The following night was uneasy. There was no end to our discussions and ponderings. As my illness rolled through feverish dreams of blood-red waves, I listened to the murmur of voices. My roommates began to understand that something was wrong with me, but I tried cheerfully to brush off their worry with words like “If the Führer is dead, we all may as well be”, “Now we’ll all be slaughtered by the Polish mob”. The girls asked if they should not inform the superintendent of my condition anyway, but she suddenly came into our room and informed us that the assassination attempt failed and that the Führer was alive. Relief spread over my mind and it became like a blinding glare. I lost consciousness.
###
I looked up into a friendly nun’s face as I lay in a large, almost round, room. “Ah ha, you’re awake now. Little girl, you really scared your friends when you fainted. You have Scarlet Fever and must lie in the castle. You will be moved there once you have woken up.” “The tower, I’m lying in the tower, the horrible tower!” I remember that our “Bächlein” told us that people who are afflicted with an epidemic illness stay there until they have been diagnosed. Soon I would be there too. The castle building, which was made into an epidemic hospital, was framed by vines. The courtyard was enclosed by a wall that separated us ill ones from the outside world. I lay in a room with two Polish girls and was irritated because they did not speak German. They were allowed to have visitors because they were in the recovery stage. Visitors is perhaps going too far, because the visitors stood under the balcony, and by lowering a basket, gifts could be placed in the basket and pulled up.
After enduring a couple of weeks of injections, medicine, and examinations by a doctor, my superintendent from the school, dressed in a mask and white coat, gave me, to my delight, baking and fruit. She came from North Frisia, was tall, slender, and red-haired. I never saw her in civilian clothing, but the brown linen dress, or the dark brown uniform with the NSV emblem on it, looked good on her. We students received both tenderness and just reprimands, but also the occasional scolding. We were happy under her leadership, which was surely not the easiest since she herself could not have been more than 10 years older than us 15-17 year-olds.
She had authority. That I noticed when in the middle of our conversation the two Polish girls came in talking verbosely in their mother tongue. She got up and left the room, but returned after a little while with the ward nurse, who, red as a beet, informed me that I would be moved to another room where there was a German girl. I do not know what was said, but I was really happy to be in the same room as the girl from Cologne instead of sharing a room with the Polish girls.
During my six weeks of isolation, the grapes on the wall outside our room ripened. We climbed like acrobats on the facade in order to reach the desirable clusters. But we had to be careful, partly so the ward nurse did not find out about our excursions and partly so that the personnel did not see us outside in the free world.
A couple times a week we shouted information from the balcony to each other. My friends told me about life at school. These were pleasant breaks in my otherwise very boring existence at the hospital.
###
Worry over the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 loosened its grip, but the front line started to yield. We relied on a coming victory anyway and did not worry that much about the ominous atmosphere. We were completely incorporated into the National Socialist conviction. That is why our comradeship worked entirely according to the motto “One for all, all for one”. I remember this time as one of the most wonderful times in my life. We never questioned anything, we just found our community through the ideology.
But towards the end of my stay in the ward, my fighting spirit was awoken by the threat to the end of this happy period. My friends came, and were unusually many on this visiting day. They had a large armful of gladioli with them that made a fine show in an exuberant good-bye-summer greeting. But my friends were serious, not like before, joking or happily shouting. They called out, “Vera, we can’t come here anymore. We’re digging trenches and anti-tank ditches closer to the front line”. “I’ll be out soon and will help you”, was my answer. And that is what happened.
When the Lilacs Bloomed Twice
During one of my visits to Kruschdorf in 1944, Friedel Keller called out to me, “Come and look! The lilacs are blooming again!” It was late summer and very sensational. Autumn was approaching and so the leaves were expected to turn yellow while the flowers’ message was about spring. We observed the phenomenon with blue but skinny bunches. Friedel’s old mother came out on the step and sounded sad. “This is a bad omen. Departure blooming is what we old folks call it. Either a young person on the farm will die, or we’ll be forced to leave the farm before spring. This is nothing to be happy about.”
Her words were to come true.
A Breach of Discipline
Upon returning to Thorn’s NSV school I did something unforgivable.
My friends marched merrily away every morning to dig trenches in the town’s outlying areas. I myself was ordered to perform kitchen duty because the superintendent thought that after having Scarlet Fever and my long hospital stay that I should not work that hard. I begged and pleaded to be part of the war effort, but no, I was to stay at the school.
The next morning I hid in the annex that the older students on night duty used as a sleeping quarters and snuck into the group that was leaving. My friends thought that I had permission to come along.
When we returned to the school in the afternoon I was immediately summoned to the superintendent. Red with anger she scolded me with the horrible end: “Your behavior, which caused such worry and forced a search for you, is a breach of discipline that is not tolerated at this school. You are now expelled. But before you leave, you are to write about why you behaved this way so that I can hand your letter, together with my arguments, to a higher authority.” A higher authority was always the SS.
