Destined to Witness

  For a moment I wavered. As much as I had looked forward to the time when I would “become a man,” I wondered whether I’d be up to the task, since I had had virtually no other sex education than that provided by the foul-mouthed bunch of journeymen. In addition, I felt slight pangs of guilt because of Gretchen, although she had told me that sex was definitely out until she was at least twenty-one and married. But my biggest worry was that I wasn’t sure whether the Nazis’ law against non-Aryans having sex with Aryans applied to hookers as well. After taking everything into consideration, I threw caution to the wind and agreed to come along, but only to take a look.

  Of Hamburg’s three well-known districts of ill repute at the time—Kalkhof, Herbertstrasse, and Winkelstrasse—Walter and I picked the latter. Kalkhof, in the city center near the elegant Jungfernstieg, had the reputation of having the best-looking hookers, but because their patronage consisted largely of well-heeled downtown businessmen, they also charged an arm and a leg. Herbertstrasse, in St. Pauli, catered largely to sailors. While it was more modestly priced, we decided that it was too far out of our way. Before setting out on our venture, Walter and I consulted some of the younger, more trustworthy journeymen at the plant. They were only too glad to fill us in on the finer points of brothel patronage and on what two beginners on a Stift’s budget could expect. Whatever you do, we were warned, don’t ever leave your jacket containing your wallet in another room if you don’t want your wallet lifted by one of the hooker’s pals while you are “busy.” We also learned that the going rate at Winkelstrasse was five marks for a quickie, which normally lasted from three to fifteen minutes, depending on how quickly a customer completed his business. We were also told not to let on that we were virgins lest we be charged an additional breaking-in fee.

  Thus loaded with invaluable advice, Walter and I met on a Sunday afternoon at one of the two entrances to Winkelstrasse, a narrow, L-shaped alley flanked by old row houses. The two entrances at either end of the alley were designed to permit ready access without exposing the street to the general public’s view. We cringed when we read a sign that plainly stated that the premises were off limits to youths under the age of eighteen. Since sixteen-year-old Walter was virtually under orders from his father to get himself a hooker, he wasn’t too worried about breaking the law. Barely fifteen, I found it more difficult to rationalize since I had no such mandate from my mother.

  “Let’s just go in and take a look,” Walter suggested when he noticed that I was on the verge of changing my mind. “What’s wrong with that?”

  At the time I hadn’t heard of peer pressure, but it certainly worked with me. Without giving the sign another thought, I followed Walter into the forbidden zone. The place was bustling with men of all ages and descriptions, but mostly middle-aged, respectable-looking family men. Like window shoppers downtown, they were slowly walking up and down the alley and appraising the merchandise.

  In the ground-floor display windows of each row house, seated women offered their wares. There were girl-next-door types in prim blouses and skirts; shapely vamps in clinging evening dresses and plunging necklines; slender hard-buns types in skimpy lingerie; overweight, over-the-hill matrons trying to recapture long-gone youth and beauty with makeup, and dim red lights; and chain-smoking peroxide blondes with hard faces. All were vying for the attention of the passing men, mostly by rapping on the window with a key or coin.

  Although I had on me at least fifteen marks, which constituted more than two weeks’ apprentice wages, I had not yet made up my mind whether to take the plunge into non-virginhood. When one of the younger women tried to summon us to her window with a particularly enthusiastic rap of her keys, Walter mistook her eagerness for a compliment and listened to what she had to say. “Do you want to come in and have a nice time?”

  “How much?” asked my pal, in a voice that told me his sap had passed the dangerous “full” mark.

  “Five marks,” she replied.

  Walter asked me to wait, then disappeared through the door she had opened for him.

  When he returned about ten minutes later and I asked whether he had really done “it,” he nodded. Except for his ear-to-ear grin, he looked no different to me. Somehow, I had always assumed that this rather important rite of passage in a man’s life left a more noticeable mark.

