Margot Lenigk Bio 5103

In Germany, Indonesia, Japan and California
by Margot Lenigk

Margot at her 84th birthday

Table of Contents
Part I Childhood and Youth.......................................................................................................
a.) My Father.............................................................................................................................
b.) My Mother & Grandmother.................................................................................................
c.) Christmas in Germany..........................................................................................................
d.) The Snake Story....................................................................................................................
e.) Trip to Indonesia...................................................................................................................
Part II Survival..........................................................................................................................
a.) Life in Camp.........................................................................................................................
b.) Trip to Japan.........................................................................................................................
c.) Tarumi..................................................................................................................................
d.) Return to Germany...............................................................................................................
Part III.......................................................................................................................................
a.) RWL’s letter.........................................................................................................................
b.) In memory of my grandfather...............................................................................................
c. The Senior Olympics..............................................................................................................

Will I remember how I looked And what I did when I was young (when I am old)?
Will I remember what I wondered? When I am old, who will I be? Still me?
by Richard J. Marigolds

It has been said that everybody’s childhood is like a fairy tale, presided over either by good fairies or bad fairies. I was lucky to be blessed with a good fairy, in that I had a loving father and mother and one brother. I was born in Berlin-Schoneberg, Germany, on December 1, 1911.

When I was two or three years old, my parents moved from the big city of Berlin to a small village, Hirzenhain Hesse, in central Germany. My father, a retired army officer, had taken a position as a department head (in advertising) of an iron mill which was situated near the village.

Aside from that factory, there was no industry of any kind in the neighborhood. In fact, one couldn’t even see the chimneys of the mill. The entire countryside consisted of small hamlets, here and there a flour mill (with big water wheels), hills, forests and lakes -- all on a very small scale.

Oh, yes, there was a ranch nearby and many a Sunday excursion took us to “the ranch.” While our village consisted of only 300 to 500 souls, the next small town had approximately 1,000 inhabitants. They also had a castle, or at least a tower -- very picturesque and often photographed in later years. As a matter of fact, the Brothers Grimm grew up and collected lore for their famous fairy tales, such as “Snow White.” “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Hansel and Gretel” in this part of the country.

As mentioned above, I was only two or three years old when we arrived in Hirzenhain, which means literally: “Forest of the Deer.”

My first recollection is that I was allowed to sleep on a sofa (in the bed and breakfast place where my parents and I stayed for the time being) and that I felt very big. The next day, however, I felt very small, standing in front of that huge moving van. We had moved into the “small villa” which was next to the “big villa” on the hill. Both houses played a big part in my early childhood memories.

I was four years old when my first friend, the daughter of the innkeeper, and I “discovered” the village and the surrounding area. One day we had disappeared for hours -- baby-sitting was unheard of in those days -- and my mother must have been very upset when we finally appeared with big bouquets of Schlusselblumen (wild primroses) in our little fists.

Then there was the pastor’s family. Hildegard, their youngest daughter, was my age and we loved to play near the creek, taking our shoes off and hopping from stone to stone and sometimes falling into the water. The creek wasn’t very deep but very, very cold and one time they had to take me home dripping wet and freezing. Even though I was a chubby little girl, nicknamed Dicke (“Fatso”), that water excursion resulted in pneumonia, followed by whooping cough and I had to stay in bed for weeks and weeks and many times my parents thought I wouldn’t make it.

I still remember my mother, bending over my bed, with tears of joy in her eyes when the fever broke and I finally came through. From there on I had it made. Any wish I uttered was fulfilled, be it raspberries in wintertime, a doll or a rabbit, I got it! From now on I was not a chubby, little girl any more, but a pale, skinny five year old who had to be fattened up with oatmeal drinks every morning, with a second breakfast at ten , a big dinner at noon, a sandwich and milk at three, with supper at seven and at least an apple or a pear later in the evening.

Now I hated to eat anything and, naturally, stayed skinny. There was one exception though -- I had a “sweet tooth” which got me into trouble one afternoon when I was left alone. There was, in the formal dining room on the lower shelf of the buffet, a dish with sugar cubes. I knew that as soon as my mom was gone, I could satisfy my urge for sweets. But one day my mom wasn’t gone for very long and she uncovered my “secret.”. She didn’t spank me, but she turned around and left again telling me she was going to get a policeman because a child who was stealing had to be dealt with by the police. Now I was really frightened and was peeking out of the window so I could see the policeman coming. It was agony and my mother left me alone for hours, (or so it seemed). That experience left a lasting impression, but it also made me an honest little girl.

The above quotation of Pearl S. Buck makes me think of my father. He had both -- great virtues and small faults. It must have been difficult for him to give up his military career and settle for an office job in a small village. Until then, he had lived in Berlin, Germany, in the same house with his parents. Mother had often told me what a bunch of snobs the “Steins” (my maiden name) were, and that she almost couldn’t marry my father, because her father was only a chemist and didn’t belong to the exclusive Officers’ Club in town. But at the time my parents moved, my grandfather was no longer the wealthy factory owner (one of his engineers had invented Portland Cement), -- he had lost his millions in the stock market.

Father had a good education and several talents. He had a vast knowledge of things and was quite entertaining. The director of the village factory or the mayor always called upon him when dignitaries came to the village. He was a wonderful representative, but occasionally he could bluff beautifully. I remember him as always having a book in his hands, but I don’t think he ever read a book to the very end.

To me, as a child, he was a real hero, a GOD-like figure. I never saw him angry - there was always an atmosphere of quiet and peace about him - all the more obvious since my mother was very lively and could never sit still for a moment. He loved children and I think he kept candy in his pockets, for whenever he went to the office there was a cluster of children

behind him. I recall that quite often there were visitors in our house, especially the parents of teenagers, asking “Father Stein” for help when they couldn’t handle their brood.

His love for nature was one of his great virtues. He taught me to respect and love God’s creations, be it animal or plant life. Many a Sunday morning the two of us walked silently through the forest, always on the lookout for new trails through the hills. He was the head of the mountain club and mostly walked ahead of the hikers by himself. Father rarely went to church. He always said: “The forest is my church.”

Now, when I try to visualize my father, I recall a few humorous details. He never entered the kitchen, and never took off his tie -- he even went on his hikes in white shirt and tie.

The last time I saw my father was in 1935 when I left for Indonesia. I still see him standing there -- a tall, handsome man in his fifties with a slightly receding hairline and immaculately dressed. There were no tears in his eyes when we said good-bye. even though I knew he loved me, his only daughter, very much.

Father died in 1945, when American planes opened fire on a train he was taking home. Even though he was mortally injured, when the Red Cross nurses came to help him, he pointed to the woman next to him who also was hurt. When the nurses finally got back to him it was too late, because he had lost too much blood. He was taken to a military hospital where he died. Two years later, when I returned home from the Orient, I found a very heartwarming letter from his superior officer telling me how much and how often father had mentioned my name in his feverish dreams.

The community gave father a funeral with all the military honors and it was stated in an official document, issued by the State of Hessen, Germany - “this grave, including the large oak wood cross, shall never be removed.”

I was deeply saddened, when I returned home after twelve years, that my beloved father was not there any more and that he never got to see his four grandsons. All I could do was plant a rose bush on his grave.

Albrecht Stein

born: April 28, 1877 in Wetzler—Niedergirmes, Germany

died: October 21, 1947 in Friedberg, Germany

Mother was the opposite of father. As my Aunt Minni (father’s sister) once remarked - “she is a mixture of her parents, can be warm-hearted like her father, and cool as a cucumber like her mother.” Unfortunately, I never met any of my grandfathers, they both died before I was born, but mother told m[JD1]any a story about her Dad.

My grandfather, Dr. Ludwig Brunner, worked as a chemist in the laboratory of my other grandfather’s cement factory in Wetzlar, Germany. His great love was his garden and especially his roses. One of the roses got a medal and was chosen to carry his name. I went the other day to a rose exhibition in Oakland, California, and found the “Brunner” rose. He wasn’t very old when he died of a heart attack. On the same day, his entire garden burned down.

Mother was a daddy’s girl. She was also a very impatient and spoiled little girl. After shampooing her hair, neither her mother nor the maid could handle her curls, but daddy had the patience to comb them one by one.

Grandfather Brunner actually carried his mother’s name. He had two brothers, one was a merchant and one a minister. The story goes that the father of the three boys was a high ranking officer in the Prussian army who traveled from residence to residence with his housekeeper. He wanted to marry her, but couldn’t because he was a nobleman (von Stuelpnagel). Anyway, he saw to it that his three sons all had a good profession and made it in life, even though they couldn’t use the word “von” in front of their name.

My Uncle Otto, mother’s only brother, was furious about that black spot, that “faux pas” on the family tree and destroyed all the papers. It took my brother years to get the family tree together again. Uncle Otto was a strange man. He lived with his mother all his life. He was a bachelor, but behind his back one whispered that he had an affair with a married woman. As a child, I was afraid of Uncle Otto. He looked so odd; he had lost all his hair in an experiment (he was also a chemist with I. G. Farben, Hochst, Bayer) and was very nervous. I don’t know from whom he had inherited his nervousness. As I’ve mentioned before, his mother was calm and cool as a cucumber.

My grandmother certainly was not a picture-book grandma. The daughter of a director of a large German post office in Limburg, Lahn, she didn’t have to work. She had servants all her life. I never saw her doing any dirty work. Oh yes, she dusted once in a while, and off and on entered the kitchen, but that was all. No knitting, mending or serving. People treated her with high respect and called her Frau Doktor (Mrs. Doctor). When I saw the film “Upstairs, Downstairs”, I was reminded of grandmother’s household.

All my grammar school days I had to spend my vacations with Grandma Brunner and Uncle Otto, and wasn’t 100% enthusiastic about it, but then again, she gave me money for some candy once in a while. I also had to visit friends of my grandparents ever so often and was sent off with a bouquet of flowers and some well meant warnings: “Don’t forget to curtsy and say thank you for the invitation, etc.” I didn’t mind that because I knew I would get cookies and grapes. Strangely enough, twenty five years later, I had to work in the same city (Griesheim-Main) where grandmother lived, while working for the U.S. Armed Forces. Grandmother never visited us in Hirzenhain, where I grew up and I never found out why.

One of grandmother’s friends was Tante Lorsbach. Mother took me once to visit her and I don’t know anymore in which town it was, but I do recall that that was also a typical “Upstairs, Downstairs” household. When I went into the kitchen and asked “what’s for dinner?”, the maid answered “Ochsenmaulsalat” (ox mouth salad) and said: “I wouldn’t eat it, if I were you. Someone else had it already in his mouth.” When Tante Lorsbach died, I inherited a beautiful knitted scarf and her piano, which, by the way, is still in the family. When I was young, that piano was a torture instrument. I took lessons at age six and had to practice an hour daily -- no mercy!

My mother was worse than a drill sergeant. When I had a sore throat, I was sent to bed, but mother would look into my throat first and say -- “You are not sick, you still can learn your French vocabulary while in bed.” I became very skillful in hiding a story book under the blankets, in addition to the French book.

Mother herself had a strict but excellent education. Her father had made the promise that he would spend the same amount of money on his daughter as he would on his son (which was unusual in the 19th century). When she was about eighteen, she was sent to a finishing school in Wolfenbuettel (North Germany) and later to Mrs. Heuer’s Cooking Seminar in Kiel, also in North Germany. Needless to say, my mother was the best cook around, but not the thriftiest one. She could also knit, crochet and sew. All my childhood and teenage clothes were made by mother. It impressed me, even as a child, that she was able to make dresses as well as coats and jackets.

Yes, mother was talented in many ways. To describe her one would say she had a Type AA personality: nervous, lively, on the go all the time, bright blue eyes, curly hair, fair skin -- still beautiful at age 60. I think in later years she had sort of a youth complex. She wanted to be with us, the young ones, all the time. She probably missed my brother a lot, but she was the one who wanted Werner to be a military person and enrolled him in the cadet corps at age eleven.

Once in a while we took mother (in Germany we say Mutti) along on our excursions. One day during a summer vacation we went to the Hillersbach, a lake on the other side of the hill. Some students, enjoying themselves on the shoreline, made nasty remarks about the “old lady” in the swimsuit. Mother heard it and reacted quickly. “I am going to show these greenhorns,” she said, jumped into the water, swam toward a tower, climbed up and dove into the deep lake. This time the students didn’t say a word. They just stared in amazement. Mother was 72 years old then.

Sadly, she died of colon cancer in 1948. We regretted that we couldn’t put her ashes in my father’s grave because of a state law about his honorary funeral.

Emilie Brunner

born: August 11, 1877 in Wetzlar—Niedergirmes, Germany

died: October 21, 1947 in Hirzenhain, Germany

Time went fast, and like all German children, I had to enter school at age six and got, as is customary in Germany, a Zuckertute (goody bag) on the very first day of school.

That was in 1917 and Germany was heavily involved in World War I. Times were tough and there wasn’t much to eat. Frequently, I was sent to the next village to get some butter or milk. That was an hour’s walk each way and I was very much afraid to go by that dark fir forest where, in my imagination, the bad wolf could come out any minute. It was almost as bad to pass a Gypsy camp, for we were told that Gypsies kidnap little children. Not always did I walk alone.

In summertime, my friends and I walked daily over the hill to go bathing or swimming. My elementary school days were rather uneventful and would have been very pleasant if it wouldn’t have been for Lehrer Wall, our teacher, who made my life pretty miserable.

Lehrer Wall was a good friend of my parents which meant I had to behave in school all the time. I guess I had been a rather stubborn child since I was two years of age. At least, that’s what my mother told me numerous times and she had warned the teacher when I entered school. He was sure he could break my stubbornness; he made me stand in the corner or slapped me across the face. As a result, I became even more obstinate by the day. Unfortunately, I also had to take piano and French lessons from that same teacher. But then I always looked forward to fall and Christmas and Easter vacations.

We went swimming or ice skating or skiing, and even though we had no automobile, we got around pretty good. We walked for miles and didn’t think anything of it. My best friend lived next door in the “big villa” and they had a park and a tennis court. All I had to do was to jump over the fence, be it early in the morning or late at night. Trude Morhenn, my dearest girlfriend, was living in the “big villa.” Her father was the director of the iron mill and our parents knew each other. Trude’s parents, as well as my own parents, were raised in Wetzlar, a town in Northern Hesse, made famous by Germany’s best-known poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His books, “Die Leiden des jungen Werther” (The Sufferings of Young Werther) and Faust are known all over the world.

Trude had an older brother, Walter, and an older sister, Ilse, but seldom did these two join us. My next best friend was Gerda Bergmann. Her father also had a high position in the iron mill. Like Trude, Gerda had an older brother, Paul, and an older sister, Hilde, who, except for rare occasions, didn’t play with us either.

Since my seven year older brother spent most of his life in the German army and air force (he started as a cadet at age 11) and came home only occasionally. Trude, Gerda and I, blessed with a high imagination and plenty of talent, had the field for ourselves and used it, too. As long as we went to grammar school, we were together day after day. We even took piano lessons together, be it from Lehrer Wall (I started at age 6) or later in a neighboring town (Wenings).

Every Sunday we hiked the five miles to get to the piano teacher. We took our time. There were berries to pick and mushrooms to gather, and in the springtime we picked the blooming primroses near the river. Sunday afternoons we all had to take a long walk with our parents. I remember, we hated that walk because we had to be so civilized. Frequently, as I mentioned before, we went all together, including our parents, to the ranch nearby. That we didn’t mind at all. We got milk fresh from the cow, and open faced sandwiches, thick with fresh butter on which their governess had drawn faces.

All too soon, the three of us got separated. Trude went to a finishing school in Westfalia and Gerda, who was two years younger, followed me to the nearest high school in Gedern, about 4 miles from the village. But that was only for a short time. I had learned French years ago, skipped two classes and was transferred to the Gymnasium at Buedingen, Hesse. The Gymnasium was a Latin school built in the 16th century with all the old traditions. The customs there reminded me more of a university like Heidelberg or Bonn. In general, it was a boys’ school and girls were only tolerated.

The girls didn’t have to learn Latin and Greek, but French and English were a must. For six years I went to the Ludwig Ernst Gymnasium in Buedingen, Hesse, leaving the village at six in the morning and returning at four. There wasn’t much time for practical jokes anymore. At that time, German schools were very strict. If you didn’t make the grades you repeated the class. That was it!

But there were Easter, Summer, Fall and Christmas vacations. Then came the “creepy” days and nights between Christmas and New Years, full of superstition: “Don’t hang up laundry between the years, it means bad luck” and “Don’t get up with your left foot first.” How often did I hear that. And I think a bit of that superstition is still with me today. Just a few months ago I broke a mirror and everything went wrong after that.

No day of the entire year was so full of expectations as December 31st. Nobody can possibly describe the mood and atmosphere of New Year’s Eve better than Johann Strauss in his masterpiece, the opera “Die Fledermaus,” but we had a “Fledermaus” of our own.

Our parents went to a masquerade ball each year and all of us youngsters stayed at the Bergmann house overnight. For dinner we got the traditional Heringsalat and later on Schuerzkuchen (deep fried cookies). We dressed up in mother’s clothes that she had when she was a young girl in the 1880’s, or in father’s cavalry uniform. We sang in the dialect of the Rhineland, played games, danced and Hilde played the piano. It was so unusual and exciting to stay up until midnight, drink our lemonade punch and watch Werner light his fire crackers and rockets, which he had brought from his army base (and which got the police very much in an uproar as far as 20 miles away).

The Bergmann’s house was close to the Bach, the small creek that ran through the village. When I close my eyes, I can hear the rushing of that water today. Christmas vacation was short but at Easter time we had three weeks. That’s when all of us were together again and we “painted the town red”. Brother Werner came on weekends only, but he installed a radio with a real loudspeaker (before we had only one of those crystal sets) and we had a music box and last, but not least, a record player. There were eight of us and we learned all the latest dances.

In summertime, we went swimming in the lake. One day Werner was with us. He told us how he had to learn to swim. Some good comrades just threw him in the deep water and called out, “Now you either swim or drown!” Of course, my seven year older brother had to try this cruel military method out on his little sister. He wanted me to swim with my face under water.

I knew that whatever my answer would be, he would force me so I said, “I’m a sissy”.

“That will teach you, “responded my dear brother and he held my head under the water until I turned blue. I don’t know how many years it took me to overcome the tremendous fear of deep water.

Actually Werner was very good natured and not a military person at all. As I said, he was seven years older than I and was very fond of his little sister, whom he saw so seldom. One time at Christmas he made a doll house for me. He was handy with the jigsaw and made all the tiny furniture pieces by himself. For Easter, we baked tiny cookies together, put them in a big cardboard egg and hid it under our parents’ bed. When I was a teenager, he wanted me to learn horseback riding.

To visit my brother, I took the train to Fulda. One visit was unforgettable. On Saturday, I had to learn to ride for hours and hours on army horses without a saddle.

“Werner, please tell the horse to stop”, I pleaded (by that time, the horse was running around in the arena and I was hanging on the horse’s neck, holding on for dear life). “Dear sister,” Werner said, “This is one of the oldest horses in the barn”.

When I was through with the torture, I could hardly walk. I knew I was invited to a reception at the parents of his girlfriend on Sunday. How could I do deep curtsies with my aching legs? Well, I managed, but then at dinner I made a fool of myself again. With that strict upbringing, I had good table manners, but I was a very young debutante and accordingly, very nervous. That piece of meat at the dinner table must have been tough or were my trembling fingers to blame? Anyway, It jumped right across the table on a young officer’s lap. A blushing 15-year old girl almost crawled under the table. It took a long time before I visited brother Werner again after that disaster. Also, Werner was transferred to another city and we saw him less frequently.

But the rest of us still had a ball. One winter we were skating on sort of a swampy meadow. The ice was pretty thin and Hilde, a little plump and not a good skater, stayed behind and cracked through the ice and the rest of us ran away. Naughty, naughty! We played tricks on each other all the time, especially Walter, Trude’s brother - he was full of the devil! He constantly was teasing me, taking the ribbons out of my pigtails. How I hated that. Much later he proposed to me and I told him he was crazy.

And Trude, who thought the villagers were so small minded, decided one sunny day to open an umbrella wearing her dress inside out and bicycling through town, her nose in the air. Trude was very nearsighted and we were taught to curtsy when we met older ladies or gentlemen on the street. One day a young man who was crazy about Trude, came along.

“Trude, curtsy quickly,” we said and she did and we laughed our heads off. We also imitated that young man’s Saxonian dialect all the time. I can hear him now singing is his dialect, “My name is Booode!”

When Ilse, Trude’s sister, got married, we played all kinds of jokes. It was a formal affair and we teenagers didn’t go for that. There were hired cooks and most of the guests stayed in a nearby hotel. First, we went into the kitchen. There was oxtail soup on the stove. We took Seppel, Trude’s dachshund and dipped his tail into the soup. Now we had Daxitail soup and we were very proud of our nonsense.

It was a long party and the guests went to bed late. The next morning, around six, we went into action. First, we rang the bell at the railroad crossing. Next, each of us collected a handful of pebbles and threw them one by one at the hotel windows. Before the guests could open their windows, we had disappeared. Then we decided that we couldn’t let all these jokes go by without playing a practical one on our “beloved” teacher, Lehrer Wall.

Up the hill and into his garden was only a matter of minutes. We grabbed two empty watering cans and played a beautiful trumpet wake-up duet at six in the morning.

