty as security guard. He usually came back after awhile and took me up to the roof, which is something I appreciated because I always got pain in my legs from being in the bomb shelter, where we could be for many hours. But this time an out-of-breath father came directly with the order of a hand count because the neighbouring building was in flames.

  The risk was immediately understood that our building could catch fire, as the sparks blew heavily over the ridge of our roof. We made a chain of pails of water that were filled in the apartments. It worked well after all our practice, but the water pressure fell floor by floor and soon we were down to the bottom floor. Luckily the wind turned and we could get up to the roof to behold the damage.

  The security guards had worked feverishly with the water-pouring and the clay shingles made a hissing sound when the water came in contact with them. The neighbouring building, with its burning flames in the apartments, looked like a lit up set piece where the windows rattled with ghostly sounds from the heat pressure. Occasionally a few big sparks flew over us and one of my braids that stuck out from underneath the hood of my wind-proof jacket hissed. The smell of burnt hair caught my attention and I quickly smothered the glowing particles with my gloves. Unprepared, we heard a droning sound, a little higher-pitched than the sound from the bombers that we feared. We were not especially worried, perhaps it was one of our scouting planes or one of our own fighter planes, when a whistling, clattering noise started to howl around us. We threw ourselves behind a chimney and with hate and angry shouts we shook our fists at the English marauder that rained machine gun fire over the people who were trying to dowse the flames. But still I had to turn my attention to myself. I had been hit by a ricocheting piece of clay shingle during the attack and had been lightly wounded. I shouted more with anger: “Bloody swine! The humane Englishmen, ugh!” I heatedly wished that I could shoot down the marauder, but this event—big enough then—was still just a teaser for what was to come. The terror bombing of Dresden in February, 1945 was just one of many such bombings. I at least got an insight into what kind of enemy we were dealing with.

  ###

  After having my wound dressed and sleeping for a few hours, I went over to the neighbouring apartment building to help out with the evacuation there. Every so often the fire flared up again in the blackened stocks and the lumber that got a little more food in the water-drenched, stinking atmosphere of burned cloth.

  At the gate to our yard I found an old woman crying, though one was not used to Berlin’s women shedding tears during or after a bombing, but with resolute expressions and a certain degree of dark humour they supported each other and those around them and kept their panic in check. This is a common character trait for them. Panic is, as you know, a bigger danger than the attacks themselves, for it can always be mastered and conquered. I have a hard time comforting people, but I was moved
by this woman’s tears when she, in the midst of all this mess and frantic work in the smoke, stink, and destruction, pathetically complained about her fine china that she could not save. It was on the third floor in a china cabinet in the kitchen, or what was once a kitchen, but was, according to the security guards, unreachable because of the risk of collapse. I looked up the stairs. The first two flights were pretty much undamaged, but the third one, where the railing was burnt off, looked like a burned-up barn ladder. The stairs by the wall looked to me to be usable and I lifted the laundry basket full of towels I had with me and decisively went to rescue the woman’s dear possessions, despite the woman’s protests. Brave? More like rash self-assertion to conquer cowardice. Quite common in teenagers.

  I was surprised by the uneven destruction. Some of the apartments were intact, like someone had just cleaned them, while others were totally demolished. The sky shone through the roofless beams and I could easily find the undamaged cabinet. It stood there, saturated with water, but shining white and totally intact. With eager hands I packed the wonderful, beautiful porcelain in the basket, very much aware that a broken piece would be of no use. The lightly elegant pieces with rococo ornaments, plates, bowls that for a few seconds gave me the sensation of Mozart melodies and the 18th century, were really beautiful. But I was quickly brought back to 1943 when some of the smoking beams above the cabinet warned that they were starting to break. I kept on filling the basket, as much as I could carry. When in danger and with self-persuaded decisiveness one gets unbelievable strength that is said to be caused by rising adrenalin, and I lifted the basket and started down the stairs.