Simply pick up the phone? For me, nothing is simple when it comes to my mother.
Still, my mind is already made up: I am going to call her. I need clarity at last, and I don’t want to wait any longer. On Saturday my husband and the boys are out, so the house is quiet. I dial the area code, then her number. It’s only a few digits, since she lives in a village.
I am nervous. It rings, once, twice, three times before she picks up. She says hello and tells me that she was very happy to receive my letter. It sounds as if she has been expecting my call.
Her voice is instantly familiar; it takes me right back to the days and weekends of my childhood when I visited her.
I like listening to her. I like the way she talks. She articulates very clearly and with long pauses. In public this can sometimes come across as theatrical.
Today I can hear the joy in her voice, but she also sounds nervous. I wonder where she is right now. I know that she lives in a single-family home. In the film about her meeting with Helen Rosenzweig, some of the scenes were filmed there.
Is she in the living room, in the hallway? Is she walking through the house with the phone in her hand? Or has she fled outside, to the fresh air? I cannot imagine her sitting on a chair somewhere; she is too impulsive for that. I am sure she’ll want to be walking around. She’s always been restless.
It used to make me nervous when I was a child. Her presence always brought tension to the air. I never knew what to expect from her next, which frightened me. She didn’t speak much; in fact, the opposite was true—silence was her favorite form of punishment.
But today, on the phone, there’s no stopping her. My mother is not at all surprised that I suddenly know about our family history. She assumes that I know about lots of things; she takes them for granted, jumping from one detail of her life to the next. In the end I ask her cautiously: “Can I come and see you? Would that be OK?” She replies without hesitation: “Of course!” When I ask her when would be a good time, she says, “For you, anytime.”
When I put the receiver down, I am relieved. Given how long it took me to prepare for this talk with my mother, the call went well. She sounded happy and not hostile—that is more than I had expected.
We have agreed to meet up in February; I will go to see her in her hometown in Bavaria.
First, I travel to Munich. My adoptive parents have offered to take my sons skiing for three days, and I am staying at their house in Waldtrudering, to prepare myself for the meeting with my mother in peace and quiet.
Salberg House, the children’s home where I spent the first three years of my life, is in Putzbrunn, a suburb of Munich, and only a few miles from Waldtrudering. I have driven past it on many occasions. Sometimes, I would stop outside, roll down the window, and contemplate the three-story, flat-roofed red building.
The house backs onto the woods. In front is a large yard with playground toys: a wooden ship for climbing on, a swinging bridge, a water pump. Today, a number of small children are outside playing and singing. Did we have these toys when I was here? I don’t think so, everything looks brand new. As an adult I have only ever looked on from the outside, but today I’m going in.
■ ■ ■
Salberg House, a home for infants near Munich, was built in the 1960s. Until 1987, it was run by the Sisters of St. Francis, who lived in accommodations across the road. Compared to other homes, Salberg House had a good reputation. Government inspectors attested that the home was “well-managed.” One inspection report further confirms that “the infants were evidently being well-fed and cared for. They all have a healthy complexion . . . The happy atmosphere in the home warrants a healthy development for the children.”
These days, Salberg House predominantly looks after children who are in urgent need of a place to stay. Their parents are often incapable of looking after them; some have mental health problems, are addicted to drugs or alcohol, or are in trouble with the law. Some of the children have suffered physical or sexual abuse in their families. The children are brought here by CPS or the police.
In the seventies, it was normally the parents themselves who brought their children. Often it was single or working mothers who would ask Salberg House for help.
Back then, there was no such thing as parental leave in Germany: A few weeks after giving birth, mothers would have to report back to work; their jobs were rarely saved for longer. Many women would work full-time, six days a week. Part-time positions and childcare facilities were few and far between, and little assistance was available to mothers. Children were put up for adoption much more often than they are today.
Jennifer Goeth’s case was no different. The reason for her admission to Salberg House in the summer of 1970 is listed in her files as “working mother.”
In the early 1970s, up to 200 infants and toddlers were living in the home in Putzbrunn. They were divided into groups of ten to twelve children, each led by one or two nuns. The younger ones lived in the infant ward, the older ones in the toddler ward.
Today the groups have names such as “Bears,” “Grasshoppers,” and “Seven Dwarves.” In the seventies, they were simply numbered. Today, the babies are walked about in baby carriages; back then, their cribs would have simply been pushed onto the balconies for fresh air. Wolfgang Pretzer, the current director at Salberg House, explains: “Even if it was a very good orphanage for its time, by today’s standards it was more about the provision of daily essentials than actual care. In those days, they had less time to meet each child’s individual needs. The groups were larger, and they had fewer care staff than we do today.”
■ ■ ■
MY EARLIEST MEMORY IS OF LYING on the floor, screaming in the dark—I must have fallen out of my crib. The night nurse comes and picks me up and returns me to my bed. Tucked under my blanket, I go back to sleep.
We used to sleep in cribs with white bars; the sides could be lowered for access. One of the sisters must have forgotten to secure the bars after putting me to bed.