I guess we dared to do all these things because there were eight of us. When vacation time was over, there were only two or three of us. But my brother, Werner, came now almost every weekend. I noticed something different and then I knew - he had fallen in love with my best friend, Trude. One thing he had hidden from us for a long time. He had built a telephone line between our house and Trude’s. Very clever. When Trude’s mom came to the phone, he would say: “Could I come over and borrow an egg? My mother is making a cake.” Most of the time, he let me call first to make sure that “die Luft war rein” (the air was clean).

When I was through at the Gymnasium, I moved to Darmstadt, the capital of Hesse and studied to become a kindergarten teacher. Before I was admitted to the Kindergarten College, I had to go for two years to the Frauenschule (a finishing school) to learn handicrafts, to cook, do exercises, learn German literature and at least two languages. It was fun.

Darmstadt is a beautiful city and I lived in a suburb with a family whose daughter also went to the Frauenschule. She had a brother, Heinz. All three of us had bikes and I don’t know how many times I got onto the streetcar tracks and fell driving downhill to school. I learned how to whistle on four fingers, and pretty soon I became an expert and whenever Heinz had a date, I drove with my bike behind him and whistled as loud as I could.

When I started college, I moved in with a girlfriend to stay with one of our teachers in town. Studying became more serious now. We had to learn the Froebel and Montessori methods, had to visit homes for the retarded and handicapped children and also had to work in a nursery school, a kindergarten and at an after-school playground. One time while working in a hospital with premature babies, the princess of Hesse-Darmstadt came to visit and shook hands with us (she was later the Queen of Greece).

At this point in my life, Eva was my best friend. Her uncle was one of Hitler’s earliest followers. One day Eva said to me, “Let’s go and hear one of Hitler’s campaign speeches. You have to hear him - he is fascinating.” It must have been 1929 or 1930. I wasn’t much interested in politics, but I knew that sooner or later I had to vote. So, I went with her and sat in the front row and after the speech, shook hands with Adolph Hitler. We young people were enthusiastic about that Austrian who gained followers so rapidly and who promised such wonderful things to the German people. My father just shook his head. He liked Hindenburg much better. He had a life-size picture of Hindenburg in his study and a bust of Bismarck.

Frequently I went home on weekends to be with the old gang. Another reason to go home was the dirty laundry. My mother was a “softy” and always washed and ironed my laundry. In the middle of the week, mom would send a package with clean clothes and ironed laundry, mended socks and wonderful homemade cookies or cakes. College was interesting, but the highlights were definitely our Christmas vacations.

When I think of Christmas in Germany, a few words come to my mind: family, friends, warmth, snow and the beloved Christmas tree with candles.

Christmas time started with my birthday on December 1. Frequently, the first of Advent fell on this day and that meant the first candle on the Advent wreath could be lit.

Mother, father, children and friends would sit around the wreath, singing Advent or Santa Claus (in German, Nikolaus) songs and eating a few (but only a few, and mostly the burnt ones) of the first Christmas cookies. Now was the time to get started on making Christmas presents. We didn’t buy things. We made our presents. I had learned knitting, crocheting and cross-stitching at age six and I wish I had written down how many potholders, doilies and knitted socks I made over the years. Almost daily, after school, we (my girlfriends and I) would sit around the candles singing and knitting all through December. Mother was too busy to join us. She was baking cookies and Stollen. She even made marzipan.

And then came December 6, St. Nikolaus’ birthday. We were doing the usual thing, sitting by the candlelight singing and doing handicrafts. But we were a bit apprehensive -- would St. Nick come and maybe spank us or would he just open the door and throw some apples and nuts into the room? All of us had a slightly guilty conscience. The year was long and we were not always “good children”. Even German children are not always obedient.

The next big day was shortly before Christmas when Mother and I took a train to go shopping in Frankfurt about 40 miles from the village where I grew up. It was so exciting to see -- the lights, the big streets, the streetcars and last, but not least, the big stores and all the delicacies. A miracle world for a small child from the country. Mom tried hard not to show me what she bought but I knew there were oranges (which we got only at Christmas time) and almonds in the shell and raisins dried on the branches. I knew it because they always appeared again on Christmas Eve on our bunten Teller, or goodie plate.

Christmas Eve, or Heilig Abend, in German (“Holy Night”) is the actual celebration. Frequently, our knitting was just completed and put into a big laundry basket that stood in front of the locked door to the Christmas room. I could never quite figure out how come all the presents disappeared from that basket, and where was father? I had not seen him all day.

After sundown, we were all scrubbed clean and put into our Sunday clothes. Dinner was always at seven and soon after we found ourselves around the piano singing Christmas carols. These were the longest five minutes of the entire year, sitting in the dark and singing until the door to the Christmas room was miraculously opened from the inside and a bell was ringing. We tiptoed into that room and stood silently for a moment, admiring the Tannenbaum with candles burning.

“Come on, children,” mother said. “Where are your poems”. My brother was first to start, standing under the tree -- oh, I didn’t even listen, his poem seemed endless and I was so impatient. I wanted to find my place with the unwrapped presents and the goodie plate. Father usually showed us our table with the very modest presents. But one year I got an entire ski outfit and one year a doll house made by my brother, Werner, who also, by the way, sometimes picked the best pieces of candy from my plate.

It always seemed to get late on Christmas Eve, and before we blew out the candles, we were singing again. That tree was so dear to us, we hadn’t seen one for an entire year and where did it come from, anyway? I hadn’t seen a stranger entering our house.

It was so hard to get up the next morning, but at 9:30 the bells were ringing and by ten we had to be in church. In the afternoon, we visited friends, but how could I forget, at noontime, there it was -- the once-a-year Christmas goose with potatoes and apple sauce. And again, in the evening, the tree was lit. We sometimes kept the tree until March or longer.

Once, around Christmas time, brother Werner had brought his friend, a comrade from the army. It was love at first sight. Actually, I didn’t fall in love with the young man, I fell in love with his nostrils. Wolf had the most exciting nostrils I ever saw and he blew them up like a horse -- but then again, I was very young and fell in love quite often.

All of us had a wonderful time together. My parents had a Victrola, one of those old-fashioned record players with a trumpet-shaped loudspeaker. The year was 1926 and the Foxtrot and the Charleston were the latest dances. We were allowed to use the “Christmas Room”, as we called it, although mother worried about the oriental rug. We danced and danced until late at night and when we said goodnight, I couldn’t resist trying one of my practical jokes with the newcomer.

I made a bet that Wolf would get up between 3 and 4 A.M. the next morning. “No way,” he said, but I was sure I would win. I had used a piece of chalk and drawn a big “3” on the mattress under the pillow and a “4” on the foot end. Was he ever surprised in the morning! In addition, I had put a rubber mouse in his bed. A few days later, I got a big package. Now the surprise was on me. There were at least two dozen chocolate mice and in the middle, a big chocolate cat. How heavenly! But my two girlfriends wanted part of it and I didn’t want to share. They tortured me and I finally had to give in.

Our friend, Wolf, came a few more times with my brother and then he announced that he was fed up with the German Army and wanted to emigrate to Indonesia. The truth was that he was angry because he had flunked the officer’s exam. Now I was curious. Where on earth was Indonesia?

I quickly got out the map of the world and found it. There it was -- way down near Singapore. Didn’t he speak of the island of Sumatra? That was one of the large Sunda Islands, in the United States of Indonesia, at that time, Dutch East Indies.

I started to daydream of how I would love to escape the monotony of the small country town in which I had grown up. I read everything I could get hold of about Indonesia. My friend had told me that the country was mostly jungle, with tigers, snakes and monkeys and high mountains up to 12,000 feet elevation.

I did not hear from Wolf for a while and my mind was occupied with important decisions. I entered Kindergarten College, moved to Darmstadt, the capitol of the state of Hesse, and studied hard. But then I got a letter, telling me that my friend had the intention to leave the country for the Dutch East Indies and wanted to see me before he left.

I remember vividly the day he arrived - November 24, 1928. A dreary, foggy November day, indeed. In the afternoon, it started to rain and didn’t stop. The city of Darmstadt is beautiful in the sunshine, but ugly on a day like this. I was staying with a middle class lady, a good upright citizen, and in those days, it was unthinkable that a young girl could invite a boyfriend to her room, even on a day like this.

I didn’t know what to do with him. I’d shown him everything that there was to see in town and then we went from restaurant to restaurant. I was soaking wet and shivering and was very glad when Wolf’s train finally came. However, we promised each other to keep in touch and correspond for years.

In the beginning, I didn’t have much of an idea where to find these Dutch colonies on the map. But when Wolf found a job with the Koerintji My (named after the biggest mountain on the west coast of Sumatra, Mt. Koerintji, 12,000 feet elevation), a large quinine, tea and coffee export company on the island of Sumatra, I became interested. During the next few years there wasn’t a holiday or birthday where I didn’t get the most interesting presents from the Dutch East Indies: wooden, carved elephants, batik clothes, art objects made from brass or silver, a serving spoon carved from buffalo horn, a hand-embroidered silk tablecloth, etc.

The native population of West Sumatra, the Minang-Kabaus, are artistic and talented people. I got the replica of a typical Indonesian village made of brass and I could hardly wait to see the real thing. It was fascinating to hear about a country so entirely different from my native Germany.

One of the most fascinating letters Wolf sent to me included a real life experience that he had in Sumatra. He called it “The Snake Story” and my English translation follows:

the instructions and orders to the supervisor, I liked to stroll by myself through the “bush”. But I don’t like to go very far inside the jungle,

After corresponding for about five years, we finally got engaged by mail. In 1934, Trude and my brother, Werner, got married. I was somewhat surprised when I got the announcement. For years, Werner’s courtship was in vain. Trude knew that my brother did have many girlfriends, all the time, and when he wanted to kiss her, she said: “I am not a coffee mug you can reach around.”

Another surprise came with the announcement. Trude refused to get married without me as a bridesmaid. By that time I was employed as a kindergarten teacher on the island of Norderney in the North Sea. Trude’s parents had moved to Leipzig, Saxonia. That was a long and expensive train ride. Well, she finally got her wish and her parents paid for the trip.

In 1934, Germany was to have only a very small army, so brother Werner made a quick move and became a Lufthansa airline captain. Captain Werner Stein and his bride went on their honeymoon. I do not recall where they went, but much later, Trude told me: “Would you believe it, even on his honeymoon he wanted to see his girlfriends.”

It was like a fairy tale. My brother and my fiancee had invited their friends from the army. They all came in gala uniform. The bridesmaids and my girlfriends were all in pastel-colored, long gowns. I was, of course, in a white wedding gown and a long, long veil. The wedding gown was a piece of art. My sister-in-law had hand-stitched it.

Our house stood on a hill and it was customary for the procession to go by foot from home to church, no automobiles. The entire village of Hirzenhain participated joyfully in the event on this beautiful, sunny day in June, 1935.

It was only a ten minute walk, but each street crossing was decorated and small children with flowers were holding a rope in front of us. It was the bridegroom’s duty to throw a few coins to the children before they let us through. When we passed the only hotel in town, somebody was waving from the balcony. It was Elli, a very close friend from college. Another surprise awaited me when we entered the church. The organist played Haendel’s “Largo”, a favorite of mine. It is amazing how one remembers tiny, unimportant happenings. When the pastor read the part from the Bible where it says: “You, husband, be obedient to your wife”, to make sure that he heard this good advice from the pastor, I stepped on my fiancee’s foot so that he almost screamed. Naughty, Naughty!

We went back the same way we came, but before mother could make a big fuss and a formal reception with wine, coffee and cake, we grabbed the table cloth, Dresden china, whipped cream and all and made a picnic on the lawn. Mother was, of course, crushed. Because my future home would be “the Indies”, as the Dutch call it, she had set the table with 12 wooden, carved elephants and her best sterling silver and crystal. But we didn’t care, we were young and in high spirits.

In the evening, the two musicians came with their trumpets and played in front of our balcony. My father invited them to “Jungmann’s”, the only hotel in town, to dance and drink beer.

I danced until I almost collapsed. I guess I enjoyed my own wedding more than anyone else and I refused to leave the same night. So I stayed another night at my parents’ home and the next day, my brother drove us to Bad Nauheim, the first stop on our honeymoon. I remember we drove by a meadow full of storks. You must know that in Germany, the legend has it that the storks bring the children. Can you imagine, the wisecracks my brother made?

When we arrived in Bad Nauheim, which, by the way, is an internationally known health spa, we didn’t want anyone to know that we were just married. But again, we hadn’t taken brother Werner into account. He had left a package at the hotel reception addressed to the “newlyweds”. You want to know what was in the package? A bottle of my own homemade wine that had turned into vinegar, and a radish. Silly brother Werner!

The second stop on our honeymoon was an island in the River Rhine. Here I got tonsillitis and had to stay in bed. After a few days I was my old self again and we went to Spiekeroog, an island in the North Sea. The salty sea water did wonders for me. I recovered in no time.

No fancy hotel here. We stayed at a farmer’s house. A horse and buggy picked us up from the ship.

The honeymoon had to be cut short. There were so many things to do before we left for Indonesia. Above all, my wedding present had to be picked up. Instead of a diamond ring, I had asked my husband for a big dog to take along for my protection. She was six months old, a pitch black Great Dane and her full name was Usta Funken von der Heide (Usta, spark of the heather land).

We left Germany on October 6, 1935. It was my first sea voyage and I was very excited. I couldn’t entirely understand why my mother was weeping and sobbing when we said good-bye in Bremerhafen. I was so happy and my love of adventure was unquenchable. The music played the familiar German farewell tune, “Muss I denn zum Steeled hinaus”, and I joined in with my harmonica.

Crossing the Channel between England and Holland was rough and I had to fight seasickness, but got used to the motion of the boat rapidly. It was fun to watch the flying fish and since our ship was a semi-freighter, we stopped frequently. First port was Rotterdam, Holland; the next was Port Said, the gate to the Red Sea. Port Said has to be seen and felt. It is hard to describe.

All nationalities, races, shapes and sizes of human beings seemed to be poured into this harbor. The peddlers practically stormed the ship to sell their leather goods. Camel leather is very strong and we acquired a leather bag and a big leather pillow to sit on.

The few passengers aboard the ship got to know each other in a hurry. When we reached the Mediterranean, it was sunny and warm and all of us enjoyed the trip. We played board games, a painter made some sketches, and I practiced on the accordion. Off and on I had to “work” a bit. My husband insisted that I had to get acquainted with the language before we entered the country. “Come on, Margot, start counting -- satoe, tooa, tiga, ampat”. That was Malayan, and not so hard...but Dutch? Well, I tried.

After Port Said, there was a short stop at Port Suez at the southern end of the Red Sea and on we went to the beautiful Indian Ocean. I will never forget the glowing fish that accompanied our ship. They were the ones who caused the marine phosphorescence. And then the dolphins, who were all the time around the ship, and at night time, the “Cross of the South” in the sky.

Our next station was Colombo on the Island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). That was true tropical flavor and like a big city -- people of all races and nations, bicycles, dog carts, and automobiles. An English police officer tried to bring some order to the confusion.

We were happy that we could escape the crowd. We rented a taxi and headed for Mount Lavigny, the highest mountain on the island. A few friends from the ship had come along and we couldn’t wait to get to the restaurant at the top of the hill to taste our first tropical fruit. We never had tasted papayas with sugar, lemon and rum -- it was very refreshing. From the top of Mt. Lavigny one has a breathtaking view of the Indian Ocean. We regretted that we had to leave so soon, but our ship was waiting.

Shortly before our departure, a young Indian woman selling laces, came up the hill. She carried her merchandise in a basket on her head and as a result had a beautiful upright posture. What a sight! I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the lace lady with the light brown skin, coming uphill between the green palms, carrying her white laces.

We would have loved to stay longer in Colombo, but the freighter was blowing her horn and we had to continue our trip heading for the Large Sunda Islands. The next harbor was Palembang on the island of Sumatra. I was very excited to see what my future homeland would look like. Soon after we docked, we found out that our dog, Usta, could not be imported to the West Coast of Sumatra. We had to change our plans for Usta’s sake and rerouted via Singapore and from there take a Dutch riverboat to Pakan Baroe, a river harbor on the East Coast.

But now we wanted to see Palembang first. There wasn’t much to see, but what we saw was very interesting. The big pagoda was worth seeing. And then there was the unforgettable snake temple! I love animals but I am not very fond of snakes and when we entered the temple and I saw all those snakes lazily lying around -- dozens of them -- I asked my husband to return to the ship right away. Harbor life was interesting, too. Small boats were going back and forth, merchandise was loaded and unloaded, and between all of these activities, small Malaysian boys in their birthday suits were swimming and diving for copper coins which the travelers were throwing into the water. These little boys were swimming like fish and it was fun to observe them.

There were peddlers in Palembang, too, but they were not allowed to come on board. They had to stay on their boats. It was the first time I heard Malayan, and I think my husband and also the other travelers who spoke Malayan, used pretty abusive language since the peddlers wanted to charge twice as much as the merchandise was worth. Of course, nobody pays what they ask for. Everybody bargains -- this is a custom in the East. I had to learn that and I did learn it quite well.

It isn’t very far from Palembang to Singapore, just around the most northern tip of the island of Sumatra. We were looking forward to being on land again. Six weeks to be on the water is a long, long time, even on the most luxurious ship. When we arrived in Singapore, we said good-bye to our travel companions, and to Captain Brathering, watched the loading and unloading of the luggage for a while, and waited impatiently for Usta, our Great Dane. The poor dog was so happy to see land again.

Since Singapore is a free harbor, we couldn’t resist doing a little shopping. But we didn’t have much time until our K.P.M. (Koninklyke Paketvaart Maatschappy) Dutch river boat named “Tinombo”, was to take us to the interior of Sumatra., She was leaving that same day. We hurried to get all the luggage together. One had to watch it, the boys at the harbor had “long fingers” as they say in Germany and we didn’t want anything to disappear.

The river boat Tinombo had a real “jungle flavor”. The captain was sitting on the bridge in a comfortable rattan chair, a flashlight in each hand, blowing his whistle. The river, lined on both sides with mangrove trees, was narrow and the night pitch dark.

It was too hot to sleep and we would peek out of our cabin, which was more like a wire cage, because of the mosquitoes. Suddenly the motor of our ship stopped and we saw many silent dark men approaching our ship in canoes. I was frightened, but what I didn’t know was that it was a routine job to trade wood and other commodities during the cool night hours rather than during the hot day.

Next day a surprise was waiting for us. We had stopped at a small harbor and the captain found out that our dog, Usta, couldn’t be brought into the country, not from the west coast, nor from the east coast. Well, nothing is impossible in the Orient. The captain told the customs officer that we were just baby-sitting that dog for a friend who had left on a trip to Europe and a box of cigars helped to convince the customs officer that it was perfectly legal for the dog to enter. Usta was saved and we were glad that everyone, including the dog, could finally set foot on Sumatra’s soil. We arrived in Pakan Baroe, the river harbor, the next day but had hours and hours of driving through the jungle ahead of us.

Looking for transportation, we found an old Ford taxi and the driver was trying to convince us that we all would fit into his precious car. Now, let me see -- there was Mrs. V., who came with us from Germany, the dog, Usta, and myself -- we all fit into the back. But we also had to squeeze in one of the suitcases. Wolf and the driver were in the front. They talked in Malayan and knew the directions from Pakan Baroe to Fort deKock, our first stop on Sumatra. The Island of Sumatra is as big as California and the streets are in excellent condition because the Malayans pay their taxes to the Dutch government by working on the highways.

However, three and a half hours of nothing but serpentine curves can make anyone sick. And that’s exactly what happened. Mrs. V. was hanging out of the left window and I out of the right. And the dog? Yes, even she got car sick.

It was somewhat embarrassing when we arrived at the immaculate snow white hotel in Fort de Kock. A half dozen djonges clad in white, wearing turbans, appeared to help with the luggage. Mrs. V and I disappeared. We couldn’t get into the shower fast enough. It took only a short time and we were ready to enjoy the famous Reistabel, the most elaborate dinner of the Dutch, or rather, the Malayans. Twelve or more servants served side dishes to go with the staple food, rice.

In spite of the cleanliness of the hotel, there were lots of bugs, ants, cockroaches, mosquitoes and lizards. When one of the lizards fell into the soup, my husband remarked: “They have plenty of those out here. You’ll get used to them...”

The next day we arrived in Padang, the only big city on Sumatra’s West Coast. It was now the end of November, 1935. Some necessary shopping had to be done in a hurry.

Our permanent place was Oeloe Bangko, a small settlement on the quinine plantation, consisting of three mountain cabins and about two dozen native cottages. One of these mountain cabins was ours, but there was nothing in it. When my husband went on a European furlough, he had only saved his living room set, consisting of a round coffee table and three chairs. So we quickly bought two simple single beds, stayed another day and shipped them and did the rest of our shopping.

Even though it was winter, the climate in Padang was unbearable-- high humidity and hot sun. It must have been at least 90 degrees Fahrenheit. A taxi brought us, our luggage and our dog in about three hours to Oeloe Bangko, our destination. It was night time when the trip was over. I had to fight car sickness all the way. The roads were good, but again, nothing but serpentines.

And then there were these weird noises coming from the tropical forest Was that hissing I just heard -- a snake or a wildcat, maybe even a tiger??

I didn’t feel so comfortable in the convertible taxi. Suddenly, the car came to a halt. My heart stopped beating, but my husband laughed: “Don’t worry! Some wild boars just crossed the road.” I was wondering what else to expect when I arrived.

It was so dark and all along, whenever we came through a village, there were long lines of walking people, carrying kerosene lamps. Spooky! But then, when we arrived we were greeted by Panja and Soekkini, my husband’s faithful Javanese servants. The house was empty all right -- no electricity, no running water, and of course, not even the most primitive ice box. Fortunately, our beds had arrived and after a good night’s sleep, things looked much brighter.