  “How did you make out?” I asked, fishing for details. He told me that “it” really wasn’t as difficult as some people made it out to be and that once he got started, it all came to him naturally. In fact, he bragged, he did so well that the girl invited him to come back real soon.

  Duly impressed, I decided right then and there to try my own luck, a resolve that Walter enthusiastically endorsed. Momentary scruples about being unfaithful to Gretchen quickly diminished as I reasoned that my relationship with Gretchen—at her own insistence—had nothing to do with sex, and that sex with a hooker had nothing to do with love.

  Afraid of being seen walking into a brothel, especially by some Nazi who might object, and also because I was exceedingly bashful, I decided to delay my move until after it got dark. Walter and I agreed to kill time by doing some more window shopping. Learning that nearby was a special brothel for foreign workers that contained only foreign hookers and was off limits to Germans, we decided to take a look for curiosity’s sake. Among the added “attractions” of the foreign prostitutes, someone informed us, was that they did not insist on the use of condoms like their German counterparts.

  Undeterred by a sign that ordered German nationals to keep out, we mingled with the clientele made up of an assortment of non-German Europeans. It was immediately clear that the foreign women, who, like their customers, represented a cross-section of Nazi-occupied territories, were far less inhibited in their methods of attracting customers than their German colleagues. Instead of sitting behind windows and waiting for customers to make their move, the foreign hookers were aggressively recruiting in the yard in front of the four-story building in which they were housed. Some gave prospective customers a preview of things to come by lifting their skirts; others went even farther and grabbed men by their crotches in order to whet their sexual appetites.

  When a frisky mademoiselle from France grabbed Walter in this manner and started to kiss him in the ear, he immediately caught his second wind and was ready to spend his remaining five marks. But before he could enter into the necessary negotiations with her, two plainclothesmen flashed IDs and ordered Teutonic-looking Walter to leave the area at once. Although I was sure they had seen me, the two officials ignored me, apparently thinking that I was a foreigner.

  After I caught up with Walter, we returned to the German bordello, which now seemed almost wholesome by comparison. Since it had gotten dark, I felt less inhibited and intensified my search for a suitable partner with whom to consummate my transition into manhood. My choice fell on a pretty, short-skirted brunette whose ample bosom and voluptuous thighs seemed ideal for what I had in mind.

  Noticing my interest, she responded with a rap on the window. When I told her that five marks was all I had, she swore that she was courting financial ruin by accepting welfare cases like me, but that she’d make an exception, “just this once.” Seconds later, I was following her up what seemed to me one of the steepest stairs I had ever climbed. With each step I felt more like a condemned man on his way to the gallows. That feeling deepened when I looked up and noticed that my date’s partially exposed behind was nearly twice as wide as it had appeared to me in the window. Having dealt only with sleek Gretchen, I felt thoroughly intimidated in the presence of so much woman.

  When we reached the top of the stairs, my hostess opened the door to a tiny room, which, although cold weather was still months away, was stiflingly overheated by a small cast-iron oven in the corner. A sickening odor from a mixture of cheap perfume and burned rubber filled the room, most of which was taken up by a large, overstuffed bed.

  Without making small talk of any kind, she held out her hand. “Aren’t you for
getting something?” was all she said.

  I couldn’t think of anything I might have forgotten until I remembered that the inviolable rule of prostitutes, according to my journeymen mentors, was to collect their pay before they went to work. Embarrassed over my lack of sophistication, I handed her a five-mark bill, which quickly disappeared in her already overloaded bra.

  Had I been able to think of an excuse that provided me with a graceful way of getting out of the place, I surely would have done so, even if it meant that I had paid my hard-earned money for nothing. But as much as I racked my brain, I couldn’t think of a thing.