Oh no! My entire inner world collapsed into chaos and despair, regret, and a lot of self-hate. How could I be such an idiot to put myself in this situation? What is to become of me? I felt so at home and found my place in this NSV school!
In tears I sat down in the classroom and wrote and wrote a long essay with the tears streaming down my cheeks and sniffling away. I wrote about my political conviction, how I longed to be a soldier. I wrote about my hopes for Germany’s future and my belief in our victory. I wrote and wrote …
The superintendent accepted my essay and I went and packed my things. My friends tried to comfort me and said that I should apply to the blue NSV where they are not as strict. At that moment the superintendent stepped into the room and said with a muddled voice, “Unpack again. We need to talk.” My friends burst out, all talking at the same time, “What have you written? Didn’t you see? She was crying--you could tell.”
Surprised and with noticeable relief and a thank-you to God, I unpacked my things. Unsure and hesitantly I nonetheless took the steps to the superintendent’s private room. With a re-won and respectful attitude she stood quietly by her window for a few minutes, then she turned towards me and said the same thing that the nuns in Lauban had said, “You are such an idealist Vera.” She continued, “I think it was good for both of us to have suffered through these hours. From now on I will always order the students with misdemeanors to write about them. That way I’ll get to learn more about the person and why they’ve done what they’ve done. It becomes much clearer if they fit in here with us or if they should go somewhere else. I can recommend those who are not totally politically committed to the cause to the blue NSV. I will not send your letter further because I’m uncertain of how firm the higher officials are when it comes to breaches of discipline of this nature, but I would really like to keep it as possible documentation. May I?” I nodded. “Tomorrow you may go along to the trenches.” And she continued a little stricter, “But I don’t want to hear any complaints about being tired
or lack of energy. One thing I’m now certain about: you will never again do anything to breach the discipline. Understood?!” Then she did something very unusual: she gave me a hug, and at the same time she said with a sigh, “For your sake--and many of your kind--may we be victorious”.
Vera, 1944.
Moss and Dirt
We dug for five hours a day. We were generally known as the industrious gnomes. We were dressed in ski pants and brown coats with hoods. Everywhere on the roads, more or less in marching order, small groups wandered eastward with their spades on their shoulders. We from our school were careful to keep the pace with polished shining spades when we left in the mornings. On our way home we always overcame our fatigue with songs and happy expressions. One time a troop of soldiers came marching by. We broke into a song that had a little faster pace so the orderly troop lost their pace and made the non-commissioned officer embarrassed. He scolded his men to our heartless amusement.
Oh yes, we sang, worked, and were in a good mood, so the Major who was our work leader often sent sour-faced Polacks who were ordered to dig trenches to our division. Our hands got callouses and our backs ached, but we kept on untiringly in the sun, rain, and wind. Hardy and used to the work, it went easier and easier and better and better to work the dirt that was sometimes sandy, sometimes clay. Until one day at the beginning of December after our last job with moss and branches, the Major came to us and informed us that our work was finished. He was a friendly soul, and despite his age was both fit and agile. He urged us to return to our education and promised us that distinctions would be awarded after Christmas. He wished us a Merry Christmas and hoped that our industrious labour would contribute to the protection against the Soviet red advance.
We marched back to the school without spades, which were left to the military trucks. We could see our breath when we sang our songs once more, perhaps not as merrily, but with stubbornness, defiance, and faith in the future.
The Sun-wheel
We students sat on pins and needles in our rooms waiting for the gong-gong’s metallic sound. For several weeks our superintendents had been kept secretly busy and locked themselves in the kitchen or sewing room, whispering and humming softly.
We were dressed in new dresses and aprons that were received with mixed feelings. Blue checkered ones, typical for Germany, the Dirndel model with funny-looking aprons. We got the explanation that these were to be worn instead of the uniform-like brown dresses that were now reserved for the higher grades. During this uneasy time that was now upon us with civilian casualties, we could end up in a situation where we were ordered to immediately help out with things that we had not yet gotten to in our courses and could not do. It made sense, but we pre-nursing students wanted so much to be like the real nurses.
###
BONG-BONG sounded the much longed-for ringing and we quickly lined up in order in front of the door to the room. It was opened by our head nurse and her red hair shone like a Gloria from all the candles that shone in the background. The room was dominated by a decorated spruce that was still without lights.
In front of it was a table where the burning candles were positioned in the shape of a sun-wheel. (What this would mean later on in life I did not know then.) Along the long table there were plates with written name tags that were filled will all sorts of good things: nuts, cakes, caramels, chocolate. We were really privileged in this otherwise scanty time. On our chairs there were packages from our families. Even the Swedish Church from Berlin had remembered me. We solemnly sang Christmas carols and the Christmas tree was lit up with candles from the table where the sun-wheel stood, while our superintendent recited. What a Christmas Eve! None of us had any idea how close we were to the front line or that there were just a few weeks left of a free Germany, especially West Prussia.