I was young and adventurous and could cope with primitive living, but for a long time I didn’t dare to go to the bathroom at night. Our “bathroom” and the kitchen were in a building by itself, connected with the cabin by an open, but covered walkway. We didn’t have flashlights, but we had kerosene lamps, plenty of them. On windy or rainy nights, however, I didn’t dare to go to the bathroom. The lamp would go out and I would have to find my way in the dark, and worst of all, the tigers and monkeys and cobras were living so close by, about 100 yards from the house.

Fortunately, there were empty kerosene cans and they were used for everything! Yes, even in the kitchen. Water had to be boiled and filtered and laundry to be washed daily. The kitchen stove consisted of a long iron plate with three big holes in it. The entire “stove” was sitting on three bricks. Panja was our cook and he brought many delicious dishes to the table. I told him the recipes and he memorized them. Just like that. I had it made. Without moving a finger I served Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes), Kartoffelklosse (potato dumplings), Gulasch and Sauerbraten to my husband. Sometimes, of course, the dishes tasted a bit smoky because the kitchen shed had no walls and when the wind came from the wrong direction, Panja got it all in his face.

The wind was also a problem when Soekkini, the housemaid, wanted to iron. The kitchen stove, as well as the old-fashioned iron, were heated with coconut coal, which was quite an efficient fuel, but when the wind was strong, small pieces of the glowing coals flew on top of the laundry, so-- many pretty dresses went “with the wind”.

Our so-called “bathroom” was something else. As I mentioned before, no running water in the modern sense. Our water was directed from an open bamboo pipe to the kitchen. It came from a spring about a mile or two away and once in a while there was a dead chitchak (lizard) found in the open pipes. From the kitchen, the water was carried in empty kerosene cans everywhere to our bedroom and to the “bak” in the bathroom. The bak was a big concrete tub, filled to the brim with cold water. There was half a kerosene can with wooden handles next to the bak. This “wonderful” piece of equipment was actually used as our wash basin. We soaped our bodies at least twice a day, poured cold water over them, and rinsed again with the clean water from the bak. Naturally, there was a toilet, too, in the bathroom, and what a toilet! A hole in the ground - but it had a wooden seat. No, no toilet paper, but a pretty carved bottle holder with three beer bottles, filled with water and some Lysol. That was our toilet paper. Fortunately, the lizards were too big and didn’t fit into the neck of the beer bottles.

Lizards, cockroaches and ants are not only a nuisance, but a downright misery in the tropics. I learned that in a hurry. Especially the ants bothered us. One only had to peel a banana and put it on a plate, and within seconds the entire plate was covered with tiny sugar ants. We actually had to put our food cabinets with the legs into ring shaped containers filled with water. On the lawn there were entire colonies of huge ants. No open shoes in this area.

I made my acquaintance with the cockroaches one evening when I left a wet cloth in the kitchen. When I returned later, it was black with roaches. I remember once a guest came and saw a cockroach on the wall, took a slipper and wanted to kill it and we said good-naturedly: “Don’t kill it, it’s our last one”.

Also, fleas were pests. The servants had built a big dog house for Usta, right next to the walkway, but whenever I went over to see the dog, my white socks were covered with fleas. Actually, Usta had it better than we did. We were still waiting for our furniture and it was already mid-December.

Christmas was approaching and I was fighting homesickness, my first Christmas away from home. What could I do to get us into the right Christmas spirit? I started by baking Christmas cookies. What fun. An open fire and sort of a frying pan was all that was available. And where would I get a Christmas tree? There were some juniper bushes in the garden. They would have to be my substitute. I had imagination enough to use candy wrappers as tinsel and enjoyed my “decorated” Christmas tree tremendously.

Shortly after Christmas, our dining room furniture arrived. It was beautiful - so modern in classic Norwegian style. There were regular Chinese carpenters among the laborers at the plantation. But this furniture was special. Made of teakwood, it came from the Batak land in the north of Sumatra. The Bataks, a Malayan tribe, were trained in carpentry by German missionaries and did exquisite work. In addition, I had gotten a Singer sewing machine for Christmas. Now I was in business. I was expecting my first baby and could start preparing for the new arrival.

By now the garden was laid out, and since there are practically no seasons in the tropics, we started to put out the seed right away. I even had strawberry seeds and was looking forward to our first harvest. My husband had ordered a few dozen laborers to plant a lawn and almost overnight there it was -- a large, green lawn. On that same lawn, the laborers quickly built a small bungalow, so that our baby would have a place in the shade.

The next few months were focused on the new arrival. I had written the big news to my mother right away and had to wait for an answer for four to six weeks. Time went by fast and my first son, Wolf-Dieter, was born on October 16, 1936 at 12:10 A.M. Earlier in the day we had company. A Dutch police officer came by to say hello. We lived so far away, “out in the sticks”, that we welcomed any visitor. But my husband and he talked for hours and I felt kind of funny, but did not want to say anything.

Our visitor had just left when I had to alarm my husband, asking him to call the doctor. The water had broken and I was ordered to go to bed without any dinner. I was upset. It was my favorite food, Bauernfruehstuck, “Farmer’s Breakfast”, consisting of fried potatoes with onions, tomatoes and scrambled eggs. After an hour, the doctor arrived.

“No way,” was his answer. “You go to bed and ever so often I will look in on you.”

I wasn’t very pleased. Next door the two men were discussing politics and eating my favorite dinner. I could hear them through the thin wall. Finally, after about four hours, Dr. Trostenburg de Bruyn, put on his rubber gloves and gave orders to the servants, who were, of course, awakened, to get hot water ready, quickly, quickly. It was 10 minutes after midnight when the doctor said the so feverishly expected four words: “It’s a boy!”

A midwife was supposed to be there to help me but she lived 5 hours away (by car) and our first son was 3 weeks early. She came the next day and laughed. The doctor had clad the tiny baby in a jacket meant for a one year old child. Mrs. Schwert, the midwife, laughed even more when I told her that I finally (even though my doctor protested) got my Bauernfruhstuck dinner and my hot chocolate.

I guess the servants had to make a fire on our primitive stove around 1 A.M. Well, they were up anyway. Since I didn’t have a guerita, the owner of the only toko (store) had to be awakened to sell us a dozen safety pins. A goerita is a long strip of cloth, 2 feet x 5 yards, which would be wrapped around the young mother’s body after she gave birth. It was then fastened with safety pins. The doctor and my husband wrapped me in a damask table cloth. That very uncomfortable piece of underwear had to be worn day and night for 3 to 6 months. Now I knew why the Malayan women had such beautiful slender figures.

The midwife stayed for two weeks and then I was on my own. If I ever missed my mother, it was then. I had learned how to handle a baby, but it’s a different story when it’s your own. I had to breast feed since there was no fresh milk.

Fortunately, the good doctor came once a week to look after us and once in a while, there was a letter in the mail from my parents.

Usta was very jealous of little Dieter and she almost bit him once. Finally, that crazy dog pretended she was pregnant herself and considered my husband’s briefcase as her baby.

Shortly after my son’s birth, my husband’s Swiss boss told us that he was going to build a house for himself and we could have his old house. That was better than the four-room mountain cabin we now occupied and the whole clan went off 1/2 mile down the hill.

The servants didn’t seem to like that move at all and we didn’t know why. Everything was wonderful now. I had five servants, a big house and a garden with a huge lawn, a garden pavilion and a large section for planting flowers and vegetables.

Dieter grew rapidly but when I stopped breast feeding and started him on condensed milk, he got milk poisoning. From then on he couldn’t have any kind of milk. For four weeks his meals consisted of cream of wheat (cooked with water), spinach, bananas, rice, potatoes, carrots, plain wafers, etc. After that month long vegetarian diet, everything was back to normal, but Dieter remained pale and frequently had a sore throat. A test finally showed that he had Streptococci in the blood. The physician convinced me that that was no big thing, he just had to be careful with infections.

Dieter was just 6 months old when we heard that the cruiser “Emden”, Germany’s pride and joy, was coming for a visit to Sumatra. So, on April 14, 1937, we decided to drive to Padang, a harbor city on the west coast of Sumatra, to have our son baptized aboard the “Emden”.

The carpenters from the plantation had carved a beautiful wooden box for Dieter to sleep in while we were driving for hours and hours to get to Padang. The baby behaved well, even in the hotel, in spite of the tropical heat. The hotel room neighbors were so grateful for his good behavior that they came with huge bouquets of flowers.

However, the baptism was another story. All during the service the baby screamed as loud as he could. Part of it was to blame on the heat and part of it on the lacy baptismal gown, an heirloom from his Dad’s family. To comfort the little boy, the two substitute godfathers, Dr. Ruempeler and Sergeant Gosdenhoff, put him into his travel cradle and were rocking him across the railing. I can still hear them shouting -- “You shall become a sailor. You shall become a sailor...”

After the baptism we were invited by the captain to a champagne breakfast where the godfathers presented us with a painting of the “Emden”, and a sailor’s hat. It was more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit and we took off for our mountains as soon as we could.

Dieter was just 15 months old when his brother, Jochen, was born, January 24, 1938. His full name was Wolf-Joachim, but we always called him Jochen or Jockele. Frequently, I took Dieter for short walks and sometimes had to carry him for a while when he was tired. On that day in January, I had gone down the hill and, of course, I had to come up again. The baby was heavy and I was 8 months pregnant. When I came home, I didn’t feel well and asked my husband, who was stretched out on the couch, reading German newspapers, to move over please so that I could lie down. His response was short and to the point: “Why don’t you go to bed if you are tired?”

I was sulky but did what he suggested. Pretty soon, I felt the labor coming and now it was my turn for revenge. I waited until the labor came in approximately three minute intervals, knocked on the wall to draw Wolf’s attention and heard him respond - “What now?”

“Now you had better sterilize your hands and find a small string because now you have to help your second child into this world,” I said.

You should have seen his face. Surprise, fear, uncertainty -- all in one. He knew that I was right -- the baby was due in about 1/2 hour and even if he got through by phone right away, it would take the doctor more than an hour to be there. But this time we were better prepared than the first time. Wolf had taken some lessons from the doctor: “”What to do in Case of Emergency”. We had a sterilized drum with bandages and cotton ready, the bed was put on wooden blocks to make it higher, and I knew from the last time that I couldn’t have anything to eat.

Needless to say, I regretted that I hadn’t alarmed my husband an hour or so earlier. At this point I wasn’t sure if he knew how to act as a “midwife”.

But everything went according to the book. The “preemie” was an ugly duckling, weight 2,780 grams (about 6 pounds) and had reddish spots all over, especially in the face. His ears were not even hemmed. When the doctor came in, he balanced the baby on one hand and said: “By gosh, he is even smaller than the first one.” I was so afraid he would drop my poor little son.

The servants were as relieved as I was when Jochen was born. They immediately buried the afterbirth under the house and the next day the gardener came storming in, very excited. He had seen something with a fiery tail escaping through the roof. He told us that for a long time, there was a curse upon the house, but now everything was all right. Finally, I knew why the servants didn’t want to move from the pasan-grahan, the guest house, to our new home.

It is amazing with the Indonesians. Since we knew how much superstitions could have affected our daily lives, we were greatly relieved. Now everybody was happy. But we still had to give a slamatan (dinner party) for all mandoers (supervisors of the plantation). For this occasion, the dining room was emptied and coconut mats spread out on the floor. It is customary for all Indonesians to enter the house barefoot only, to sit on the floor cross-legged and to eat with their right hand (dirty work is done mainly with the left hand) only, without forks or spoons from a banana leaf. They wash their hands before and after each meal in fingerbowls which sometimes are made of sterling silver.

When a slamatan is in honor of a baby, the baby will have to be handed over to every one of the guests, who touches him, and looks him over (to make sure he is complete). In return, the toean (master), who is the absolute ruler of the small community, is invited to wayang plays (puppets), dances, gamelan music (an orchestra consisting of gongs and drums) and receives gifts. The nonja (wife of the toean) gets some of this, too, but basically she does not count. She is, more or less, considered the property of the toean, and so are the children. To serve the master is the religion of the Indonesian.

As I have mentioned before, the many small insects are a pest in Indonesia. I learned to fear all these bugs more than raja, the tiger. Many times I found the food cabinet crawling with tiny ants and a garment was often destroyed when cockroaches ate a hole where the slightest soiled spot was. We finally put the legs of our furniture in double cups filled with water as insect protection.

Food was sometimes hard to get. There was a Chinese toko (store) on the plantation, and we bought groceries on a daily basis, since we didn’t have a refrigerator. Once a week, a karbau (ox) was slaughtered to feed the 500 hired Javanese coolies and we got our fair share. But meat was especially hard to keep in the tropical climate. We had a few choices on how to keep our food supply fresh: cooking, pickling or salting. Chicken eggs were abundant because chickens “grew on trees”. We never fed them nor did we care for them. We just collected the eggs. These wild chickens meant, of course, that we needed a good fence around the vegetable garden, but that was no problem. Hibiscus sticks grew roots and made a beautiful blooming fence in no time. I was very proud of my garden and experiments with peas, carrots and asparagus. Strawberry seeds, sent from Europe, took in the fertile soil and it was quite an event when I could serve fresh strawberries and whipping cream from karbou (buffalo milk) to my guests.

Our gardener had a large area to take care of and every morning, very early, one could hear the sound of the primitive sickle going over the lawn. The lawn clippings were used as fertilizer for the vegetable garden. The flowers didn’t need any fertilizer. They were “natives” and grew and bloomed throughout the year: bougainvillea, hibiscus, Transvaal daisies, geraniums, gloxinias, and sunflowers, to name a few. It was a little cold for orchids, but some varieties grew even at 7,000 feet elevation.

The climate was probably the hardest to get used to. It never got too hot in our mountain area, but temperature differences of 20 degrees Fahrenheit between day and night were no exception. In general, the days had an average temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit and consisted of a constant breeze. But as soon as the sun went down, it got cold immediately. We slept under two woolen blankets and could never understand why nobody ever had thought of installing some sort of fireplace to provide for some warmth in the evenings. There was lots of firewood and coconut charcoal on the plantation.

There is a saying in the islands that for Caucasians, the years spent in the tropics count twice. Our plantation doctor had told me that. He also had told me that he didn’t think it was a good idea to have children year after year.

Yes, he was probably right. However, son #3 was on his way and this time we took all the precautions we possibly could. We even considered sending me to the hospital which was about 60 miles away at the foot of Mount Koerintji. This caused somewhat of a problem, with my history of premature babies. Because of the danger of infection and the many tropical diseases, it was not recommended for Caucasian women to deliver their babies in hospitals. We, therefore, abandoned the idea and instead, notified the midwife a week before the due date. Finally, after four weeks of waiting, son #3 arrived -- 3 weeks late!

Again, the doctor could not be reached in time, but this time at least the midwife was there and was she ever glad when the doctor finally arrived. He had to do a little surgery because the head was already showing, but the baby’s broad shoulders had to be pulled out. Wolf-Hartmut was a big boy from the very beginning. He was born on August 25, 1939, weighed 4,180 grams and was 56 cm. long. When the doctor held the baby in his hands, he exclaimed: “This is a small Hindenburg!” (Hindenburg, the German general and second president, was a big, husky man.)

Hartmut grew rapidly in width and length. He was a butterball, but from the very beginning, an individualist and very independent. His brother, Reiner, still calls him Hamumatz (in German, Hartmut macht’s engl, “Hartmut does it himself”) I recall a few humorous events: My question, “How did you get that hole in the front of your pants?” His answer -- “My belly busted.” Another time he drank three cups of milk and cried afterwards. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “My legs hurt”, he said. “Why?” “Because I drank so much milk, now they want to grow.”

The next eight months were probably the most peaceful ones in our lives. The children didn’t cause much trouble. We had everything we wanted. It was like the quiet before the storm, but we didn’t know that then.

There is no simple recipe for survival. It all depends on the specific situation, but the survival instinct is one of the strongest ones in human beings.

It seems that I had to prove that I was a survivor in whatever country I had lived in.

The most dramatic day of my life was May 10, 1940. We were awakened by the racket the monkeys made in the nearby jungle. My husband had gotten up to take care of the 500 coolies who worked at the huge quinine plantation. I turned over and kept sleeping. At 7:30 A.M., I slowly got up, to be ready when the toean (master) would return for his breakfast.

Saini, the children’s maid, took care of our three children so that we could have breakfast in peace. It was a wonderful warm morning and for a few hours the two older boys, Dieter and Jochen, 3-1/2 and 2, could play in the garden without any clothes. Just shoes to protect their feet from snake or ant bites and a hat from the sun, was a must. In the meantime, I took care of baby Hartmut, who was barely nine months old. After the baby was put into his playpen under a shady tree, I had plenty of time to tell Panja, the cook, how to prepare a German meal, to give the housemaid some orders and discuss a few things with the gardener.

We had created a little paradise for ourselves in this remote part of the world. Our house stood at the foot of Mount Koerintji (elevation 12,467 feet), a mighty, still active volcano on the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, at the time called Dutch East Indies. We lived about 100 yards away from the jungle at about 7,000 feet elevation. Even though the Island of Sumatra lies only 2 degrees north of the equator, the climate in the mountains is excellent, pleasantly warm during daytime and cool at night. There are no mosquitoes at 7,000 feet which meant that malaria was not a threat and we didn’t have to sleep under a mosquito net.

On this May morning, the weather was balmy and we had decided to set the table for lunch in the garden. All of a sudden, we saw this big, dark cloud rapidly approaching. The servants came running, wrapping everything in the tablecloth, and before we could reach the front door, the downpour was there. A tropical rain has to be seen and felt -- it is difficult to describe.

Once in the house, we decided to turn on our battery equipped radio to listen to the news from Berlin. What we heard was shocking. German troops had marched into Holland. That meant internment for all Germans who lived in the Dutch East Indies. Seldom did I see my husband react faster. He jumped into the car to warn our neighbors who lived about five miles away.

An hour later he returned to tell me to get things ready for him. The controlleur (police officer) would be here any minute to take him and others to the internment camp in Fort de Kock.

“But,” he said, “Don’t worry, honey, the war will be over in two weeks at the most.” It was seven years before we were together again.

I still remember how they drove away in that elegant convertible, all three men (the Dutch police officer in the middle) wearing the same golf caps as if they were going to a tournament. Then my little son was running after the car, crying out loud: “Daddy, daddy!”

The fact that their father was taken away was not only frightening to the boys, I didn’t know what to do either. In the afternoon of that same day, Mrs. V., our German neighbor and good friend, arrived with Ursula and Peter, her two small children. They had lived further up in the Busch, as we called the tropical rain forest. Under no circumstances did she want to stay up there among the indigenous people, who could turn hostile any minute. She begged to stay with us.

She was much older than I and had gone through World War I and had a pretty good idea what was going to happen. First, she persuaded me to hide everything precious: jewelry, sterling and things of sentimental value. I didn’t believe her. Why would the Dutch, one of the wealthiest nations on earth, bother to confiscate our personal belongings? To us they were treasures, to them they were nothing. Anyway, very late that evening, I hid a few pieces of jewelry in rolled up socks, still not convinced that anything would happen. But around 6 A.M. the next morning, a knock on the door told me that my roommate was right.

The controlleur, with whom we had played golf and tennis, with whom we had danced at numerous parties, here he stood with a stern face, telling us that “in the name of the Dutch government” he had to search our premises and confiscate things as ordered. He told us that our husbands had been fired, our bank accounts closed, that he had to block our car and take the radio along.

First, he searched my husband’s desk for any political documents. While he was doing this, we fed the babies in the bedroom and kept on hiding things. Next, we asked him to search the children’s room so that we could put them down for a nap. He did that, taking along everything that was handwritten, including seven years of correspondence between my husband and myself - and all the handwritten cookbooks! While putting down the five children for a nap, we quickly hid the silverware between the diapers and locked the doors.

While searching through the dining and living rooms, Mr. Controlleur asked us to show him where the jewelry and silverware would be. Well, I had left a few pieces of jewelry. Grandfather’s golden watch, the precious coin collection and all the golden jewelry my husband had given me during our five years of marriage, were all well hidden. I had left the sterling cutlery in the drawer and successfully persuaded the police officer to leave some forks, knives and spoons for our daily use. Everything else had to go.

We were allowed to stay in the house until further action would be taken. I also was allowed to keep my dog, Usta, which I had brought from Germany, for my protection, and which was a big help in keeping intruders away. I had learned to operate a gun and there was a German pistol in my night stand but I was too afraid to use it and fortunately didn’t have to.

During the following days we had to make many important decisions. The thirty guilders we had saved from playing bridge did not go very far.

Our servants had to be laid off and we had to do the housework ourselves. At least, part of it. Saini, the child’s maid, came anyway and Panja also worked without pay. I have never seen anyone more loyal than Panja, the Javanese houseboy, who was with my husband for twelve years. I don’t know how we would have survived and where he got the food, but there was something to eat for us every day.

We finally decided to humiliate ourselves and ask Mr. Windler, our husbands’ Swiss boss, for financial aid. He showed us the door, telling us that the Swiss people are strictly neutral. That’s when we wrote to the Dutch government, putting ourselves under their protection. It wasn’t long before they sent us a bus to take a few pieces of furniture (children’s beds, etc.) clothing and other necessities to Sawah Loento, a small coal miners’ town in the valley. They gave us an empty neglected house where we met other German women they had rounded up. It was almost unbearable tropical heat, coal dust everywhere, and I was pregnant again.