  After telling me to drop my pants and undershorts, my hostess—with the expertise of a high priestess performing some sacred ritual—poured water from a kettle on the stove into an enamel face bowl, dipped a washrag into it, and started giving me a below-the-belt minibath. She then explained that she had to be extremely careful with customers because if her biweekly compulsory medical inspection by the Sittenpolizei (morals police) revealed that she had caught VD, she would lose her license to “work.” Following a brief “short-arm inspection” and rubdown with a dry towel, she pulled out a fresh condom and, before I could say Danke schön, had me all suited up and ready to go. Without further ado she flung herself backward on the bed, spread her ample thighs, and reminded me in a querulous voice that time was money and that five marks didn’t entitle me to spend all night.

  To my own surprise, I did not wilt under fire and make a fool of myself as I had feared. Instead, guided by instincts that had been handed down to me through the ages, and with only minimal cooperation from my business-minded, unromantic partner, I did what came naturally until I reached the point of no return.

  With an expertise that was obviously acquired during years of practice, the hooker retrieved the condom, flung it into the oven, and gave me another perfunctory rubdown with the towel. After I had dressed, she led me down the steep stairs and bid me an unemotional farewell.

  My mission had been accomplished. By the standards of my peers, I had concluded an important rite of passage and joined the ranks of “real men.” But the experience of sex for money left me not only emotionally unfulfilled but thoroughly disgusted with myself and this thriving industry. Unlike Walter, who wasn’t interested in an emotional experience and who had already made plans to become one of Winkelstrasse’s regulars, I decided right then and there never again to go the hooker route.

  FORBIDDEN FRUIT

  Among the more pleasant memories of my apprenticeship at Lindner A. G. were those of Gerda Schmidt, one of the secretaries in the company’s front office. Gerda was a petite thirty-something brunette whose pleasing smile and hourglass figure endeared her to all the fellows in the shop. Each Friday, about an hour before quitting time, Gerda would enter the shop with a large cardboard box containing our pay envelopes and go from station to station to hand us our wages. Invariably, her arrival would set off a burst of lascivious howls, wolf whistles, and indecent proposals that among contemporary women would rank as blatant sexual harassment, but that Gerda accepted as her due with a big smile and a provocative swivel of her hips.

  Over the years, half of the fellows in the shop had tried to score with Gerda, but all had struck out. Eventually, several rumors made the rounds, one claiming that Gerda was secretly seeing an “important” married man, another that she was a lesbian, and still another that she thought it beneath her to go to bed with a blue-collar worker.

  I had heard all of these rumors, but none could keep me from developing a monstrous crush on her. I could hardly wait for Friday to come, not because I would get my measly seven marks’ apprentice pay, but because I would get another close glimpse at the woman of my dreams. The minute she stepped into the shop, my heightened senses picked up the sweet scent of her perfume as it mingled with the acrid industrial odors of the plant. Ironically, when the moment I had awaited with such longing arrived and the object of my lust stood in front of me, all I could do was count my money and stammer a barely audible Danke while averting my eyes in order not to reveal my true feelings. Each time after she had left, I could have kicked myself for not having handled myself with a bit more savoir faire, and promised to do better the next time.

  I was thoroughly convinced of the hopelessness of my case. To assume that a sexy, experienced woman like Gerda, who could have any man she wanted, would be interested in a teenager who had only one miserable sexual encounter in a whorehouse to his credit, and who was racially tainted to boot, would have been sheer megalomania. If I was wrong—and I was as sure as one could be that I was not—I was in big, big trouble, for I knew that I didn’t have the strength to turn her down.

  I again thought of Herr Dutke’s admonitions. Only after I reached puberty had the fiendish truth hit me: I, a perfectly healthy male, had been condemned to suppress all human urges and to live in preordained celibacy, not as a matter of choice but as a matter of immutable law. If I entertained any notions of simply ignoring that law, they were countered by chilling accounts I had heard, detailing how Jews who had been caught committing Rassenschande with German women had paid for their “crime” with castration or even their lives. By a strange coincidence, I frequently would find our daily newspaper left lying around our home unfolded in such a way as to make it all but impossible for me to miss an article that dealt with this distasteful subject. It was my mother’s way of warning me, since she could never bring herself to discuss sex with me. Yet, despite all the warnings and danger signals I had received, I reached the decision that, in due time, I had to do what I had to do.