When I became pregnant and had babies of my own, I often thought back to the orphanage. For nine months, each of my sons was in my womb, safe and warm. Once they were newborns, I carried them around everywhere; I would sing to them and rock them to sleep. The close physical connection they had to me in the womb continued after they were born.
It was different for me; my mother just disappeared after my birth.
The photos I have from my time at the orphanage don’t show it. I look happy in all of them.
The entrance hall of Salberg House looks friendly; the walls are plastered with colorful pictures drawn and painted by the children. I called in advance to explain that I used to live at the home more than three decades ago, that I would love to have a look around. The director and a female social worker who was there during the seventies have offered to guide me.
Despite the large number of children, it is quiet. We walk down long corridors and are met by a few toddlers coming toward us on tricycles and ride-on cars.
My group of children had been led by Sister Magdalena. My adoptive mother has told me about her, how lovely and approachable she was. The older woman remembers: “Sister Magdalena’s group used to be in the room on the left by the stairs—where the Bears are now.”
I am allowed to enter one of the groups’ living rooms. First we have to ring the bell, just like at a normal home, before one of the care workers opens the door. There is a dining room with an open kitchen and a sunny, brightly furnished living room. Further along there are three bedrooms for two to three children each—the same size group as during my time here.
A little dark-haired girl with a pale face and rings under her eyes comes toward me. She shoots me a quick glance. I later learn from her caregiver that she hasn’t said a word since she arrived. There are two dark-skinned girls, too, their frizzy curls sticking up; they are laughing.
I wonder what these children have been through. Do they miss their parents? Do they want to return to their families?
■ ■ ■
Monika Goeth would visit Jennifer only once in a while, and even then she did not always have time for the little girl. She had married a man who often beat her. Once, outside the orphanage, he beat her so hard that she needed hospital treatment. Jennifer got to know her mother’s husband during her visits. Monika Goeth would later say about him: “My first husband was just like Amon. I must have chosen him to punish myself.”
Sometimes, however, Monika would take Jennifer to Ruth Irene Goeth’s apartment in Schwabing.
Jennifer was christened on March 21, 1971, in the chapel annexed to Salberg House. Her mother did not attend; Sister Magdalena was Jennifer’s godmother.
Jennifer Teege’s christening in the orphanage’s own chapel; the young Sister Magdalena is her godmother
■ ■ ■
I STEP INTO THE PLAIN LITTLE chapel where I was christened. I ask my guides for a moment on my own and sit down in a pew. In the living room of my adoptive family’s home there is a table with a deep drawer. We children used to keep our photo albums in it. Among others, my photo album contains pictures of my christening, stuck in carefully by my adoptive mother. A young, blonde nun is holding me over the font—Sister Magdalena, my care worker and godmother. She is wearing the white habit of the order working at the orphanage. Next to her is the priest, pouring the baptismal water over my head. In another photo, Sister Magdalena is carrying me in her arms. I am wrapped in a long, white christening robe, my tiny dark hand gripping hers. In her floor-length habit and wimple Sister Magdalena looks like a Madonna.
I believe that she and her assistants did their utmost to ensure that, even though we were in an orphanage, we children would experience love and tenderness. She strove to be a kind of substitute mother for eleven young children. At bedtime she would pray with us in the dormitory.
I would love to meet with her, but she no longer lives in the convent. She once wrote a letter to my adoptive parents and said that she had left the order. She also mentioned that she had once caught sight of me and my new family in downtown Munich. She hadn’t wanted to intrude at the time but hoped that I was still doing well.
With help from the Order of St. Francis, I manage to get ahold of Sister Magdalena’s email address. I write to her and receive a prompt reply. She begins her email with “Dear Mrs. Teege—or dear Jenny?”
Sister Magdalena remembers me well. She still has many photographs of me, she writes. I should come and visit her; she and her husband don’t live far from Munich.
I have no problems finding their detached home in the middle-class suburb. Sister Magdalena’s hair is white now; she wears it in little curls. She welcomes me with a hug.
A plain cross hangs on the wall above the kitchen door; it catches my eye as I come in. God still plays an important role in her life, she explains, but the church much less so. After she left the order she got married and had children. Now she has grandchildren, too. Her husband joins us at the table. He used to be a priest, speaks several languages, and is originally from somewhere near Krakow. He knows Płaszów, and he has heard of Amon Goeth. As I tell them about my recent discoveries, they both listen intently.
Sister Magdalena has no memories of my mother or my grandmother. But she remembers that I used to be sad when nobody came to collect me on the weekends. Some children saw their parents frequently. She tells me that I had a friend in my group whose parents came to visit her every Sunday, and that I was keenly aware of it. In the early days my mother came regularly, she says, but as time went on her visits became more sporadic.
Magdalena was in her late twenties when she was my care worker. Now she is in her late sixties, but she still recalls many details. She says that I was a happy, open, uncomplicated child and very popular in my group. She had a personal relationship with each of her charges, and she is still in touch with some of them today. Very few of the children from the orphanage have had a straightforward life, she says; many are struggling.