I went to a Dutch physician in the village asking his advice, but again I was told that I was an enemy and that he would not help another German into this world. Fortunately, our former physician, who was also Dutch, visited us once in a while, vaccinated the children, brought them goodies and looked after me. He risked his job that way but he didn’t care.

Being a mining town, Sawah Loento had a small railroad. We therefore had a chance to visit our husbands in camp once in a while for a few short hours. Wolf suggested that I write to the International Red Cross for help. I did that and got an immediate response. After all, it is against the Geneva Convention to fight a war against women and children.

Two weeks before my fourth child was due, two limousines and a truck arrived to take me and my friend from the plantation with our 5-1/2 children to Taroetoeng, the women’s internment camp near Lake Toba, where the Bataks live, a tribe that is still practicing cannibalism.

This time we didn’t have to worry about our belongings. We could take everything we had left. Only once there was a doubtful look on the inspector’s face, when he saw that huge wooden trunk full of clothing--I had taken my husband’s wardrobe, too -- but I convinced him that that box was full of diapers which I needed for two babies.

It was with mixed feelings when we left Sawah Loento. To say farewell to the coal mining town wasn’t hard, but to head for cannibal country was another story. Taroetoeng, the women’s camp near Lake Toba, was on the northern part of Sumatra and it took almost two days to get there. I got into the limousine accompanied by my three children and the Red Cross nurse. Mrs. V and her two children followed in the second car. At the end of the caravan came the truck with our belongings. It wasn’t very long before Mrs. V became very car sick and the nurse had to change cars.

After hours and hours of driving through endless wild greenery, we arrived at a Pasang Grahan, one of the guest houses distributed all over the tropical forest. They are kind of primitive inns and I don’t recall what we had to eat or where we slept, but we must have been so dead tired that we didn’t care.

Early the next morning, we left again. The tropics are beautiful very early in the morning before the sun gets too hot. The typical sounds and smells are unforgettable. It seemed that the noisy monkeys accompanied us the entire trip. I was excited and curious to see what the equator, that imaginary circle around the earth, would be or look like and was very disappointed to find only a stone with the word “equator” engraved.

It was almost dark when we arrived at camp and it seemed that all ninety women were putting their noses through the wire fence to see who was arriving there in three cars. They couldn’t believe their eyes: “Only two women and a few children? And even with furniture and bedding?” They themselves had to leave the east coast with one suitcase per person.

Taroetoeng was an army camp with horse stables and a few small concrete buildings on one end and a huge mess hall, kitchen and dispensary on the other end. I was lucky to get a regular room for myself and the children. Most of the women lived in the stables, which meant no walls. At least, I could sleep all night long without being disturbed, and I could take a bucket of water and wash myself and the children in privacy.

We entered the camp beginning November 1940 and my youngest son, Reiner, was born on the 23rd of that same month. It happened around midnight. I could not walk the 10 minutes up to the dispensary and had to wake up a few campmates to carry me to the hospital room on a wicker chair. They moaned and groaned under the weight, and I kept urging them to hurry. They took their time but I was getting frantic. I knew from experience that the baby could be there any minute. But we made it -- barely! There was no physician, but missionary nurses took care of me and I delivered 10 minutes after arrival.

I guess I am an eternal optimist. I wanted to have four children before my 30th birthday and just made it within a week before that date. I almost lost that little boy. On the second day around dinner time, the nurses had just gone to the kitchen when I heard that terrible noise as if the baby was suffocating. I was strapped to the bed and couldn’t get out so I screamed as loud as I could. Fortunately, Sister Sophie was about to enter. She grasped a hose to suck the mucous from the baby’s mouth. He already had turned blue.

The missionary nurses had their hands full at the time. There were four babies born within a week, and all had jaundice. My friends and neighbors from camp took care of the other children which was not an easy task. They didn’t understand why Mutti (Mommy) was taken away and why they couldn’t see her. It was hard on me, too, but the boys had contracted an eye infection and were not allowed in the hospital room. After a week’s stay, I was allowed to return to camp and take care of the children.

Life in camp was more of an emotional than a physical strain. To be surrounded by barbed wire with two guards with loaded guns at the gate was not a pleasant feeling. Never is freedom more appreciated than when it’s lost. How often did we stand at the barbed wire fence, discussing the situation and airing our feelings about that terrible war.

The worst part was the uncertainty. Although we didn’t have the chance to read the newspaper or hear the radio, some news leaked through (mainly by mail or the natives) and we were frightened. Hitler had threatened the Dutch. If they wouldn’t treat us fairly he would use reprisals. For every mistreated German woman, a Dutch woman would have to die. It was true. We found out later that some of the politically involved German women had to stay in a different internment camp on the Island of Java and were treated rather roughly, but we in Taroetoeng didn’t have much to complain about.

The camp was run by a Dutch Jew and about six missionary nurses. Our Jewish camp supervisor was glad to have the nurses from the German Rhenish Mission and trusted them without reservation. They organized the whole thing. They had worked with the Bataks for years and knew their mentality. Sister Sophie, the head nurse, did the shopping and hired the Dobis, the Bataks who did the washing for mothers and babies. She also distributed the work, like cooking and messhall cleaning, among the internees.

Some of us, with tiny little children, did not have to work. To make ends meet, we had to eat what the natives ate - mainly rice with vegetables and once in a while, a small piece of meat. With the meat, I was frequently out of luck -- by the time I would gather my three little boys (the baby had to stay in the room) and dragged them up the hill to the messhall, all the meat would be gone until the beheerder’s (camp supervisor’s) secretary, who was also Jewish, felt sorry for me and put meat on our four plates before we arrived. I appreciated that very much.

I would often wonder how Hartmut, my third boy, who was not yet two, could stand that spicy food, but he didn’t seem to mind. He ate anything he could get, including hot peppers. The family doctor had once told me that when you live in a foreign country, you should eat what the natives eat -- that’s best for you. Well, we didn’t have to worry about getting overweight on that diet.

The babies got the best food. Most of us breast fed and the four camp babies looked rosy and well taken care of. Reiner, my youngest, smiled all day long and many an elderly lady volunteered to baby-sit whenever I had to leave him alone. We could leave the camp for two or three hours twice a week. We were issued passes in our names but we had to be back in that time. We didn’t dare to be late - that man at the gate with a gun in his hand meant business.

We usually went to the village at the bottom of the hill on which our camp was built and did some shopping. Our allowance was about five guilders per month, just enough to buy some thread, yarn, buttons and soap. What a struggle that was to drag three small children back up the hill.

When I entered camp, I was a shy, undemanding, pretty, slender young woman, but when I left, I was somewhat of a warrior. The instinct of survival for me and more so for my children was a strong one. How did they dare refuse a birth certificate for my baby? And what did they mean, that I couldn’t write to my husband that I had given birth to a baby boy? I remember I dared to talk straightforward to the officials and threatened to write to the International Red Cross again. It worked, but I was often very depressed that I had to fight for everything.

Everything was so hopeless. I knew I couldn’t give up, because of the children. But the nervousness of the other women was contagious. I am by nature optimistic, but not knowing what was happening in Europe or elsewhere, not knowing when we could see or hear from our spouses again, was hard to take. To know that I wasn’t alone in my despair was a small comfort.

For a short period of time every day we could listen to a radio which was installed under the ceiling of the messhall. When the news came through, though, the beheerder turned the volume way down. Since we were most anxious to know what was going on in the world, in our desperation, we found that if two of us stood guard outside the door and two or three of the very athletic ones climbed on top of each other’s shoulders, the one on top could listen to the news from the radio under the ceiling. Then, everyone listened to the “spy” to find out how the war was going.

In spring 1941, the rumors that the Japanese would invade Indonesia didn’t stop and all of us had decided to file a petition with the International Red Cross to send us back to Germany. It wasn’t too long before we got the answer. All of us, a total of 90 women and children, would be given the opportunity to leave Sumatra via Java, Singapore, to Japan. From the northern part of Japan, from the island of Hokkaido, we would have to take a boat from Sapporo to Vladivostok and from there we would travel by train through Siberia to Germany.

Immediately, 90 very depressed women were in high spirits. One could physically feel the excitement in camp. Questions like: “Do you think they will let us take the camera or the binoculars?” “How about the accordion?”, and “Do you have warm clothing for the children?” No, of course not. After all, we had lived in the tropics for six years. But I did have a few sweaters from the plantation. I started to rip them up to knit pants, sweaters and socks for the children. But then, I decided against it -- how far could I get with my knitting for four boys within six weeks? Even Siberia wouldn’t be that cold in July. I started a wall hanging instead in cross-stitching with happy motifs and had great fun doing it. Surely the children and also my grandchildren would enjoy that wall hanging behind their cribs for years and years to come.

Finally, the exciting day of departure came. We had packed whatever we could, but many things had to be left behind. The beheerder would “inherit” quite a few things: cameras, binoculars, a Persian area rug, etc. Of Course, all the furniture had to be left behind, too.

The trip by bus down to the valley lasted for several hours. The Batak driver maneuvered the no-ending serpentine curves at a dangerous rate of speed, to Medan, the capital of Sumatra, and the biggest harbor on the east coast. There, a Japanese ship, the “Assama Maru”, waited for us, and on July 7, 1941, we headed for Japan.

Our next stop was Batavia (now Jakarta) on the island of Java. It was hot and humid like Medan, and we were constantly thirsty. Water in the tropics always has to be filtered, but we found water filters in the transient camp. Too late did we find out that the water was muddy and contaminated. Many of us got diarrhea or worse yet, dysentery, the curse of the tropics. Mrs. V’s little son, Peter, died of sleeping dysentery before we reached Shanghai, China, and our good friends from the plantation had to leave the ship before we had reached Japan.

The trip on the “Assama Maru” was also for the rest of us, a nightmare. There was a Swiss Consul aboard, but he couldn’t do much for us. We were put into first, second or third class according to the first letter of our last name. Employees of the Embassy or Consulate and also the Rhenish mission people could travel first class, but I and the children (first letter “L”) had to be put into the belly of the ship, way down. We had to eat Japanese food, shower in salt water, and also wash the diapers in salt water.

What that meant was obvious. All of my children had diarrhea, the two youngest were still in diapers and had, of course, diaper rash. Whether it was the salt water or the unfamiliar food that caused us to become sick is not known, but I was glad I could breast feed baby Reiner. It actually saved his life.

The Swiss Consul finally came to my rescue. One day, he saw me in one of the corridors sobbing. I had my arms full of diapers on my way to the first class deck, where an elderly lady baby-sat with Reiner. Realizing that I was in a bad way, the Consul asked what he could do for me. I unloaded by grievances on him -- that I thought it was unfair that women with small children had to travel third class, while the missionary nurses were basking in the sun on the first class deck. I also told him how sick the boys had gotten from the Japanese food and how terrible the rash from the salt water showers became.

He took immediate action. From then on, the trip was not too bad. I was allowed to eat and shower with my children in first class. In addition, I found a piece of fruit on my bed every single day, and slowly the children got well again. The trip lasted about a week.

When we reached Singapore, all of us had to go inside the ship. It was blasting hot and there wasn’t enough fresh air. We were not allowed to go on deck or look out of the portholes. We didn’t know why, but instinctively we did the right thing - we gathered around the air duct, all ninety of us. It was, of course, not very pleasant. The children kept screaming and the ordeal seemed to last for hours. We found out much later that Singapore was a strong fortress with sea mines everywhere and the Japanese were afraid of spies. But none of us had a camera. They should have known this.

We also found out that war had broken out between Russia and Germany and we, therefore, had to await the end of the war either in China or Japan. I opted for Japan and we landed in Kobe a few days later. The German community in Kobe had made an effort to welcome us. The Consul General came aboard and gave a short speech. All of us were instructed to take our luggage to the German Club in Kobe where we would get further orders about our stay.

Here I stood on the pier, one child in my arms, the baby in a basket in front of me, next to a huge bag with diapers and clothing and two little boys hanging on my skirt. How on earth could I even make a move? Help came unexpectedly from the Consul General’s wife. She had been in a similar situation during World War I and realized that I needed help badly. In no time, there were German sailors to pick up the luggage and the baby basket and I found myself in a limousine that took the children and me to the German Club.

From there, we were taken to Kyoto’s beautiful Mijako Hotel. Some of the women stayed in Kobe, while others went on to Tokyo or Yokohama. We were fortunate that we could stay in Kyoto, one of the most beautiful cities in Japan. Kyoto, about one hour by train from Kobe, is full of history. Temples and beautiful gardens are everywhere. Outside of town on a hill stood the plush Mijako Hotel, with swimming pool and all the comforts and conveniences one could expect.

It was overwhelming! Just hours ago we were crowded in primitive cabins aboard the “Assama Maru”, and now we were in an almost European-looking hotel with rugs, paintings and upholstered furniture. We were told the emperor’s family stayed there occasionally. But what impressed me most was a bathtub, A REAL BATHTUB! I hadn’t seen one for more than six years. No more taking showers or washing diapers in salt water!

Aside from the bathroom, we had two large hotel rooms for ourselves -- and all this with compliments of the German government. Oh yes, we had to sign an “agreement” that later we would pay back whatever we could - much later. Nobody suspected that it would be six years before we would see German soil again.

For the next three months, we recovered from our recent trip. It was, of course, not the ideal place for the children. The pool was on the rooftop and the children were small and full of mischief. One day, Jochen, my 3-year old, fell into the water. I was so frightened, I froze -- my limbs wouldn’t move -- but an alert 12-year old boy pulled Jochen to safety.

Another time, while sitting in the sun watching the swimmers, Hartmut, my 2-year old, suddenly disappeared. We found him on the concrete floor next to the dressing room. He had slipped through a fence and fallen down a wall, three yards deep. It was a miracle because he had evidently bounced against the opposite wall and didn’t show even a scratch. He cried, of course, and I panicked, ran through the hotel, got hold of a phone and called a doctor in Kobe. An hour later he showed up, but couldn’t find anything wrong with Hartmut.

There was seldom a dull moment during the following months and years. The older children learned to speak Japanese in a hurry, but I had to walk around with a German-Japanese dictionary under my arm, and not knowing how to pronounce these strange words, I caused many a smile when I tried to make conversation.

The few German women who stayed with me in the Mijako Hotel all had small children. We took turns baby-sitting and in this way had a chance to tour Kyoto and surroundings. Quite a few times I had to leave the children by themselves. One day I came home to find out how my sons had amused themselves -- by “painting” upholstered chairs and other furniture with my cold cream. It was a disaster. When I entered, they were just ready to attack one of the famous paintings with a stick.

I still don’t know whether it was the management that wanted to get rid of us, or the Consulate General who didn’t want to pay the huge bills any more, but after being in Kyoto for three months, we were transferred to Nara, another one of Japan’s almost holy cities. It was here, according to legend, that the first Emperor of Japan came riding on a white deer to rule over the people. Even today, Nara has 500 tame deer in the parks and everywhere. Only one white deer (stag) is kept in a cage as a symbol.

There are no automobiles in town (except one for the only hotel at the place). The main attraction for Japanese and tourists alike is the Daibutsu, the huge bronze Buddha sitting inside a wooden temple. The government railroad took care of the statue and one day they took me along on their inspection tour.

We walked around the head of the statue and there was a lot of dust everywhere. I jokingly dipped my finger into the dust and was told, by a man with a stern face, not to do that. To the Japanese, even the dust on a Buddha’s head is sacred. Oh yes, I had to learn a lot about the Japanese and their way of life. I should never touch with hands or feet the threshold of a temple, always dip deeper in greeting men or older people, and never ever slap or spank a child. I also had to learn that boys were worth much more than girls, and that I was blessed by the gods for having four boys.

We stayed at the Nara Hotel for about a year. In the beginning we didn’t feel much of the war that was going on. The Japanese were somewhat suspicious, but otherwise, friendly. A man from the hotel would follow us everywhere even to the swimming pool, but we didn’t care. We lived a peaceful life in the middle of the war. The Nara Hotel was a one-story wooden building with a big park-like garden surrounding it. We frequently fed the deer with oranges (mikkans) out of the hotel window.

I had a Japanese amasan (baby-sitter) for my youngest boy. I can hear her now when she walked with Reiner, the 1-year old, strapped on her back, calling the deer: “Sikka, sikka”. Sometimes she took the baby to the village to show her folks the boy with the golden hair. They had never seen anything like it and often strangers wanted to touch the hair to see if it was real. “Mas, mas”, they said - “Gold, gold”.

Frequently dignitaries, or members of the Emperor’s family stayed at the hotel. It is a must for every Japanese to go once in a lifetime to Nara, the holy city. One day, on my way to the dining room, I saw a group of photographers around two of my boys who were dressed in cute navy/white kimonos. The next day, I found out about all the excitement. The Osaka Mainichi, the daily newspaper, showed on the front page a picture of my two sons sitting on the Foreign Minister’s knees. Tojosan (Mr. Tojo) had been a guest at the Nara Hotel without us knowing it. There were frequently dignitaries at the Hotel, but to us they all looked alike in their black kimonos.

The funniest thing that happened with the children was when one of the boys had to go to the bathroom and said so in evidently very common Japanese, which I didn’t understand, but which was understood by several kimono-clad gentlemen, judging by the abrupt turning of heads. The headwaiter came rushing out, grabbed the little boy and disappeared. When he returned, he was very angry.

“Well”, I said - “He certainly didn’t learn it from me, because I don’t speak Japanese”.

During the entire duration of the war, no other language but Japanese was allowed. We couldn’t read Kanji and Katagana, the official written language, and had to go by landmarks if we wanted to find our destination while traveling in a streetcar or train. One day my oldest son (age 6 or 7) missed the landmark and the train took him all the way to Hiogo, quite a distance away, but he returned a few hours later. Japanese love children and especially boys. There were very few Caucasians in Japan during the war. Everyone would have helped that little boy to return home safely.

Not only do the Japanese like children, they are also amazingly honest. We took the children frequently to Ajame Ike, a children’s paradise with playgrounds and a park-like setting. One day, I forgot one of my boy’s sweaters on a bench. A few days later it appeared at the front desk of the Nara Hotel. The sweater was red, and in Japan boys don’t wear red. The fact that Jochen was wearing that color must have shocked someone.

Since Japan, during World War II, was an ally of Germany, we had our “limited” freedom, but it was wise not to travel alone too far. Whenever we wanted to see the country, one of the hotel employees would accompany us. There were five or six German refugees at the Nara Hotel. Whenever we went on a trip, three of us would go and the others would watch the children.

The city of Nara is situated in the southern part of Hondu, or Honshu, as the Japanese call their largest island. Many of the historic or better religious landmarks were within reach. One day, three of us decided to take the cable car up to Mount Hiei-Zan, a day’s journey from Nara. The mountain is shaped like the blossom of a chrysanthemum, which is the flower in the crest of the Emperor of Japan. There are mainly monasteries on the top of the mountain, but they are open to tourists.

All over Japan one finds these charming inns operated by Buddhist monks. Again, one of the employees (this time the old manager himself) had come along and all of us could stay overnight in a beautiful quiet retreat. The first thing we had to do was to “strip”. We got a package containing a cotton under-kimono, a silken upper-kimono and a pair of soris (slippers) and we were politely asked to take an o’furo (bath).

That was an experience in itself. The o’furo consisted of a very large wooden tub and a pitcher to pour water over one’s body. When we knocked on the door, we heard a man’s voice answering “tshoto-motte kudasai” (Please wait a moment”.) Yes, there was a monk sitting in the tub. We could see him through the glass door, but there was only one o’furo in the monastery which we all had to share. We waited patiently and encouraged each other. Then came our turn and we followed instructions -- you cleanse your body with water and soap outside the tub, and then take a deep breath and step into the tub very, very carefully for the water is steaming hot and after a while you look like a broiled lobster.

So many memories surface when I think of Nara. First, there is the little old bee-keeper. He lived down the hill and not only sold honey to us, but he also gave us these wonderful dried khakis (persimmons). Once a month a representative of the German consulate came to pay us our allowance. It wasn’t much, but we always managed to find some treasures at the small stores in Nara.

One day we took a trip to the country and came home with several yards of wonderful Fuji silk for a dress. It was easy enough to find a dressmaker. It was a little ridiculous, however, to walk around in silk dresses and have hardly enough food to eat. It is interesting to know that for the Japanese people, cotton used to be worth more than silk, and therefore much more expensive. A wool coat was worth more than a fur coat.

When fall came we had to see about getting warm clothing. In that part of Japan, the climate is about the same as in California. Perhaps a little colder in winter and more rain in the spring. In my opinion, the autumn months are prettier in Japan than anywhere else. Thousands of maple trees turn first golden yellow, and later all shades of red. Not to forget the popular Gingko tree with its heart shaped golden leaves. October is still beautiful in Japan but then it will get cold rapidly.

I have often asked myself -- Is there any place in the world where May isn’t beautiful and November isn’t nasty? Well, we were shivering. During the six years in Sumatra we had become true tropical plants. And there was no warm clothing. The boys had to wear gettas (wooden sandals) on their feet without socks and frequently they cried because of cold feet. I ripped old sweaters and knitted new ones.

There was no heat in the Nara Hotel. In this respect, we felt the war. There was enough food for us at the hotel. We even got sugar and salt. Aside from frog’s legs and octopus, I don’t recall anything strange about the food. The menu was written in Japanese and English, but we made an effort to learn the language of the country.

Once a week, I traveled by train to the Tenri-gaigo-gaku, the foreign language school. It took me an hour by train and another half hour walk, but I managed and later when we lived in our own apartment, these few words of Japanese came in handy. I was amazed how many people (especially students) understood German.