  One afternoon, shortly before quitting time, I literally bumped into Gerda in the workshop’s Gemeinschaftsraum (community room). She was posting a notice on the bulletin board. After uttering what was supposed to be a greeting, but came out as an unintelligible mumble, I prepared to walk past her and return to the shop.

  “Let me ask you something,” she said, stopping me. “Are you scared of me?”

  “No, I’m not scared of you,” I responded, totally caught off guard.

  “Then why do you act as if you are every time you see me?” she kept digging.

  “What makes you think I act like I’m scared of you?” I countered, embarrassed, although I knew exactly what she was talking about. What she didn’t seem to know was that my insecure behavior around her had absolutely nothing to do with fear of her. The only thing I was afraid—no, terrified—of was the prospect of making a fool of myself.

  “Well, if you aren’t afraid of me, why don’t you come closer?” I took a few steps toward her to prove that she was wrong, but she was still unconvinced. “Come closer, real close,” she teased.

  I took another step until our bodies almost touched.

  “Be careful, you’ll get me all dirty,” she warned, pointing at my grimy coveralls. Then she tilted her head upward and kissed me on the lips.

  “Maybe you’re not afraid after all,” she observed. “If you like, we can meet tonight and watch a movie.” At Am Zoll Theater, they are playing Hallo Janine with Marikka Rokk and Johannes Heesters.”

  Although the two popular dance-and-singing stars were among my favorites, I couldn’t have cared less what or who was playing, and without giving it another thought, agreed to meet her at eight o’clock. At that particular moment, I was completely without a will of my own, and had she asked me to meet her that night on the dark side of the moon, I would have agreed.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me that she might not be fully aware of all the implications of a tryst with me and I decided that it was my duty to warn her, even at the risk of her chickening out.

  “You know that the Nazis won’t like our going to the movies together,” I tested the water.

  “Of course I know, but the Nazis can kiss my behind,” was her treasonous reply.

  That evening, I scrubbed and dressed with extra care in preparation for the adventure ahead. Whatever second thoughts cropped up in my mind, they were quickly dispelled by my hopeless s
tate of anticipation. With near-fatalistic resignation, I invoked the old popular German proverb that holds—quite illogically, I think—that Wer A sagt muss auch B sagen (he who says A must also say B). I certainly had taken step A, and nothing could stop me from taking a crack at step B. If everything worked out according to my plan, today—July 31, 1941—would go down in history as the day when I learned the true meaning of making love. Much later I discovered that it was also the day on which Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring issued the first known written order for the murder of all Jews living under Nazi rule, an action he referred to as the Endlösung (Final Solution).

  Gerda was already standing at the entrance to the theater when I arrived. After spotting me, she bought her ticket and I bought mine. To the uninitiated eye, we were perfect strangers who, like hundreds of other strangers, happened to sit in adjacent seats. Soon the lights went out and the Wochenschau (weekly newsreel) started. Since the beginning of the war, the former newsclips from around the world had been replaced by a format of front-line action consisting of predictable scenes of German victories on land, at sea, and in the air.

  After making absolutely sure that the man who sat to my left was deeply engrossed in the action on the big screen, I slowly, ever so slowly, moved my right hand toward Gerda’s left thigh. Emboldened by the absence of resistance to my advance, I began to gently move my hand up and down her thigh while gradually increasing the pressure. Luckily, because of the thunderous gunfire on the screen, only I could hear Gerda’s heavy breathing and the occasional moans that escaped from her mouth. During the brief intermission between the newsreel and the evening’s main feature, she leaned toward me and whispered, “Meet me outside.”