And the Sky turned Red
On January 17, 1945, we sat and looked anxiously across the wintry street and watched the eager people in the houses across the street pack their belongings. They ran around like chickens with their heads cut off with boxes, bags, and fully-packed baby carriages and wagons. Suddenly the clear dark blue starry sky turned a shade of pink and then red. The door was thrown open and a terrified student from the next grade screamed, “Do you know what? The Russians are just about 30 km from here!” We stared at her like we were possessed. “That can’t be true,” I answered. “You’re lying.” “No, it’s true. The patients that are coming to the hospital told me.” Sister Ilse’s voice interrupted her torrent of words: “You older ones should have learned more manners and sense to avoid causing panic. The front line will surely hold. Go to bed and don’t work yourselves up.”
Her calming voice eased our worries, but sleep? That turned out to be more difficult when the sky got redder and redder and redder and the explosions duller, duller, duller and closer, closer, and closer. In my anxious sleep I could already begin to see the end in my dreams.
###
Morning came with declining noise from the activities on the front line and in the daylight everything looked more peaceful. We ate our early breakfast as usual, but before doing our chores our superintendent had something to say to us: We were to pack our most precious belongings and prepare to leave in case something happened. It felt for us like it must have felt for the passengers on the shipwrecked Titanic in 1912. It was about our lives, our hopes, and the future.
We met in the sewing room where the seamstress patiently but with a certain irony criticized many times my mending of the soldiers’ socks that were delivered from the laundry. Now we just sat there. The laughing and the usual giggling were not heard. The seamstress was not there, and anxiously we looked through the narrow window and saw below where people were running around, bags were being carried, and wheels were squeaking. Some bicycles skidded around and made for a few laughs anyway. The darkness came back with its threatening mood and now even machine gun fire could be heard in the distance. The bell rang, but not for a party.
The noise echoed ominously. Pale, but with self-control, our superintendent Ilse stood and gave her orders: “All the younger students shall go home immediately. Vera and some of the older students will go to Bromberg with the hospital buses. The rest of you will take the train to Danzig where you will continue your journey westward.”
I lost total control of myself, broke into tears, and wanted to stay and fight. I would rather die than experience the fate of the loser. I do not know what all I said before Sister Ilse brought me back in line, sometimes strict, sometimes mild, and I pulled myself together and went to the closet to pack.
Then I took a farewell walk around the school. First I went to the meeting room in the basement and remembered the events that substantiated the saying “When the cat’s away …”, like when we were left by ourselves when our superiors were at a party and we dressed up as mischief-makers and pirates, and with glasses of juice we bellowed out drinking songs, and I could hear like an echo “Jimmy, we don’t drink beer or wine, just whiskey”. One floor up to the meeting room where dances with the cadets, sketches for the young SS men and the injured soldiers were held. And the classroom with our “Bächlein” and the college teacher.
With trembling hands I took down my portrait of the Führer that had protectively hung over my bed in Berlin and now decorated the wall in the NSV school. Carefully I placed the portrait on top of my clothes in my suitcase and closed it with the words, “No enemy shall desecrate you”. My friends watched me with restrained tears.
At that moment something in me died. The emptiness has never been filled since then. A sorrowful loss remains, and will so for the rest of my life. An eternal longing to the blooming flagpoles.
Organizations in National Socialist Germany
In my book I mention the different organizations that there were in the Third Reich and would here like to clarify them according to my own understanding of them and experiences I have had whe
n I have been in contact with them.
Hitler Youth
JV, Jungvolk (German Young People, translator’s note): for boys between the ages of 10 and 14.
HJ, Hitlerjungend (Hitler Youth, translator’s note): for boys between the ages of 14 and 18.
JM, Jungmädel (League of Young Girls, translator’s note): for girls between the ages of 10 and 14.
As a 10-year-old girl I voluntarily joined the Hitler Youth. We were summoned to gatherings about eight to ten times a month, with breaks for summer holidays and religious holidays.
In the summer we participated in outdoor activities and sports, walks, and visits to historical places. In the winter we had a lot of home evenings, meetings in different districts, peasant-style youth centers where we learned to sing, make toys, or had reading evenings when we studied famous German authors. All this in peaceful get-togethers in an atmosphere of comradeship and community, which is of utmost importance to National Socialism.
We were never forced to partake in the Hitler Youth. Such statements are purely false. That the desire for compulsory recruitment grew during the war years and that friends who were not members were looked upon with suspicion is another matter, given that we all wanted a youth organization that fought united for a German victory, that is true, but that there was any kind of force coupled with police intervention or punishment of parents, siblings, or others, are total lies.
When the Flagpoles Bloomed Page 11