I recall one incident. We were using the streetcar and talked with each other in German, making fun of the strange looking women in bloomers and short jackets, when a polite young man came over and said in perfect German: “You must not make fun of people. There are so many here in Japan who understand your language”. Needless to say, we felt guilty and never did it again.

It was wonderful to live at the Nara Hotel, but eventually five of us living there for an entire year became too expensive for the German government and we had to move.

The German community in Kobe, a harbor city not too far from Nara, made an effort to find a place for us. Again, I was very lucky. Together with another German lady, who had only one son, we got a house on the beach.

It was easy for us to move from one place to another. All we possessed was in a few suitcases. Shortly before we had to move, I had a surprise. A representative of the German Consulate presented me with a package that had come from the Dutch Indonesian government. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, wrapped in a diaper, was all my sterling silver tableware, with not a piece missing. Someone at the Controller’s office must have known us or must have felt sorry for us. At that moment, I promised myself that these forks, spoons and knives would be used daily for the rest of my life. That was a good start for our new home in Higashi-Tarumi.

My housemate, Mrs. Tillner, got the first floor and I got the second. It was a beautiful house with a view of the Inland Sea and a big garden. The house belonged to a German businessman. It was a sturdy stone house built in the European style. The Consulate had given us a small amount of Japanese money so that we could buy the most necessary furniture.

I had two bedrooms, a living/dining room, porch and a bathroom with a wooden tub. The apartment wasn’t hard to furnish. All we needed was a table, 5 chairs and 5 beds. We found all we needed in a thrift shop. Fortunately each room had plenty of built-in cabinet space. The kitchen was on the first floor and next to it, the servant’s quarters.

Soon after we moved to Tarumi, I decided to take a job at the German School which had just opened for all the refugee children. Since I was a trained kindergarten teacher, I was assigned to teach the first grade at the school. I couldn’t leave my own smaller children alone all day. My youngest was just 2-1/2 years old and the next one not yet 4 years. I hired a combination cook-maid-baby-sitter. She was an elderly woman and very reliable. We called her Neisan and she proved to be a big help during the coming years.

From 1942 to 1945 food was very difficult to get in Japan. Most of the available food was sent to the soldiers at the front, and the population at home had to suffer. It became more and more difficult to get anything to eat for the children. I hiked to the country, taking along pieces of my husband’s clothing to trade for flour, eggs, salt, rice or sugar. My Japanese wasn’t very good and nobody in the country spoke either English or German. I remember saying Shiroi-onaji which means “it should be white like this”, and pointing at a tuxedo shirt and then the word shokuji, meaning for eating and then pointed at salt and eggs and finally at flour. I got 3-1/2 hakume for that shirt and that was about 7 pounds. Yes, and I also remember that on the way home, I stole a bunch of carrots from the field and felt very little guilt.

Years later, when I, as an American citizen, was called to jury duty, the judge asked me: “Mrs. Lenigk, would you ever steal?” I just had to tell that story and the judge was obviously sorry he asked. All the other jurors, when asked the same question, responded - “Under those circumstances, I would steal, too”.

Living in Tarumi near the beach had certain advantages. Evenings we would run down and watch the fishermen coming in with their boats. One must understand that fish is, next to rice, the most important food to the Japanese, and we as foreigners didn’t have much of a chance to get either one, but once in a while we got a few pounds of these tiny, silvery fish about 1/10 the size of a sardine. They are eaten with the head, tail, bones and all. We dipped them in a pancake mixture and fried them in a pan. Our Neisan taught us a few Japanese and a few not so Japanese dishes. She prepared a delicious curry rice with fish.

The cooking was done on a hibachi stove and frequently toward the end of the war we had to go to the air shelters just at dinner time. I then remembered that my mother had talked about a Kochkiste (cooking box) and I started to build one myself. All I needed was a wooden box, two pots, lots of newspapers and a feather pillow. Putting the pots inside the box, stuffing as much of the newspapers as possible around them, and closing the box with the feather pillow took a matter of minutes. I then tried it out and it worked. The rice had to be brought to a boil and then the pot was put into the box and closed with the feather pillow. Whenever the alarm came, we could spend hours in the air raid shelter and still have a hot meal when we came out.

We were fortunate to have a regular air raid shelter next to the house. Most Japanese houses didn’t have one. We had made an emergency bedroom of the shelter, equipped with blankets, pillows and all.

I recall most vividly the day when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. At the same time there were heavy attacks on Kobe and the neighboring communities. The alarm came and we ran to the shelter. When I remembered that all the children’s clothing, ready to be washed, was soaking in a tub upstairs, I rushed back to pick up the clothes. In stress situations, I easily panic and this was one of these situations. I didn’t think that wet clothes wouldn’t burn. I ran back a second time for the electric iron and another time for my helmet.

That last return was really scary. The planes were right above us and they dropped bombs in a formation like a Christmas tree. The house started to shake. I felt the pressure in my ears and ran as fast as I could. The children pulled me into the shelter and scolded me.

When it was all over, our garden was on fire, the big pine tree in flames and the neighbor’s house gone. I tried to extinguish the flames with my bare hands, but fortunately remembered that there was phosphorus in these bombs. Then I took a broomstick and tried without much success. We heard later that a bomb went through the neighbor’s house and fell right on the baby’s crib, killing the child instantly.

I have asked my son, Reiner: “What do you remember of Tarumi?” And his answer was: “The airplanes and then the dead people all lined up at the beach. They were covered with sheets and only their feet were showing”. And then he remembered someone giving him condensed sweet milk.

Just recently, I found a Christmas wishing list of my third son, Hartmut, dating back to Tarumi. He wished for “ein Suessmilch Tin, ein ungesuesstes Tin und ein Schiessgewehr.” In translation: “a sweet milk tin, an unsweetened can of milk and a gun.” Understandable wishes for war-children.

Frequently we had visitors in our Tarumi house. To the students of German, we were a welcome chance to practice the language. As customary, they brought gifts: eggs, salt or soap and even more appreciated, toilet paper. The German submarine sailors came, too. They had nothing to do and were waiting for the end of the war and couldn’t go out to sea. They also brought welcome gifts: sugar and shortening. For years we had lived on a very low fat diet and all of a sudden we had a small bathtub full of lard. Naturally we all got sick to our stomachs, but on the other hand, it was wonderful to be able to bake Christmas cookies again.

I remember that Christmas for another reason. My second son, Jochen, was 6 years old and full of the devil. He got into mischief all the time. Actually, he was a warm-hearted, good little fellow. Many times, he took care of his two little brothers and was very responsible.

During the winter of 1944, the air attacks on Japan became more and more serious, and yet I had to leave the house once in a while. Whenever I stayed out too long, I was welcomed upon my return with a reproachful look. I can hear Jochen now: “Where have you been, Mom? There were many planes in the air and what if one of them would have dropped a bomb on us and you wouldn’t have your sweet, little Jochele anymore?” His voice would always start very softly and become very dramatic and loud with each additional word.

Jochen also used the time alone at home to snoop around and one day had evidently found the shelf, way up high, almost under the ceiling, where I used to collect and hide Christmas presents all year long for the children. Anyway, shortly before Christmas, he presented me with his “wish list”. There was not a thing on that shelf that was missing from his list. I didn’t say a word, but a German neighbor, who promised to play Santa Claus, got to hear the story and on December 6, when it is customary for all German children to get apples and nuts from Santa, son Jochen got a lecture he would not soon forget.

When the door opened that evening, Santa appeared with a great big book in his hands, and read aloud to the children, all the good and bad things they had done during the year, my little son actually hid behind his brothers’ backs and was so scared that he wet his pants.

When Christmas came, all the children got their modest presents, but Jochen got only a sweater for his teddy bear. Nothing else. It was, at times, hard for me to be father and mother in one, especially hard to be tough with children, who had, because of the war, to miss so much. For Jochen, it was fortunate that his birthday was 4 weeks after Christmas. We kept the little tree, wrapped all the presents he didn’t get for Christmas, and decorated the empty tree with them. But Jochen had learned his lesson. He would never be nosy again!

The children grew fast and two of them had to go to school. They had learned the language rapidly, but it was still hard for them at ages 6 and 7 to find their way to school by street car. Rarely could I accompany them and after a while, a neighbor, a German resident whose wife was a school teacher, decided to tutor the children, together with their own son. Even Hartmut, my 5-year old, thus had a chance to learn the 3 R’s at a very early age and he became an excellent mathematician.

One of the refugee women came to help me with the boys, but she could come only once a week. Again, the German Consulate sent help. The 16-year old daughter of a German general stationed in Japan, was assigned to help me for at least 6 months. The children liked Tante Jutta. She was born and raised in Japan, spoke the language and understood the mentality of the Japanese better than we did. She was wonderful. No task was too hard for her, be it scrubbing the stairs or doing the laundry (mostly without any soap).

One very hot evening Jutta was standing there skimpily dressed in a bra and underpants, lights on, windows open in full sight of the neighbors, when someone knocked at the front door. We heard the familiar gomen kadasai (excuse me, please) and Jutta opened in a hurry. There stood a furious Japanese man from the neighborhood watch, scolding Jutta without stopping. I didn’t understand a word, but Jutta told me later that she had a hard time convincing the man that we were not German spies. We had forgotten to pull the shades at dusk as ordered by the Japanese government. We never did that again.

About the same time, in the fall of 1944, Hartmut had the whooping cough and later, Dieter, the oldest boy, a nasty rash on his head and had to be taken to the Kobe Hospital, about one half hour distance by streetcar.

Dieter was admitted to the hospital. One day when I visited him, he said: “Come with me, Mutti, I’ll introduce you to my new friends.” I was curious and surprised when we entered a hospital room full of English prisoners of war. I had the other boys with me and these men were so very happy to see children that we couldn’t refuse when they begged us to sing a little Christmas song the children knew. However, they picked the one that wasn’t quite appropriate. It went like this:

The men laughed and understood and gave them the most precious thing they had - their Red Cross ration of chocolate. I wanted to give them something in return and it took me a long time to decide because I had to be very careful not to give the impression of being a spy. I decided to give them candles for their Christmas tree and nobody could have been happier than those poor men. For weeks and weeks, whenever we passed their prison in the streets of Kobe, they waved to us. To Japanese, to be a prisoner is worse than being dead. It’s very degrading to them to be caught as a prisoner.

Shortly after Dieter got out of the hospital, I had to go in. I had a boil in the back of my mouth which had to be operated on or I would suffocate. I remember that trip in the ambulance. I’d barely boarded when the boil came to a head and opened by itself. Immediately I felt fine. But I didn’t tell the driver what happened because I wanted to enjoy that trip along the beautiful shoreline in a very comfortable ambulance. The poor man had to drive me right back home.

Toward the end of the war, all of us were slightly undernourished and our resistance was low. I was very slender then, I hiked frequently several miles to the country to get a few potatoes or yams or anything nourishing for the five of us. One time we got bread - real bread - but it was wet on the inside and had to be dried on the rooftop in the sun before we could eat it.

There was a monthly distribution of food, arranged by the German community in Kobe, but it wasn’t enough. However, I was better off than the others because there were five of us. But, there was jealousy among the refugee women. Again and again I got to hear: “Those small children cannot eat all that food” I was gentle and undemanding when the war started, but I became a fighter by the time it was over.

Because we were weakened, we were susceptible to all kinds of diseases. There was an outbreak of contagious hepatitis and I caught it. I turned as yellow as a lemon and felt miserable. I was really sick very sick and the physician who normally didn’t make house calls came out to Tarumi once or twice and that meant each time a 45-minute trip by streetcar for him. It was impossible for me to take care of the children and at that time, the German sailors were more than welcome.

First there was Charlie, a petty officer from a submarine, who helped with everything, even with the shopping, but unfortunately he didn’t stay long -- he had to go to sea after a short stay in Japan.

I am basically very healthy and got well after a few weeks in bed. I think it was in summer 1944 when we got word from the Consul General in Kobe that all refugee women and children would be moved to Hokkaido, the most northern island of Japan. The plan was to give each woman with small children a sailor as a helper. In other words, the Consulate would rent small houses and we should live as a family with a complete stranger under the same roof, as if he was our husband.

In order to get to Hokkaido, we had to cross a channel full of mines. Needless to say, we protested loudly about the move, and from then on we were left pretty much alone. Survival became rougher and rougher. We had chickens and rabbits in the backyard and planted a vegetable garden. In spite of that, there wasn’t enough food and I had to call a veterinarian to put our beloved dog to sleep. I held him in my arms when the vet gave him the injection and I felt miserable that I had to do that to the dog, because it hurt the children so deeply. To comfort the boys, I got a large turtle for them.

All the lakes in Japan are full of goldfish and turtles. The goldfish are huge and so are the turtles. It was very easy to find something to eat for the turtle and the children had fun riding on it, but I didn’t know about the superstition about turtles. One day Neisan, the cook, came upstairs and scolded me -- “Do you want to kill your children?” she asked. “Don’t you know that whenever a turtle dies, a member of the family will die, too?” She kept on scolding and said that that turtle was probably a hundred years old. How could I dare to take him away from his family? Well, I had no choice but to take the turtle back to the lake where I got him. Sorry, boys, no more pets!

Sometimes we had “not so welcome” pets. One day I stepped on a centipede which was hiding under a board. He immediately stung me in the leg and at once the glands in my groin started to swell and hurt. The pain in my leg was intense and I ran to my next door neighbor, who was a physician. In my limited Japanese, I tried to explain what happened: “Itai, itai, inin inin.” (“it hurts here”). I pointed to the spot. When the doctor quickly answered in perfect German -”Why don’t you speak German to me, I understand you much better that way.” I had to laugh in spite of the pain.

In the fall of 1944 there came a warning over the radio that all people should stay inside, a typhoon was approaching rapidly. We didn’t understand why all that fuss -- a little storm, couldn’t do much harm. I found out a few hours later -- how wrong I was -- that typhoon was furious. Too late did I try to close the window shutters. The storm was stronger than me and I had to let go. The shutters broke all the windows in the boys’ bedroom. It was evening and the electricity went out and all five of us huddled around a candle in the corner of my bedroom. My room had a large picture window and it was frightening to see how that huge window was bending inwards from the force of the storm.

When daylight came, we were shocked. Telephone poles broken like matchsticks - strewn all over. On some cottages the entire front was ripped off and even though we lived at least 50 yards from the beach, the sea water had destroyed our garden. My third boy, Hartmut, was heartbroken - his freshly planted yams were gone. From now on, we paid attention when a warning about a typhoon came over the radio.

In step with the war, inflation was going on. For several years I had hidden some money, hoping to be able one day to buy a fur coat. All the other refugee women had been smarter than I and were walking around in lamb coats or even minks. For 800 yen one could get a good looking fur coat. A regular winter coat made of woolen material was much more expensive. So I ordered one. The tailor lived in Tokyo and the coat would have to be sent. It took them six months to make the coat and when they finally shipped it, the train was bombed and the mail bags wound up in Shanghai.

When it finally arrived, I found out that the tailor had used all remnants. I returned the coat and requested my money back which took another six months. At the end, I couldn’t even buy one single shoe for all the money I had saved for the fur coat. I wasn’t too sad, for I knew, in Germany they would have thrown rocks at me if I would have dared to walk around in a fur coat after the war.

The war was still very real to us. The American planes came day after day. The so-called “Mosquitoes”, when followed by Japanese planes, dropped their bombs everywhere. One day we watched from the beach how a troop transporter broke in half and all the men jumped into the water. Again, there were a lot of casualties. We ran home as fast as we could and I still feel guilty that we ran too fast for little 4-1/2 year old Reiner. I still can hear him - “Mutti, Mutti (Mommy, Mommy) wait for me.” It took him almost 15 years to overcome that fear of planes.

One day some planes dropped leaflets and I think it was one of the sailors who told me in German that it read: “Tarumi im Loch, wir finden dich doch.” (“Tarumi in the hole, we’ll find you, too.”) That was just about enough for me. I knew that the German Consul General had two summer retreats in the mountains and he and his wife were, of course, most of the time in their vacation homes, while we women and children had to stay in the valley, facing air attacks day after day. I took immediate action.

First, I packed most of our belongings into a large wooden trunk and put it outside on the lawn. Japanese are very honest people and I knew nobody would steal our things. I wasn’t thinking of the rain, but it was July and in Japan, it rains mostly in the spring. Next, I made five knapsacks. Each of the children had to carry their own clothing and my own knapsack was full of food, plus my own clothing. We were determined to hike up to the Rokko Mountains to find the Consul’s cabin. It took all day.

Normally there was a wonderful cable car going up to the Rokkosan (as the Japanese call that mountain) but a few days before we left, there was a heavy attack on Kobe, the nearest big city, and all the electricity was out again. We lost most of our winter clothing in that attack. Again, I was a little late in bringing our things to the dry cleaners, and I had to pay for that delay.

Anyway, one fine day in July 1945, the five of us climbed for about seven hours until we reached the top of the mountain. Reiner, not yet five, was always ahead of us. He just loved it: “What a beautiful mountain, Mutti, what a beautiful mountain.” No wonder, he had almost nothing to carry. I could have wrung his neck! Everyone else was totally exhausted when we reached the cable car station. A German sailor spotted us and asked if he could help.

“Yes, of course,” I answered gratefully. “Do you know where the Consul General has his residence?”

He knew and showed us the road, and a few minutes later we stood in front of a very surprised German housekeeper.

“What am I going to do with you?” she said. “The Consul and his wife are at the other cabin.”

My answer was very brief -- “Here we are and here we are going to stay until the war is over, even if it takes an entire year.”

I was very determined but I found the Consul General’s behavior utterly undemocratic. He was supposed to take care of the Germans in a foreign country -- instead, he found a safe spot for himself to escape to and the many women and children were exposed to the bombings. He couldn’t do that to me and my brood. It didn’t take the housekeeper very long to understand that I was serious. It was late in the evening and we were tired. We put the boys in a tub, scrubbed them clean and put all four of them into the Consul General’s bed.

The next morning when Mrs. B, the Consul General’s wife, appeared, the beds were already made and we were happy to have found a barn nearby where we lived for the next few weeks. Somehow Mrs. B must have felt guilty because every so often she came to the barn to bring something to eat.

By August, the war over and we could return. The same sailor who helped us find the Consul’s cabin helped us to get back to Tarumi. To my surprise, it had rained and the contents of the wooden box were in bad shape. Things had changed while we were gone. The war was over and American sailors were everywhere. I was amazed.

Just a few months before that we were told by the Japanese what to do in case of an invasion. We were supposed to take a long kitchen knife, go to the beach and whenever an American should dare to come ashore, we should kill him. We were told that the Germans were allies of the Japanese and we should act accordingly. And now -- when the first trucks were rolling through the streets, lots of people (not only children) were running behind the trucks, begging for chewing gum.

I mentioned this observation to my neighbor, the physician, and I will not forget what he said: “You should know the Japanese people better than that - it may look as if we surrender, but they will never, ever forget Hiroshima.” Was he right? I don’t know. But I do know that I was very angry when American soldiers had taken my boys to their quarters one day and showed them a movie of after-war Germany. The boys were deeply impressed and under no circumstances did they want to go to that country where they were still shooting and looting.

I guess I didn’t want to believe it, but it seemed that the war had changed my beloved home country to the extent where I hardly recognized her when I returned.

The sailor who had helped us (his name was Leo) persuaded us to move to the Rokko Mountains and he promised to help us with food and firewood. The German Navy had a station in the mountains and it was indeed much prettier and had a better climate. The children had a chance to take private lessons with a Dutch teacher and since Hartmut wasn’t quite over the whooping cough, and was slightly anemic, I decided to move. This was our fourth move in Japan and it was easier than any of the others. A big navy truck came and loaded all of our things, and that was it.

The Japanese house into which we moved belonged to a wealthy Japanese city dweller from Kobe, but during the war, the Japanese were not allowed to live in two homes. I don’t know any more if we paid any rent at all. We didn’t worry about such things, but I do recall that that three bedroom house was just ideal for us. All six rooms faced the garden on one side, and the long hallway on the other side. The floors were covered with straw tatamis which meant no shoes in the house. The hallway had a small window at the end. In five minutes, one could sweep the entire house and sweep the dirt right out into the garden.

It’s funny, but I have completely forgotten where we washed ourselves. The so-called bathroom consisted of a huge wooden tub and the water for the tub, the o-furo, was heated from the outside. We did have running water (cold only), but only in the kitchen. There was a toilet flush with the floor. Japanese don’t sit on their toilets. They squat. But where did we wash?

All the rooms, except two, had sliding glass doors to the garden and from the garden there was a beautiful view overlooking the ocean. In case of emergency, it was very easy to get out of the house and yet one night there was a strong earthquake that woke me up and I promptly panicked. Instead of running the few steps to the front door, I tried to unscrew the sliding windows and jumped out. Fortunately no harm was done to the house, or to us. Japanese houses are built to withstand earthquakes.

We had chickens in the backyard and all the eggs came in handy. It must have been in fall that we heard the daily “go-go-gook” sound, which chickens make when they lay eggs, but there was never an egg in the nest. I couldn’t understand it and watched closely. One morning I looked again because the hens seemed to be very upset and looking into the nest, I saw a snake swallowing an egg. There were many, but fortunately mostly harmless, snakes in Japan. My oldest son, Dieter, then ten, watched the Japanese and in no time acquired the somewhat dubious talent to kill the snakes by quickly picking them up by the end and smashing them against a tree.