She shows me her photo albums: Sister Magdalena and us at the zoo; Sister Magdalena and Santa at Salberg House. There was another dark-skinned girl in my group, as well as a number of children with physical disabilities; one was blind in one eye, another was missing a leg.
Magdalena says that her job was to give an “extra portion of love.” She confides that she found it incredibly hard to let go of the children when their time had come to leave the home.
My reunion with Sister Magdalena is very happy and joyful. We talk and talk; I don’t want to leave.
On my way back to my adoptive parents’ house, I try to remember what it was like for me to suddenly find myself separated from Sister Magdalena. She was the person I felt closest to at the orphanage. One fateful day, I was taken in by a foster family, my future adoptive family, never to see Sister Magdalena again. Did I miss her? My adoptive parents tell me that in the early days I used to talk about her a lot.
■ ■ ■
The children of Salberg House usually left by the time they were three or four years old. By then, they were supposed to have been reunited with their natural families or placed in foster care. If they hadn’t been, a different children’s home would be found for them.
On the weekends, prospective parents would often come to Salberg House to choose a child to potentially foster or adopt. Cute little babies were the easiest to place. Jennifer was over three years old, and her skin was dark. “Back then, it was more difficult for black children. We wouldn’t even have considered placing them somewhere in the country; it wouldn’t have been fair to them,” a former staff member recalls.
The first family Jennifer was introduced to already had a little girl and were considering a foster child of the same age. But when they saw Jennifer towering inches over the other three-year-olds, they decided against her: Jennifer was too tall for them.
At about the same time, a professional couple from Waltrudering, near Munich, applied to foster a child: Inge and Gerhard Sieber. Inge is from Vienna and has a PhD in education; Gerhard, an economist, is from Bochum. They had had two sons in quick succession who were now three and four years old. They had been difficult births; both boys were born early.
Since they had always wanted three children, Gerhard Sieber suggested to his wife that they take in a foster child. This was nothing out of the ordinary for him; his sisters and his mother, who eventually became Oma Bochum to Jennifer, had given many foster children a temporary home. Gerhard Sieber considered helping children in need a lovely family tradition.
Inge Sieber speaks with a trace of a Viennese accent as she recalls her feelings at the time: “I was less sure than my husband. I was afraid that we might find ourselves with an emotionally damaged child and that I might not be able to cope.”
In 1973, despite her concerns and with her two young sons in tow, Inge Sieber went to her local fostering authority and applied to foster a child. At the time, adoption was not on the table; all they wanted was to help a child for as long as it took. Inge Sieber explains: “To our minds, adoption was something for people who couldn’t have children themselves. We already had two sons and didn’t want to deprive a childless couple of the opportunity to adopt a child of their own.
“At the appointment, my two little boys were being so wild that I was convinced the agency would never allow us to foster a child. I was sure they were thinking, ‘This mother can’t even control her own children.’”
Yet the agency considered the Siebers suitable. A social worker visited the family in their home, and Inge Sieber had to undergo a health check. In those days, it was predominantly the future mothers who were checked, as it was assumed that the child would only be cared for by the woman. The Siebers’ case was no different: Inge Sieber was a housewife and looked after her children; in her spare ti
me, she volunteered in the neighborhood, supported the elderly in her community, and gave private tutoring in Latin.
Three months later, the Siebers received a phone call: “There is a mixed-race girl in a children’s home in Putzbrunn who is in desperate need of a foster home.”
Today it would be unthinkable, but the Siebers were put in touch with Salberg House without counseling or support of any kind. At the time, the fostering and adoption process was often railroaded through. Commenting on the practices of the early seventies, the chronicles of Salberg House state: “Prospective adoptive and foster parents would often show up at the door unannounced, proffering a letter from CPS that authorized them to inspect a certain child and to take the child home there and then. It took time and effort for the realization to take hold that it was in everybody’s best interest for them to first spend some time getting to know each other.”
Inge and Gerhard Sieber talked about the idea of fostering a child with their young sons. Matthias, the older of the two, remembers that his parents told them: “There is this little girl, and we’re going to have a look at her.”
When the Sieber family went to visit Jennifer for the first time, the boys had a picture book for her and a blue teddy bear. Inge Sieber recounts: “We saw a happy little girl with wild, spiky hair—the hair close to her head was growing in natural curls, but her mother had straightened the rest of her hair, so it stood up on end in spikes. Jenny was effectively presented to us—like some merchandise.”
Another girl from the children’s home immediately climbed onto Inge Sieber’s lap, looked at her, and declared: “Mama, you are nice.” Inge Sieber remembers how sad it made her that, to this little girl, a “mama” was any female visitor.
The Siebers took Jennifer for a walk and visited her a few more times after that. Eventually, Jennifer went for a “trial day” at the Siebers’ home in Waldtrudering. For lunch, Inge Sieber served chicken. She says: “It appeared that Jenny was used to softer children’s fare. She was surprised at the bones, picked at her food, and chewed the same mouthful over and over. I asked her, ‘Don’t you like it?’ and Jenny replied: ‘No, I don’t eat cat!’”
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past Page 10