He also was the one who came home one day beaming, he had found a nest with frozen chicken eggs behind the house in the woods. That was in winter 1946. It snowed slightly in this part of the country, but the snow never stayed on the ground. It was, however, cold enough to heat at least one room in the house. We were fortunate, we had a small pot-belly stove and our good friend, the German submarine sailor, kept bringing firewood.

A humorous thing happened one day. I had heard a noise outside the dining room, the only room that didn’t have sliding doors to the garden. I opened the window and saw someone stealing my firewood. I shouted in Japanese: “Djotto matte kudasei!” In other words, I told the thief: “Please wait until I have my shoes on.” He ran, but at least without my firewood!

My children were used to being alone when I went shopping for food. They usually played peacefully. The sailors had given them a dog again and behind our house there was an empty house on the hill which we called the Oberhaus (Upper House), where they discovered all kinds of things. Also, there was a golf course not far away where now the American soldiers played their rounds and where the two older ones could earn some money being caddies. There were no more air raids and thus not much to be afraid of. However, I was a bit apprehensive when I came home one day and found the house completely silent. I peeked through the window and saw my four boys huddled together on the couch.

After some questioning, I found out that the boys had fed the potbelly stove with green firewood which had developed an intense heat. The stove had come apart and my oldest boy had no choice but to grab the nearest thing to straighten the stove. There was wet laundry hanging on the clothesline near the stove, so Dieter grabbed a wet, woolen blanket to put the upper part of the stove into place and in the process had burned a hole in the blanket. The fear of mom’s anger was so great that the children supported each other. They were too small to know that even a hole in a blanket meant a lot during war time, alive children meant so much more to me and both would have been destroyed by a fire. So, this time instead of a spanking, they got an award and a sigh of relief sounded throughout the house.

It was still very hard to be father and mother in one. It was, at times, too difficult to have the full responsibility for these four young lives. I frequently argued with my fate. I was young and wanted more from life than just being a 24-hour baby-sitter. I guess my downfall was that I was very pretty. There were all these sailors who hadn’t seen a woman for a long time and literally begged for love. But I loved my husband, and it took a long, long time before I gave in. Leo was 10 years younger than I and he was wonderful with the children. But whenever I was with him, I would feel guilty.

The reaction to years and years of tension was almost a nervous breakdown. One day I decided to end it all. There I stood, on the top of a steep rock, ready to jump and end my life. At the last minute, though, that healthy inner voice of mine reminded me that I was a “chicken” and would never do a thing like that, but more importantly, an even louder inner voice told me that I was a selfish “so and so”. What would become of my children if they were left alone?

Well, that was my one and only suicide attempt, but the experience has helped me to be a useful counselor to others in similar situations. Even though the war was over, we still had to get food on a day-by-day basis. There was a food distribution center in Kobe, a completely destroyed city, not far from Osaka. Once a month, we got staple food, rice, potatoes, oil, etc. One warm summer day I sent Dieter (10) and Jochen (9) to take the cable car and get oil from the distribution center. It took them all day and I started to get worried when suddenly my two little brave soldiers appeared with empty knapsacks and no oil. It took a while to get the entire story together.

Apparently they had decided to take a little detour to the harbor and look at all those wonderful ships. Well, in the process, the bottles with the oil had broken, and after that the boys were in no hurry to get home. They took their time. It was a warm day and quite a hike uphill. They thought that a little nap under a shade tree would do some good and maybe give them courage to face a very strict mother. When they awoke, a bunch of American soldiers came along and invited them to get on the bus. They would take the two boys home and also give them several cans of rice pudding. I, of course, didn’t know this. I was angry that an entire month of oil was lost and said - “Go to bed, both of you and without any food.” They did what I told them to do, but behind my back they sneaked into the kitchen to open their cans. So mom was the big loser, not them. And that was not the only time mom lost. It is still a mystery, what ever happened to that large bag of dried apples that was put into the cabinet for a rainy day??

As soon as American soldiers entered Japan, the food situation was much better for us. I still remember our first meal after the occupation. We got a whole leg of lamb and potato salad. It was heavenly! From then on we got bread, one pound per person, that meant five loaves of wonderful French bread daily -- neat little loaves. You might ask: “What did you do with all that bread?” Well, that was very simple. The Japanese were crazy about bread. So, we went to the market and handed them our Forushki (a large silk bandanna) full of bread and got in return whatever we wanted: vegetables, eggs, fruit and at one point, even leather shoes and soap. We exchanged some of the bread for dark flour (whole wheat or rye) and baked our own bread.

Our neighbor down the hill was an excellent cook and had some wonderful ideas. She had only three children, but had the same problems I had. The children didn’t want to do their daily chores. So to solve our mutual problem, we came up with a clever solution -- whenever necessary, we exchanged the children.

Or Mrs. Riedel would call from downhill -- “Dieter, please come down here. I have a wonderful job.”

It is amazing how much alike children and adults are. They gladly did for others what they would have refused to do at home

I was very fortunate to have four healthy sons. Of course, they all had the chicken pox and whooping cough and such things, but nothing really serious. Dieter did have some migraine headaches once in a while and I recall that I didn’t believe him because headaches always appeared when he hadn’t done his homework, but frequently his eyes were swollen so I had to correct my attitude. Hartmut was slightly anemic and had to skip school for a while. He got extra rations of food and recovered in no time.

By now we had lived for almost six years in Japan -- two years under the American occupation forces. We felt we were forgotten and would never get home. Early in summer 1947, we decided to file a petition with General MacArthur, who was in charge of the occupation forces, but we didn’t really expect to get any results very soon. To our great surprise, the answer came within two weeks. We were supposed to return to Germany, leaving Yokohama, Japan, in August 1947 on the American troop transporter, “General Black”.

Everything had been arranged for us. American soldiers came to make wooden boxes and crates for our belongings. We sold whatever we could and purchased shoes, soap and other necessary commodities which we couldn’t get in post-war Germany.

The day of our departure came sooner than we thought. I was delighted, knowing that my husband, who had been in the internment camp at Dehra Dun, India at the foot of the Himalayas, since 1941, was already in Germany expecting us there. The children would rather have stayed in Japan. Vaguely do I remember the train trip from Kobe to Yokohama, but I do recall the magnificent view of Mount Fuji, Japan’s holy mountain, and them saying: “If you see Mt. Fuji once, you will return and see it a second time.”

In Yokohama, a make-shift tent awaited us. We had to be vaccinated and had to get the necessary papers and instructions for the trip. My boarding the ship caused a small problem. The boys were too small to take care of themselves and too big to use the ladies dormitories and washrooms. They finally put us with the babies in a special dormitory. We left in August 1947, direction Shanghai and there it was, the majestic Fujisan, as the Japanese call it. It was true -- we saw it a second time.

Before we reached Shanghai, rumors were around that a storm was approaching rapidly. The typhoon didn’t reach us, but we had to wait for days, staying at the harbor of Shanghai and it was unbearably hot. There were no deck chairs, but we found some orange crates to sit on. When the weather was okay, we left Shanghai for the long journey.

This was the second refugee transport to Germany. The diplomats, members of the Nazi party (NSDAP) and all the German soldiers who had been in Japan during the war had left already. We knew that the captain hated the Germans and had forbidden fraternization, which meant that the crew couldn’t speak to us. But that didn’t go for the children. There were more than 300 women and children. Children were everywhere, literally. I was in constant fear that they would fall overboard.

Then one day I fainted on deck. I think this was the one and only time in my life that I fainted. While in Yokohama, I had injured my leg and hadn’t paid much attention to the injury. Hot weather and not very sanitary conditions had helped to get quite an infection in that leg. In spite of my protests, I was taken to the ship’s hospital in a hurry. I begged and pleaded, but it didn’t help.

“But doctor, I can’t leave the children alone.” I said. That handsome Italian doctor was not a bit impressed.

“There are dozens of single women aboard who can take care of your children,” he responded. “You will stay in the hospital for at least three days.” I had no choice, if I didn’t want to lose my leg. The “juice-boy”, as we called him, came every two or three hours to inject antibiotics and cheer us up. I was in good spirits. I hadn’t enjoyed such a lazy life for years, but after three days, I got impatient and worried about the children. This time, I was sure the good doctor would listen to me, but no such luck.

“No, no, young lady,” was his response. “We move you to one of the upper beds, you have a way of cheering up the other patients and that is good for them. We will keep you a few more days.” Yes, a few more days (he kept me there an entire week.) When I returned from the hospital, I found out that my sons had made friends with the ship’s crew.

One day, they brought Uncle Jerry, as they called him, to our corner on deck and introduced their mother. Uncle Jerry told me that while I was in the hospital, he had tested the boys several times and was very impressed with their honesty. He had told them that in his cabin was a drawer full of chocolate, but that each boy could pick up only one candy bar - not any more - which they did. He didn’t know that my children didn’t know how chocolate tasted and that they actually preferred dried seaweed (nori) or octopus legs, to chocolate. Uncle Jerry proved to be a big help during the entire trip. He watched the boys whenever he had the time and the boys became quite attached to him.

Frequently I visited one of the mothers who had been isolated from us. She could not take the pressure any more and had made several suicide attempts, after which it was necessary to isolate her. She was actually mentally ill and was not allowed to have visitors, but somehow I got through and after the guards found out that my visits had a soothing effect, I could see her as often as I wanted. The secret was that I spoke to her as if she was normal and we discussed music and composers which I knew was her hobby, and having a suicide attempt behind me myself, I probably had more understanding for her situation.

Even though the captain wasn’t very fond of the Germans, he saw to it that we got enough food, were treated well, and got what we needed. The food, however, had been stored in the wrong order and we were forced to eat, for an entire week, a spinach dish for dinner, pasta every day, etc. By the time we reached Germany, we could not stand American food anymore. But we liked the “side dishes”. There was always something useful on our tray - small bags of coffee, tea, sugar, even toothpaste and cigarettes. I didn’t smoke or drink coffee, and by the end of the trip I had quite a collection.

By now it was September and we were approaching Port Suez, the Red Sea and Port Said. It was hot. The temperature must have been in the 90’s and we were considering sleeping on deck. We changed our minds in a hurry when we found out how cold it was at nighttime. Even though we took salt pills against dehydration, we suffered from the heat and spent most of the time on deck. It is very interesting to travel through the Suez Canal, a ship canal joining the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. It’s a small channel, only a little wider than the ship itself, connecting Asia to Africa. It’s desert on both sides - dry, sandy, uninhabited -- hot sunshine and sand, sand, sand, wherever one looks. Off and on -- a camel or a tent. That’s all!

But then we saw to the east of the Suez Canal, Mount Sinai in Egypt and when someone pointed and told my sons that was Mount Sinai, they just laughed. They didn’t believe such a mountain existed. And suddenly, I remembered the German nursery rhyme:

To our surprise, all of a sudden some men appeared in a small boat, shouting welcome to us in German. They were prisoners of war, trying to give us messages for their families in Germany.

And then came Port Said at the mouth of the Suez Canal. I had experienced Port Said before when I immigrated to Indonesia and I knew what was coming. Dozens of peddlers try to come aboard to sell their merchandise -- items made of camel leather, baskets, etc. If these peddlers are not allowed on board, they send their products in baskets on a rope dangling from the walls of the ship.

Hans, a sailor befriended by the boys, came back with an outfit for Hartmut. Hans was very sympathetic to our fate. He himself was caught in the middle, during World War II. He was an American sailor, but most of his relatives were still living in Germany. This time he also was looking forward to landing in Germany to find out who of his family was still alive.

We landed in Bremerhafen at the beginning of October 1947. As we were approaching the harbor, the captain announced that all goodies which we had collected during the trip had to be thrown overboard. Many of us, including “yours truly”, didn’t obey the order and took the risk to smuggle coffee, tea and cigarettes through customs.

I had sewn pockets into the boys’ underwear, stuffed them with cigarettes and was hoping my sons wouldn’t wet their pants out of fear. Whatever was left, I put on top of my clothes so that the customs officer would see it right away when he opened the suitcase. I was lucky.

When we arrived, the officer asked - “Anything to declare?” I said “No, only what was given to us aboard the ‘General Black’.” He waved his hand and said, “Go on your way. I am not going to take anything from German refugees.”

I am sure you can imagine how quickly I took the cigarettes out of the secret pockets!

In Bremerhaven, a transport train was waiting to take us to Ludwigsburg, the repatriation center not far from Stuttgart. Riding on that train was quite an experience - it was pulled by a steam engine and had no window panes. If we wanted water, we ran to the engine when it stopped. The night was so cold, we were shivering and hungry. Somewhere in the middle of the trip, the train stopped and there was the Red Cross, serving soup.

When we arrived at the repatriation camp, they were overwhelmed. They hadn’t expected that many people. There were not enough beds, not enough blankets and not enough food. For three days, our meals consisted of cream of wheat and potato soup. The boys loved it! They thought they hadn’t eaten such good food for a long time. There is a German proverb - “Hunger is the best cook.”

I had distant relatives near Ludwigsburg. They came and threw apples over the fence. My husband came, too, and after three days in camp, we were allowed to leave. Another train brought us to Hirzenhain, my home town. Somewhere we had to change trains and had a bite to eat I remember that overcrowded restaurant very well.

We had to sit at two different tables and the waiter must have known that we came from the repatriation camp. Maybe he had gotten a glimpse of my bag and seen a pack of cigarettes. At that time, cigarettes sold for about DM100 per pack on the black market (approximately $75.). I was willing to sell the cigarettes to the waiter, but didn’t know how to do it.

He said, “That is quite easy. You put the cigarettes on top of your bag, and I drop my napkin and pick them up and bring you change on a tray.” Needless to say, I didn’t have to pay for my dinner. Later, at home, my husband made a remark to my mother --”She is so naive, she thinks it is easy to sell things on the black market here in Germany”.

“Oh, ja,” was my response. “Did you know that I sold many, many cigarettes on the way here. Wolf was shocked and couldn’t believe how his wife had changed. Yes, I had changed in many ways. I had been through quite an experience in survival, and had become a fighter and much more independent. Not so, my husband. He had arrived from the internment camp in India a year before and my mother did all she could to make life easy for him.

“His lordship” expected to get breakfast in bed and dinner in the dining room. When we told him that there was not enough wood to heat the house, he would eat in the unheated dining room rather than entering the kitchen. My mother was brought up in a house with servants, but she adapted to the after-war conditions. My husband did not. When we needed firewood, we asked him to help us. His reply was - “Sorry, I can’t. I have to apply for a job.” Which meant he had to write a letter. So my 72-year old mother and I took a cart and went to the forest to gather firewood. When I asked him to help the boys with their homework, the answer was the same - “Sorry, no time, have to apply for a job”.

He finally found a job out of town and it was almost a relief when he left. It had become obvious that during the seven years of forced separation, we had grown in different directions.

Aunt Minni, a retired school teacher, lived with us and helped. Father, a reserve officer, was killed in the war and mother had lived with father’s sister since 1945. It was difficult to make ends meet. I got hardly any money from my husband and mother’s money melted away when the devaluation of the German mark was put into effect in fall/winter 1947.

It was unbelievable. We knew that this was coming and took as much money from the bank as we could. Then, we went out to buy anything we could get -- china, stoves, anything. We knew that in a few days our money would be worth 1/10 of the actual value, but merchandise could be sold and kept its value.

Once in a while, there came a CARE package from Uncle Jerry, our friend from the ship, and he asked us to come to the United States if things became too difficult in Germany.

In the fall of 1948 my mother became ill and died. About a week later, I got a letter from my husband telling me that he had filed for a divorce because he “wanted to give me my freedom back”. First, I was furious. How could he be so tactless, inconsiderate and thoughtless after my mother’s death, but then I felt relief -- the sooner the better. This was not a marriage anyway. I acted right away, enrolled in the Berlitz School of Languages at Frankfurt to become a foreign correspondent. I got a refugee scholarship which helped. However, it was still expensive.

Aunt Minni took care of the children. I left at 6 A.M. and returned at 7:30 P.M. That went on for six months. I studied during the daily two hour train ride. After graduation, I found a job with the American Occupation Forces in Buedingen, about 20 kilometers from home. Again, daily train rides, but it was familiar territory. I had gone to high school in Buedingen.

When my cousin Wolfgang, my aunt’s son, became fatally ill, Aunt Minni could not take care of my boys anymore. In the meantime, the court had decided that two children should stay with me and two should stay with their father. The two youngest and I moved to Buedingen to stay in the army barracks. When my cousin died, the two boys went back to Hirzenhain to stay with Aunt Minni. A short time later, U.S. Post Engineers moved to Hoechst, a suburb of Frankfurt. I moved with them and saw my children on weekends only.

Early in 1952, I gave up my job and applied for an immigration visa to the United States. I actually wanted a visitor’s permit only, but the American consul in Frankfurt decided against it. He told me - “The way you look, you will marry an American right away and we don’t want that.” Again, I had no choice, but it was very hard to leave the two oldest boys behind. They didn’t have it bad. An aunt replaced the mother and a grandmother and a father were there, too. Still, it was heartbreaking to see Jochen, my second boy, running behind the train as long as he could. If the train would have stopped there and then, I would have jumped off and stayed in Germany.

We left Germany in April 1952. The ship leaving from Hamburg arrived a week later in New York. Uncle Jerry, our sponsor, wasn’t there when we arrived. It was a frightening moment. All the passengers had left and there I stood at the pier with my eleven and twelve year old sons, surrounded by luggage. All three of us were dressed up. I even wore a hat. I had a total of $20 on me and didn’t know what to do. I had gotten the money from a banker friend of my father. It was hidden well in my underwear because in 1952 it was not permitted to take any German marks out of the country.

It was a long, long half hour we waited and I became pretty desperate, but finally Uncle Jerry appeared with his grown-up daughter. The harbor authorities had announced a late arrival of the ship and my sponsor, to kill some time, had taken a sightseeing trip of New York. One of his first questions was: “Got any money on you?” There went my emergency money. Did he come all the way from California by car without any money? How could he?

My thoughts did somersaults and I didn’t know what was going on here. Then and there I regretted my adventure, but it was a little late. Three or four days driving through the states went by fast. We stopped at Jerry’s relatives in Kansas. It was still cold in April, with rain and snow and mostly boring to sit in the car all day long. I remember that every night the three of us were running around the drive-ins where we stopped. I was 41 then, but I still ran faster than the boys, and I couldn’t stand the food. How could they eat mayonnaise on top of pineapple and cottage cheese? I wound up ordering chicken every night.

The trip seemed to be endless, but finally there was beautiful Lake Tahoe, still snowy and cold, but a few hours later -- sunny California. Green meadows and trees and flowers everywhere. It was heavenly!

Our welcome in Oakland was somewhat on the cool side. The agreement was that I would work as a nurse to Jerry’s mother who was sick with cancer and Jerry would, in return, take care of the boys’ education and give all three of us room and board. Evidently the old lady did not want us in her house, so Jerry had to convert the basement into living quarters for us. That wasn’t too bad, but Jerry’s mother was very suspicious of her new guests. With every salad dressing I mixed, she thought I was trying to poison her.

Jerry was a traveling salesman, usually gone all day. My sons went to school and I was all alone. The old lady wouldn’t let me help her and I didn’t have anything to do -- no books, no TV, barely understanding the language and no money even for bus fare. One day I had to pick up my youngest son, Reiner, from school, but didn’t dare cross busy MacArthur Boulevard. Finally, Reiner appeared on the other side and shouted at me to get going on the white line. How on earth could I know that “Ped Xing” meant pedestrian crossing.

I was very unhappy those first weeks, and when I learned that Jerry’s sexual orientation was somewhat unusual, I fell completely apart. I locked myself in for 24 hours and cried day and night. But deep inside, I am not a quitter. I remembered something that my mother once told me: “If you don’t like it at a place, be patient for at least six weeks and things will look different.” And indeed, after a short time, things did look different! I got acquainted with the neighbors across the street -- Phyllis, her husband, her brother and parents -- they all pitched in. They saw to it that I got a Social Security card, got acquainted with the International House in Oakland, enrolled me in an “English as a Second Language” class, and finally took us on a trip to Yosemite. That did it! I decided right then - “If it’s that beautiful in California, I’m going to stay.”

When I left Germany, I got to hear many times --”You will not like it over there. You will return in no time.” “No sir, I will not!” My stubbornness, not always pleasing to others, has helped me here. To better my situation, I needed a job. Jerry was a very good and helpful human being, but I still didn’t want to leave the children with him when I went to evening classes. I also needed money. My sons looked out of place in their Lederhosen. They needed jeans like all the other boys. Also, my European wardrobe was not exactly what was being worn in the US.

Once again, I took action. I called the International House and applied for a job. They told me that since I had my credentials as a Kindergarten teacher, I could get a job right away, but I would have to become a US citizen first. Unfortunately, that was not possible. By law, I had to wait five years. I also didn’t want to leave the boys alone all day long. They didn’t speak the language and still felt very much uprooted.

After a short waiting period, I was offered a job in Piedmont taking care of the five Allan children. Indeed, it was fortunate that the boys had the chance to go to Piedmont’s excellent schools. The Allans were very kind and let the boys participate in everything their children did. For me it was somewhat humiliating to be considered a servant. It was like a slap in the face and it didn’t help much that Mr. Allan brought a drink to the kitchen whenever they had company. I was with the seven children for more than a year. I didn’t have to do any housework - I just cooked, did homework, played and got them to bed - everything for the children. The Allans played golf almost daily. Actually, it was the best way to get the boys acquainted with American life and customs.

Our first Christmas in America was a bit of a disappointment. At 6 A.M. on Christmas Day, the Allan children came running down in their nighties, collected their presents from under the Christmas tree and ran back up the stairs to get dressed for Tahoe to spend the weekend in the snow. We stayed behind in our apartment, built for us on top of the garage, and we had our traditional Christmas Eve celebration the night before. By that time I had made contact with several German couples. Fortunately, there was a German Lutheran church in Oakland, so we didn’t feel too lonely.

Mr. Allan was a General Motors executive and urged me to take driving lessons. I learned rapidly how to operate a vehicle but then I became overconfident. There is that unerasable mental picture in my mind as if it were yesterday. I took the maid home in Mr. Allan’s brand new Oldsmobile and made it up to Piedmont, very happy having accomplished that difficult task. Then, while parking, I slammed on the brakes - or so I thought - stepped on the gas pedal instead -- and ran the new Olds against a tree. I dashed as fast as I could, through all twelve rooms of the big house on Crocker Avenue, and shouted: “Mr. Allan, where is Mr. Allan? I did something awful -- where is Mr. Allan?” Well, he wasn’t too enthusiastic when I finally found him. The car was not yet insured. But again, he was very kind and offered me a drink first to calm my nerves. For an entire year, I didn’t touch a car again.

Little by little, the hassle with seven children became too much for the Allans. They urged me to look for an office job but I didn’t have the courage. I tried it a second time with five children. This time my boss was Dr. Dee, also in Piedmont. A pediatrician, Dr. Dee loved children. They were allowed to build a tent in the garden and for six weeks had a wonderful time. Dr. Dee’s wife was somewhat irrational. She had suffered with the birth of twins (so the doctor told me) and when one day I put the dishes, pots and pans in the wrong places, she opened all the cabinet doors in the kitchen and tossed everything from the shelves on to the floor.

“Now you find the right places,” she said. Too funny for me. I stood at the door and laughed and laughed. So that was the end of my stay with the Dee’s. What next? I put an ad in the newspaper -- “English speaking German immigrant, pleasant personality, can type, is looking for an office job.” I got several replies right away. That remark, “pleasant personality”, must have done it. “Do you have pretty legs?” -- or, “This is the Oakland Glass Company. We are looking for a private secretary and there are fringe benefits. Meet you tonight at 8 P.M. in East Oakland at the corner of...”. Why at 8 P.M.? I got suspicious. My grammar was not perfect, but I could read between the lines. So I called the Oakland Glass Company. There was, of course, no opening, so I told them to send someone out there at 8 P.M. and I stayed home and called, as a last resort, my son’s boy scout leader. He responded immediately, “I think you really need help”, and within three days I had a job.

Mr. P. promised to pick me up on Monday morning. I looked forward to Monday and got carried away by my imagination -- he came from Piedmont, was most likely rich, probably owned a Cadillac --how heavenly! And I would ride in it. I’d better get dressed nicely. I chose my gray flannel suit and a white blouse and looked really sharp, I thought, and stepped out into the street to wait for my pick-up.

When he arrived, my face dropped. There came the oldest, most dilapidated, crummiest jalopy I had ever seen. Mr. P. laughed and explained, “You see, I had promised my teenage son a car for his birthday, and as a joke, showed him this oldy first.” Now I understood, but when we approached the destination, I asked him to stop. I’d rather walk the last block than be seen in that jalopy.

My first real job was in downtown Oakland, near the estuary. A hardware dealer had hired me to run the ditto machine. It was easy but boring work and when my boss asked me how I liked my new job, I had to admit that at times I was somewhat bored. “Well”, he replied, “we thought that someone who speaks six languages can do better than running a ditto machine. How would you like to be in charge of the petty cash and also be

a cost clerk? Evan will train you, and of course, you also will get a better salary.” That was too good to be true.

The beginning had been so hard, because my first paycheck was $190., from which rent, food and clothing for the two boys and myself had to be paid. With my promotion, I got $250 per month, with the promise to get regular raises as soon as I knew the business. It was very difficult for me -- all the new hardware words I had to learn. They sold screws, bolts, nipples, nuts, nails and hardware.

Evan was sitting across from me at the other desk and I bothered him frequently with questions. “Evan, what are nuts?” - and one day - “Evan, I have some brass nipples.” There was silence on the other desk. “Oh really, Margot!” When the entire office burst out laughing, I still didn’t know what I had said. And that wasn’t the only time I made a fool of myself. Frequently, I said the wrong words and the boys in the office took advantage of my ignorance. They would tell one joke after another and then “Do you get it, Margot?” I knew something was not right, but I really didn’t understand and bravely said, “No. I’m not long enough in this country.” “Why are you blushing, then?” was their reply.

Due to my new job, the family had it easier now. Hartmut and Reiner still had to do their paper routes and buy their own clothes from that money, but I finally had enough to acquire necessary household items. Mrs. Allan had given me pots and pans and a few plates for our new apartment on Oakland Avenue, but we needed so much more. I finally could buy sheets, pillow cases and towels. When my German relatives inquired about my Christmas wishes, I made a list of all the things we needed. A few weeks later, to my great surprise, a big box of German china and some of my mother’s linen, which I had left behind, arrived. As I mentioned earlier, I had rescued my sterling cutlery all through the war. The boys had saved some of their money and had given me an electric iron for my birthday and a toaster for Christmas. That iron served me well for over 30 years and the toaster is still in use.

While I worked at the Allan’s in Piedmont, I met Aldona, who came on weekends which I had off. Aldona was Polish and spoke less English than I did, but her German was excellent. She was 20 years younger than I, and had a well paying job. Since Mr. Allan was in the car business, Aldona decided to buy a car from him. It was a red Plymouth and we soon took many a trip in that car.

I especially remember one trip to Tahoe. Neither Aldona nor I had much money but we wanted to go skiing, and so did the boys. We purchased a ham, a loaf of German bread and a few apples and started our 4-hour trip to the Sierra Nevada. Halfway to Tahoe, we stopped at Strawberry Lodge, a small motel close to Donner Pass. We rented ski equipment and started to ski right there. Next morning we had trouble finding Aldona’s car. Good thing it was red. It had snowed overnight and the little Plymouth was buried under two feet of snow.

After a good breakfast, we drove up to one of the ski slopes and spent our last money on the ski lift. Well, we had enough food in the car to last us all day, and when we finally started our return trip, we even had a few cents left for a cup of coffee. Those were the days -- when a dime or a quarter went a long way. Fortunately, we didn’t have to cross any bridges and pay tolls; otherwise, we would have been in trouble.

Another one of our Plymouth excursions was when we went to Strawberry Lake/Dodge Ridge, a few miles north of Sonora. This was a wonderful camping place. In summertime, especially, it was heavenly - swimming, hiking in the Sierra foothills. We skied at Dodge Ridge in the wintertime. Uncle Jerry had given us a large army tent in which all of us could sleep, but whenever possible, we slept outdoors.

One time the Explorer group of the Piedmont Boy Scouts took me along to Pinecrest. I stayed at the campgrounds, but my boys went hiking with the Explorers in the wilderness for three or four days.

I still didn’t have a car, but I found out about several German clubs in the area which I could reach by bus. My countrymen were always willing to drive me home after a club event.

Our second floor apartment (on Oakland Avenue) was inexpensive ($50.00 per month) and barely furnished -- a very small table, a few chairs, two single beds for the boys and a couch for me. That was all. Since there was no bedroom, the boys had to sleep in the dining room. After a while, the landlord didn’t like that arrangement very much. His living room was on the first floor and in the old house without rugs, every footstep could be heard. In addition, my 12-year old had the annoying habit of rocking himself to sleep.

It wasn’t long until the landlord offered us an extra room at the end of the hallway, a real bedroom for the boys, and the best part was that it was included in the $50 rent. I still slept on the couch in the living room, but one day the couch collapsed and I woke up on the floor. Fortunately, about the same time, a girl at work sold her couch and I bought it. I went all out and in addition to the couch, I bought a small coffee table for $11.

In 1953 I met Bob, a car salesman for Chrysler. Bob was always smiling, a real good-hearted man. Seldom did he visit us without an armful of groceries. He also took us all the time on weekend trips. Aldona abandoned her little Plymouth and came with us in Bob’s Chrysler to Yosemite, to Tahoe and wherever we wanted to go. We all loved Bob and it was a happy time in our lives.

One day in 1954, Bob came with good news. Someone at the store had traded in his Oldsmobile. It hadn’t been used very much and Bob insisted that I buy it. Two hundred and fifty dollars was a lot of money, but I managed and bought the car. I felt like the queen of the road. Now I didn’t have to depend on people to take me home after a party or a club meeting. I joined the “Oakland Turnverein”, a German club. What attracted me was their singing of German folk songs, but I also met many a Landsmann who told me about the German Saturday schools. I applied for a teaching job and since I had a kindergarten credential, I got it.

First, I drove with the little tram and the bus every Saturday to school, but soon I was courageous enough to take my Olds across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. I met more German people and was invited to quite a few German parties. Time went by fast. My students grew up rapidly and so did my two sons.

In 1955, my son, Dieter, wrote from Germany. He wanted to come to America, and, if possible, work on a farm or ranch and stay for a year. I could not pay for the trip and neither could he. I contacted the Agriculture Department at the University of California and was told that I should write to Washington, D.C. to a Mr. Ortega. He was in charge of the exchange students from the Agriculture Department.

I wrote and got an answer within a week. The U.S. Agriculture Department would gladly sponsor the boy, but I had to find a farm first and then he would have to write a paper every three months and report to Mr. Ortega about the American way of farming. Dieter also would have to make a detour to Washington, D.C. and see Mr. Ortega. Well, Dieter had attended a German agriculture college for several years, but to find an employer for him in California was another story.

Actually, it was easier than I thought. My boss at Howard Supply Co. knew a medical doctor, who had a ranch at Brentwood (Bethel Island). Due to heavy rains in January, his ranch was flooded and he needed help as quickly as possible. Before I new it, I got a short letter from Dr. C with a check for the airline ticket. “Get that boy out here as fast as you can,” he wrote. To get his visitor permit for the US and his flight booked was a matter of days, and soon I got a telegram from Washington, D.C. that they had put Dieter on a flight to Oakland and we should pick him up at such and such a time.

Dieter was surprised when all three of us stood at the airport, and was even more surprised when we served him a wonderful dinner at our humble apartment. “Is that big steak only for me or for all of us?” he asked. He couldn’t believe that in America they served such big pieces of meat for one person.

All evening long he talked to us about his exciting trip via Washington, D.C. They had picked him up at the airport, had made reservations for him at the YMCA and given him the grand tour of Washington, D.C. He got to see the White House, the Congress and had lunch with Representatives of the different states.

Dieter stayed for an entire year, changing his employer only once. He had purchased an old, used automobile and visited us frequently. When he left, he was asked by the IRS if he had earned any money (which he was not permitted to do) and he confessed. “Yes,” he said, “I have earned some money, part of which I have given to my mother. I could not expect her to support me, too, with her small salary.” The tax man was very understanding. “Because of your honesty, you may keep your savings and take them to Germany,” he said.

Dieter would have liked to stay, but since he only had a visitor permit he couldn’t.

Hartmut graduated from Piedmont High School in June 1958. He got an award in mathematics and also a letter of recommendation from his chemistry teacher. After graduation he applied for the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and got an interview with a Congressman. We all were so proud when he became an alternate for Annapolis and his picture appeared in the newspaper. But he still had to take a difficult English test at U.C. Berkeley and that was difficult for someone who had learned the language just 5 years ago.

He also had to become a US citizen and since I had the experience of how difficult it can be when politics between two nations come into the picture, I didn’t want us to be divided and insisted that all of us should become citizens at the same time. That caused a bit of a problem since son Reiner was at that time only 17 years old and couldn’t become a citizen by himself.

When I asked the teacher at citizenship school what to do, her answer was “Nothing I can do about it - he has to wait until he is 18 years old”. I said, “Didn’t you tell me that once you are a citizen, you may file a petition about anything you want? Anyway, I will try.” She didn’t encourage me at all, but when I filed our applications at the immigration office, I asked the clerk what to do about Reiner. She said - “No problem, just file a petition in behalf of your minor child right now, and you don’t have to wait until you have passed the test. He will become a citizen with you.” Triumphant, I told the unfriendly teacher but Hartmut and I had to study hard now for the test, while Reiner didn’t have to do anything. Anyway, all three of us became citizens on February 26, 1958, and I felt good about it.

In the summer of 1958 all kinds of exciting things happened. The Billing Department of my company transferred to Los Angeles and I didn’t want to move. “What should I do?” I asked myself. But my worries were unnecessary. A salesman, who traveled for several companies, recommended me to a pump and service station distributor. I got the job and wasn’t a day without work. Again, I was hired as a cost clerk.

On my way to work I saw a cute redwood house for rent. That would be even closer to work and the boys would have more space. Why not! I called, but was told that the place had been rented already. Too bad! I told the owner to keep my telephone number, just in case.

Reiner had spotted something “cute”, also, -- a 1956 Ford for $50. Mom had all kinds of objections. “Where will you get the money? What will you do with the car since you haven’t even a driver’s license yet? Where will you park her?” Well, the landlord gave his permission to park the vehicle in front of his garage. To work on the half-dead motor was a good experience for Reiner. So I gave my OK. Brother Hartmut had saved money from his paper route and I helped to finance the car.

Shortly after, I got a call from the owner of the little house that I liked, telling me that the new tenants had changed their minds and I could move in. The rent would be $90. “Mom, can we afford that?” Hartmut objected. “Yes, we can,” I said. “At least for summer vacation so that you boys have more room to play and work. My old company paid my contribution to the pension fund so we are “rich” for a few months.”

Reiner was in 7th heaven. He had a garage now and plenty of room to rebuild his motor. All his friends from school could come and help. Hartmut was happy, too. He got a studio apartment all by himself next to the garage with a separate entrance. He was hoping we would be able to stay longer than three months. He had filed an application to enter the University of California at Berkeley in the fall and the place would be ideal for him. He still had his paper route in Piedmont which he could reach by bicycle and I could even walk to work.

So it all worked out all right. I got a raise at my job and also decided to sublet one room to a German student whom I knew from German School in San Francisco. So, we were in good shape, but also had quite a few expenses.

It was hilarious. On Oakland Avenue, we had rented a semi-furnished apartment, but now we were moving into a house with three bedrooms, a living room, dining room and a kitchen, with no furniture to speak of. All I had was my hide-a-bed couch, the nightstand which Dieter had made for me, and a very small coffee table in front of the couch. No chairs, no dining table, no beds - nothing! How would we manage? Well, before we moved, Montgomery Ward had a yard sale and we purchased two single mattresses for the boys. Each boy had his own room and put the mattresses on the floor. That was a beginning.

Then Mac came to the rescue. Mac was one of our neighbors. His house and garden bordered on our garden and he owned an apartment house next door. He always had something to give us. First, we got a rug for the living room. Next came a Formica table top (no legs) for the dining room, and four (very old) chairs. We got four iron legs in a hurry and Reiner assembled a beautiful dining table. Later on, I got a single bed with a frame. I think it also came from Mac.

We must have moved in Spring ‘58, for Hartmut and Reiner were still in school and both of them were attending a class in woodworking. Pretty soon, they produced two beautiful headpieces for their beds. About the same time we moved, the Allan’s moved to Hawaii and we inherited their Steinway upright piano.

Next to the garage was a storage room partially full of furniture that belonged to our landlord. I had my eye on an old-fashioned table that wasn’t very useful as it was, but it was oak and I was sure Reiner could make a beautiful coffee table out of it. My landlord first hesitated, but then he gave us not only the table, but also 6 new dining room chairs. Reiner was not one of the best students in school, but he certainly was (and is) talented with his hands. Out of that old rectangular table he created four pieces of furniture: a large coffee table, a smaller table with a glass top for flowers, pots, etc. and two side tables, decorated with tiles, which now, after 35 years, are still standing next to the couch in the living room.

We all were so proud of our new home, and we stayed there for 16 years. That is, I stayed there -- the boys were coming and going.

For the time being, both boys were with me. Hartmut started college and drove most of the time with Rosita (our tenant) to school. He also got a small job at my company on Broadway. It was hard for him, but he was too proud to accept any money from me. He also made some extra money cutting lawns. One day, he came running to the office. “Please, mom, drive me to Kaiser Hospital emergency. I cut half my finger off with the lawnmower.” The fire station nearby had given him a tight bandage which kept the finger from bleeding.

Another time, I found him late at night over an open book on sex education, fast asleep. I knew then that he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for very long.

After about half a year at college, he came home one day beaming. “Today, for the first time in my life, I have made a decision without asking you first. I have signed up for the Navy.”

I had to laugh, in spite of his seriousness, and answered, “A little late, dear son, there is a letter in the mail today. You have been drafted.”

He actually wanted to stay in the Bay Area, but was sent to Charleston, South Carolina. However, first he had to go to boot camp in San Diego and when he graduated, I managed to get down there. He told me that he was sad and disappointed that his request to join the submarines was denied, because he was born in Indonesia. I was furious and went straight to the commanding officer, behind Hartmut’s back. How did they dare!

“The boy was not even two years old when we left Sumatra,” I said. “Have you ever seen a two-year old spy?” The officer was slightly embarrassed and offered me a cup of hot coffee. “No thank you, sir,” I said. “I am warm enough now.”

Hartmut had to serve his four years in the Navy in South Carolina, but Reiner was still with me. He moved to Hartmut’s room downstairs, and it wasn’t very long before Heide, another German student, approached me and asked if she could move in and stay in Reiner’s old room. Now I had two renters. Both of them attended the University of California at Berkeley and both of them lived in the San Francisco area, going home on weekends.

Reiner enjoyed his senior year at Piedmont High. Homework was not his priority but he was excellent in playing football and running. His name is still on several silver trophies at the school. Once in a while, there was a conference with the principal and I got to hear that “..if your son doesn’t try to get better grades, he won’t be allowed to play football or go to the track meets of the school...” Well, he tried. His grades were still good enough to be a member of the Kappas, a high school fraternity. Many times the boys arranged initiation ceremonies at our house. I was always sent to the movies when these parties took place.

One time I went skiing with the Sierra Club and Reiner had asked me if he could have a few friends over for a little “after Christmas party”. Hesitantly I gave my permission. Judging from the mess I found when I returned, they had a great time but I was crushed that all the cute Japanese coasters had cigarette burn marks on them.

“Come on, Mom”, Reiner said, “don’t sweat the nickel and dime stuff - I’ll buy you new ones”. Yes, he did that (cheap ones), he could afford it, he was not the little paper boy anymore. He was now, together with his buddy, Barney, Hamby’s Market delivery boy.

One time Reiner had a little argument with Barney. His buddy pressed him against the refrigerator and dislocated his shoulder. It was very painful, but later on prevented him from being drafted.

In the meantime, Reiner’s precious ‘36 Ford was overhauled and almost finished. You should have seen these happy teenagers -- they crowded into the rumble seat, singing and howling. One boy (I think it was Tom) was yelling, “We did it, we did it,” smashing his fist against the windshield and breaking it. What could we do now? I couldn’t operate the stick shift, I didn’t think Reiner’s friends had a driver’s license, and Reiner had the dislocated shoulder. I still don’t know how he got his car to the repair shop, but he managed. I didn’t have much time to worry. Before I knew it, my son (arm in sling) was hopping into the Ford and driving it downtown.

While Hartmut was much more quiet and kept to himself, Reiner enjoyed his teenage years to the fullest. Shortly before graduation, the boys played a practical joke on their principal.

There was a long procession, marching toward the high school. In front, a boy wearing a robe and carrying a prayer book, looking like a dignitary from church (his father was a minister), followed by four boys carrying a casket in which the principal (in effigy) was lying. They almost made it to the front door when the police stopped them. They laughed so hard they hardly could do their job. They took a picture and sent it to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. The principal fortunately had a sense of humor. When he found out, he had to laugh also, but as a penalty our sons had to dig up the entire football field with a hand shovel.

Reiner graduated from high school in 1959. It was hard for me not to be able to give him a big present. He got a new suit all right, but most of his friends got big graduation presents like cars, a trip to the islands, etc. However, my son found a solution. He wanted to go to Hawaii, too. In no time he had sold his car and made plans to get an airline ticket. When I saw that he was serious, I wrote to the Allan’s, telling them Reiner’s intention. The Allan’s had lived in Waikiki for years and I was sure they could give me some sound advice.

The answer came by return mail and was much better than I had anticipated. A friend of theirs was flying to the mainland, but didn’t have the intention to come back soon. Reiner could have his first class ticket, but had to go by the name of Mr. Bierman. He didn’t care, he was full of enthusiasm. “Champagne Flight,” he shouted. “Champagne Flight”. The Allan’s were more than generous. Reiner could stay the first days with them, and Mr. Allan, who was in the car business, gave Reiner a job assembling motor scooters.

Barney followed a few weeks later. The Allan’s helped the boys to find an apartment and furnished it. Then they met Mr. Bierman, the man with the unused airline ticket. He was evidently impressed by these adventurous teenagers. He was on the Board of Directors of the University of Hawaii and promised to help them, if they in return, would promise to continue their education and attend the University of Hawaii. He gave Barney a job and after a while both boys moved and lived in Mr. Bierman’s house. That lasted for a while until they were tired of Bierman’s constant guardianship. Both boys attended the university and had made friends. One of them, Rod W., was a distant relative of Robert Louis Stevenson, the well-known author, and invited them to live with him at Stevenson’s cottage, “Hunnewell”. There wasn’t much in that cabin but it meant instant freedom.

I think it was in the summer of 1960 when Barney’s mother visited the boys. I asked later - “Tell me, how are they doing?” Her answer was “they live like sloppy kings”. I believed it.

Later that year Barney’s father died and he had to return to California. Soon after, Reiner came home for a vacation. He was invited to the yearly Piedmont debutante ball. Unfortunately, his plane was late. His friends and I picked him up, Barney and Tom in tuxedos and I in a classic suit. We looked so dignified that people opened the doors for us. And here came Reiner - suit jacket over his arm, tie loosened, in one hand a ceramic pot and in the other, some school books. Instead of shoes, he was wearing slippers.

I was slightly embarrassed, but not so the boys. “Never mind”, they said. “We take you as you are to the Winter Ball.” Needless to say, he didn’t stay very long. He felt a little bit out of place.

Reiner returned to Hawaii, but not for very long. He and Barney wanted to go to Europe so they had to earn some money first.

I recently found one of Reiner’s letters, which explains the entire situation better than I can do:

Once in a while, Hartmut wrote to me. The first letters were not too enthusiastic. It sounded as if he regretted that he had given up college to join the Navy. One Christmas was especially hard for him. I knew that he wanted a camera and since this was his first Christmas away from home, I made sure to send a long letter and a package in plenty of time. I found out much later how lonely and desperate the boy was. For some reason my package did not arrive in time and not knowing what to do, Hartmut explored the city of Chicago. He told me how cold it was in the “windy city” and how he went from church to church on Christmas Eve to overcome his loneliness.

Also there came letters from Dieter and Jochen. Jochen had been drafted into the German Army and was almost finished. Now he wanted to come to California.

I, of course, loved to hear from my family, but all the letters in the world couldn’t replace the absence of my sons. The “nest” was empty and I had to cope with it.

It was somewhat of a consolation that Heide and Rosita, the two students, were still living with me. They suggested that I go back to school and work toward a teaching credential. I couldn’t get used to the idea, but then I reconsidered. “Why not?” I thought. “Being 51 is not that old.” So I applied at the University of California. I took an extension course in “Child Psychology” and later another one in “Audio Visual Education”.

Jochen had difficulties in coming to California since he was born in Indonesia. The U.S. Consul General wouldn’t let him visit me. He evidently didn’t know that President Eisenhower had passed a law that all children of U.S. citizens can visit their parents whenever they want to. After I wrote a letter to the Consul, Jochen was here within a few weeks. He was 23 then, but not as independent as his younger brothers. Certainly, he had to learn the language but we were not willing to accompany him on every errand. “You mean you cannot even buy your underpants yourself?” Reiner remarked. Jochen was of the opinion that his mom had to make up for the ten years he was without a mother and was shocked to hear that his brothers had to iron their own shirts and pants for years.

Jochen was a charmer and in no time he had several girlfriends. Gila, one of them, gave him a dog, a cute gray half-breed. We called him Max. Gila’s mother had moved and couldn’t have animals. But the excitement of having Max didn’t last very long. Gila’s mother called Jochen to tell him she had changed her mind and that Jochen had to give the dog back. The phone call was followed by a letter. I do not recall the exact contents of the letter, but it read something like this: “You have to give the animal back. He is my property. Gila is still a minor (age 17) and had no right to give you my dog. If you don’t do what I say, I will sue you and you might be kicked out of the country since you are not a citizen”.

Jochen was furious. “Does she think she can kick that animal around like a football? Max stays with me. I will not give him back.”

I got scared. I had never been in conflict with the law and I decided to seek help from the Legal Aid Society in Oakland. When the lawyer had read the letter, he burst out laughing and said: “I have heard of that lady, she evidently makes a living by suing other people. She throws herself in front of a car and then she sues the driver. Don’t be afraid. She cannot do anything to you.”

A few weeks passed and one day when I was in the garden there came a messenger from the court to hand a subpoena to Jochen. I told him that my son was working all day and wouldn’t be back before evening. He should come back around 6:30 P.M. As soon as the messenger had left, I dashed into the house, called Jochen and persuaded him to come home earlier, get in touch with Gila and we would return the dog before the messenger came back. It worked out beautifully.

Heide, my tenant, and her boyfriend, Bill, were home and when Jochen came in, we dreamed up a plot. Yes, we would give Max back to the original owner, but since we hadn’t known that the dog was only supposed to be with us for a few months as a boarder, we would have to bill the lady for taking care of the animal - room, board, leash, dog dish, food, etc.

When Gila came, we handed over everything, including the bill which was signed by all of us. The poor girl was slightly embarrassed and apologized for her mother and later on when the man from the courts came back, we told him, with a grin, that the matter had been taken care of.

That was not the end of the story. A few weeks later, when I came home from work, I heard a whimpering sound on the back porch. I had a hunch and I was right. The cutest Dachshund puppy was sitting there with a letter from Gila around her neck. We didn’t want to keep her but we couldn’t resist. Thereafter, Dachsie “Heidi” was my companion for 10 years.

In spite of all his girlfriends, Jochen had not forgotten Annemarie, the daughter of his father’s childhood friend.

Jochen had found a job as a chauffeur for the elderly wife of a U.S. Berkeley professor and his room was empty.

We invited Annemarie to come over and at the same time, bring a V.W. Bug, which I had purchased through a San Francisco car dealer. It took a while until she got her visa, but she could drive my V.W. and then import it as a used car. Everything worked out all right, but when the car arrived, I had to learn to drive a stick shift which was quite a job. It took a while, but I finally learned to cruise around in my 1962 “Bug”, which, by the way, I am still driving now after 34 years.

The year 1962 was an exciting one. I went back to college, one of the student renters left, and Reiner came back from Hawaii. Since Annemarie was here, Jochen spent all of his free time, and especially the evenings, at home. Most of the time we were at least five people for dinner. I didn’t mind that, I liked to cook and it was fun to have all the young folks around. I had joined the Sierra Club and we went skiing, hiking and ice skating. Jochen objected: “Mom, an old lady like you doesn’t ice skate any more.” Well, that was his German point of view. I really didn’t feel all that old at the age of 51!

As I have mentioned before, Jochen came frequently. The room in which Annemarie was staying had a separate entrance and Jochen, of course, took advantage of that. He didn’t realize how old-fashioned his mother was. The extended after-midnight visits were not to my liking and one day he found a note on the breakfast table which mom had left before she went to work. My son blew his top but he knew, deep inside, that I was right.

In the next few weeks, things happened rapidly. Jochen found a job with the SFO Helicopter Company and Annemarie found an office job. They rented an apartment on Ridgeway in Oakland and - without telling me - went to the Oakland Courthouse to get married by the justice of the peace.

Now it was mom’s turn to blow her top, but she found out at the last minute and surprised the newlyweds at the courthouse. Shortly after that, a church wedding at the Central Lutheran Church was held. Dr. Rodney, our old family physician and a brother-in-law of Mr. Allan, gave the bride away and invited us all to a garden reception at his Berkeley home. Again, there was peace in the family.

Shortly after the wedding, Heide left to spend her junior year at a German university.

Reiner was home from Hawaii. He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do. The University didn’t look very attractive to him. “I think I am just not college material,” he said. He contacted his friend Barney and the two of them decided to spend the winter of 1962-63 in Germany and Italy. Both boys had saved a little over $300.00. They thought that was an awful lot of money. It is still a riddle to me how they could manage on that amount, to pay for the trip and live in Europe for several months. I got to hear bits and pieces only: “Well, we drove someone’s car from San Francisco to the East Coast, got paid for the gas and slept in the car. A school friend from Piedmont High is living near New York and we stayed with him until we found a cheap transatlantic transportation. We finally took Scandinavian Airlines to Luxembourg and hitchhiked from there to Germany. Our first visit was to O.W. (“Onkel” Werner, my brother).”

I just can see my brother’s face when he saw the two travelers in army fatigues, boots, unshaven and freezing. It was Europe’s coldest winter, even Lake Constanz, a lake as large as Lake Tahoe, was frozen over. I had written to Heide, to treat the boys to a good dinner on my account, should they appear at her door. She told me later that she had a problem identifying the two explorers. One day when she looked out of the window, she saw this old, old vehicle. In the back was a clothesline with wet socks and a bottle of liquor. She knew right then and there that could be only Reiner and Barney.

They had purchased the vehicle - or better, the automobile, for $50.00 - I believe - with the help of my oldest son, Dieter. It took them across the Alps all the way to Italy. It was in Rome when the car broke down and they ran out of money. A trip to the American Consulate didn’t help much. The Consul had offered to send a telegram with the request for money, to their mothers and the boys had made it clear that that was out of the question. The compromise was then to wire Reiner’s brother, Dieter, who sent $5.00 to them. Big deal, but they managed to get to Northern Italy where another school friend was married to an Italian girl. Somehow their car was repaired there and they made it all the way back to Germany from where their round trip ticket took them back to New York. Again, they drove a car across the United States, but it wasn’t all the way to the west coast. Finally, there came a cry for help. If I remember correctly, from Kansas: “We are broke, need money, will return by bus. Reiner and Barney.” An adventure they will not forget for the rest of their lives.

Jochen didn’t last very long with SFO Helicopter Company. He got too outspoken with a Kaiser executive who wanted to use the helicopter, and got fired. From now on, he had to work at different odd jobs - not always very attractive ones, but he managed to bring a paycheck home each month. Annemarie was not very happy about Jochen’s new occupation. She was not too satisfied with her job, either. Also, she was pregnant, expecting their first baby in September. Annemarie had a teaching credential from Germany, but in order to teach in the United States, she would have to go back to college and also had to become a U.S. citizen.

After their baby girl, Ulrike, was born on September 9, 1963, they made plans to return to Germany. For Jochen, this was the best solution. With Annemarie, I think, there was a great deal of pride and also homesickness involved. Her parents were living in Zweibrucken (Palatia, Germany). The couple and their four-month old baby left early in 1964 and it wasn’t very long before I got the news that both of them had found jobs -- Annemarie, as a grammar school teacher and Jochen in the German Airforce. They didn’t earn a lot of money, but it was a new beginning.

In the meantime, Reiner applied for Jochen’s job at the SFO Helicopter Company, and got it. It was hard work. Frequently he had to get up very, very early and come home late at night. It wasn’t very long before he got a promotion to be the manager of the Oakland branch. He had purchased a used car again and his working place at the Oakland Airport wasn’t too far from home. I was glad to have at least one son at home.

Off and on, Hartmut, our Navy-boy, came home for a vacation. One day in December, Aldona and I decided to go skiing at Donner Pass and took along a German girl who was working as an au pair for Dr. Rodney. Shortly before we left I got a telegram from Hartmut that he was coming home for a vacation that very same day. I left a note in the mailbox that we were going skiing at Donner Pass and he should take a bus and come up and join us. We stayed at the Sierra Club Lodge and before night, Hartmut was there, also. We had told Marlies, the au pair, that we were expecting a young Navy man to join us, but we hadn’t told her that he was my son because she had made the remark that she would never marry a German. She didn’t like German men. Hartmut played along and introduced himself as “Jimmy” from South Carolina and he talked with a heavy southern accent. It was charming. We kept that little game up for hours and had a wonderful time.

Then Heide came back. She had to finish her senior year at U.C. Berkeley and was again staying with us. For a short time, Marlies was also moving in. She had given up her job at the Rodney’s, had gotten a job at a photo studio, and wanted to stay with us before she moved in with Jutta, a German friend of hers.

When Heide came one day to ask me if her friend, Donny, another U.C. Berkeley student, could come too, I protested: “Heide, what do you think, where do I sleep?” But Heide had it all figured out. “You use the hide-a-bed in the living room. Marlies will sleep on the bench in the dining room and I get your bedroom. Donny gets my room and Reiner will stay downstairs.”

I couldn’t win. Again I had to cook for five, go to school two evenings a week, teach on Saturdays and work full time during the week.

However, Marlies didn’t stay very long. She had gotten a job and moved in with Jutta.

In 1962, Hartmut returned from the Navy. Reiner had bought him a new scooter and he started again at U.C. Berkeley. Now he had it easier. He could study under the G.I. program. Everything went smoothly for a while, but then one night Hartmut didn’t come home. I didn’t worry too much, thinking that he probably went to the movies or something like that. But the next morning when his room was still empty, I got alarmed. I called my two sons, asking them to help me find the boy. Reiner suggested that I go to work and ask my boss for advice.

I did just that, and Dave, one of the younger bosses, went immediately into action. First, he called all the hospitals in the area and it wasn’t very long before he found out that, sure enough, my son was nearby at Kaiser Hospital. Jochen was there in minutes and took me to the hospital. Here we found out the entire story. Coming from Berkeley, Hartmut was driving his scooter up 51st Street when, between Telegraph and Broadway, a lady coming from a side street disregarded a stop sign, ran into the scooter and Hartmut landed on the hood of her Cadillac. The police took the unconscious boy to Kaiser Hospital and had the scooter towed away.

All this, without informing me. I was furious. How could they? But, since Hartmut was over 21 years old, they told me that they didn’t have to call anyone. I still think it was rude and negligent on the part of the police and the hospital. The boy was wearing a bracelet with his name on it, was carrying books with his home address and the U.C. emblem. It was obvious that he was a student of the University of California, and the police could have easily received all the information they needed.

Naturally, I was very upset when we entered the hospital and Jochen tried hard to calm me down. In the meantime, Reiner had arrived, too, and when we entered the hospital room, Hartmut was surprised to find his entire family around his bed. “I didn’t think you all cared so much about me,” he said. He looked pitiful. Landing on the Cadillac had knocked his front teeth out, and he had, of course, a fierce headache. Otherwise, he was all right. Thank heavens!

I insisted that he be transferred to the U.C. Berkeley hospital immediately. There he got the best treatment and recovered in no time. However, he had lost time and didn’t think he could catch up with his class, and decided as soon as he felt well enough, he would enter Merritt Junior College in Oakland.

While at college, he kept in touch with Marlies and married her on April 24, 1964. We had made plans to have the reception at our house at 91 Monte Cresta. Never had that little redwood house seen so many people. Reiner’s friends Tom and Barney, Donny and her boyfriend, Marlies’ sister “E”, and even Uncle Jerry - they all came and had a good time. Again, our friend, Dr. Rodney gave the bride away and also came to the reception with his wife, Margaret. Hartmut and Marlies took an apartment not far from the old homestead, but he continued to go to college.

Reiner was still with me and commuted daily between Oakland and the San Francisco Airport. Donny was also still my tenant. Since Reiner was earning good money, I had asked him to help me with the rent and food. He first protested heavily, but later admitted that the $100 he had to pay was nothing compared to what he had to spend when he was on his own. Reiner was easy to have around. He is, by nature, very neat and orderly and helped a lot to keep house and garden in shape. On Saturday mornings, we always had breakfast together and on warm summer days my son came barefoot in a pair of shorts to the table. I objected to that, but he didn’t care. Well, you should have seen his eyes when on a hot day in September, I appeared at the breakfast table dressed in shorts and a bra - that was all!

My oldest son, Dieter, was finished with school and was looking for work. He once told me how he got his first job with Porsche-Diesel. “You know, Mom,” he said, “they didn’t care about by education. They took a motor apart and told me to put it together again in two hours. If I could do that, I would get the job.”

He evidently did all right, because he was hired. He was soon promoted and since he spoke Japanese, he was sent to Japan to introduce a new caterpillar agricultural machine. He had to go all the way up to Hokkaido to demonstrate the vehicle. Dieter wrote the most interesting letters from Japan and once in a while I got a package with kimonos, pottery items and kakemonos (large wall hangings in frames). On Mother’s Day came a thick letter. When I opened it, I was glad to have a chair to sit on. I was so surprised. There was a single airmail letter with the most beautiful string of large cultured pearls. The letter was, to:

He told me later that he went from wholesaler to wholesaler and picked out each single pearl by himself.

From Jochen came the news that they were expecting their second child. This time it was a boy, and Wolf-Rudiger was born on January 13, 1965. I think it was the same year that I got a very heavy golden grandmother’s bracelet from Reiner for Christmas. I was now a grandmother student at Merritt Junior College, but I could take only a few courses at nighttime since I had to work during the day.

Heide had graduated and returned to Germany for post-graduate courses. Soon we got a letter that she was engaged to be married to a German teacher and that she would be staying in Germany.

Reiner had started to date a beautiful girl he met in San Francisco and he brought her home frequently. They came home from Bethel Island one weekend and brought me a dog - a shy, ugly, half-starved puppy. I had already one dog, Heidi the Daxie, and didn’t want another one. But Reiner insisted: “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll take care of the dog, if I don’t want to lose Linda. I’ll have to keep the dog”. He named him “Shawn”. Shawn looked like a very neglected German Sheepdog, but we found out later from the veterinarian that he was a mixture of hyena and Australian Shepherd. He was well worth the effort. Our affection and care paid off. Soon he lost his shyness, his fur got shiny and we didn’t even have to lock the door anymore. Nobody would dare come into the house without Shawn’s permission. We couldn’t even keep him in the garden. He could jump a 10-foot fence. We had a little problem with the mailman - but with Heidi, he got along beautifully.

It wasn’t long before Reiner got engaged to Linda. We had a nice engagement party. Linda, of Italian-Polish descent, had invited her mother and she came all the way from the east coast.

From Germany came happy news, also. Jochen and Annemarie had another daughter, Anette, born July 12, 1966, and Dieter had started to date Liesel, to whom he got engaged a year later.

Student Hartmut got his AA degree on June 16, 1967, in health science and continued his education at U.C. Berkeley. This time he majored in chemistry.

I hadn’t seen my German sons for a long time and decided to scrape all my pennies together and visit my home country. Reiner had been promoted from a manager of SFO Helicopter to a manager position of TWA. He got me a very reasonable airline ticket and I learned the adventure of being a stand-by passenger. I wasn’t an experienced traveler, but Reiner took care of everything for me. The following letter was sent to me while I was visiting in Germany and will explain a few things. It was dated September 10, 1968:

Yes, indeed, Reiner’s big brother, Dieter, had a new family. He got married the year before and his son, Ralf, was born on August 2, 1968. I was excited to see grandchild number 4 and also to meet Dieter’s new family. The young couple had rebuilt the attic of the old house which was actually a historical landmark and belonged to the Broenstrups, Dieter’s in-laws.

Since I had grown up in the country, I loved it there. They had sheep and pigs and many, many chickens. We harvested cherries and plums and canned them--all the things my mother used to do. I think Liesl, my daughter-in-law never bought any vegetables at the grocery store. Of course, living in the country is not always an advantage. Dieter had to bicycle four times a day to and from his job. The Amazonenwerke (name of the company) is about 5 miles away, near Osnabruck, and lunchtime was about 1-1/2 hours. Since the main meal in Germany is at lunchtime, people don’t take sandwiches to work. Exercise was good for my oldest -- he was chubby anyway.

I couldn’t spend the entire vacation with Dieter’s family. I had to see my other relatives, too -- cousin Helga in Wiesbaden, brother Werner and his family in Bad Godesberg/Rhein, and last, but not least, son Jochen with wife Annemarie and their three little ones (Ulrike, 5, Rudiger, 3-1/2, and Anette, 2). Jochen was in the German Airforce and Annemarie was teaching grammar school in Andernach.

When I returned to California from my trip, I was welcomed with the news that Marlies, Hartmut’s wife, was expecting her first baby in May.

James, grandchild number 5, was born on May 6, 1969, my second grandchild born in the United States. Hartmut and Marlies were very proud of their first born. However, having a family and going to college became, little by little, too much for Hartmut. He gave up college and looked for a job. It wasn’t very long before he found one. Stauffer Chemical in Richmond, the same company he still works for, hired him as a lab technician. He had to start at the bottom but had a chance to “climb the ladder” step by step.

The next move was to find a larger apartment closer to his working place. They looked for quite a while and finally found a small house in the hills of San Pablo. Hartmut is excellent with finances and decided to buy rather than rent. I loaned him money for the down payment and the young couple, including the baby, moved as soon as they could.

Reiner, in the meantime, made plans to get married to Linda. The wedding took place on September 27, 1969, at the Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley. When we entered the church, a young lady was singing the “Hawaiian Love Song”. The reception following the ceremony was at the “Hillside Club”, also in Berkeley. Before they left for their honeymoon, the newlyweds got a surprise. While we celebrated inside the club, Reiner’s buddies had painted his car with all kinds of slogans. I was sorry I didn’t have my camera.

Coming home, the house felt empty, but I didn’t have much time to be depressed. I had to concentrate on my studies. There was only a half year to go before I would graduate from junior college. I still went to school, got my AA Degree from Merritt College on June 19, 1970.

While I was growing mentally, my family kept on growing physically. Ute, Dieter and Liesle’s daughter, was born July 22, 1971, and a year later on September 2, 1972, James got a brother, Jason, grandchild number 7.

I remember that day in September. Hartmut called very early. It must have been around 5 A.M. “Mom, could you come out here right away and watch little James for a while? I have to take Marlies to Alta Bates Hospital in a hurry. The baby is on the way.” It was about a half hour ride from Oakland to Vallejo and I hurried as much as I could. Hardy’s voice had sounded very upset. He panics as easily as his mother. Little James was just 3 years old when his brother, Jason, was born. What a cute little fellow! I enjoyed being with my grandchildren since I got to see them so seldom.

It was a good thing that I had plenty to do with homework. It kept me from being lonely and depressed. I had transferred from Merritt College to Cal State University in Hayward. I got my BA Degree, but it was much more difficult now. Merritt College was just a few minutes from home, but Hayward was a 20 minute ride two or three evenings after work. It was impossible for me to take more than one or two classes each semester. To stay awake, I didn’t turn on the heater, brewed myself a strong cup of coffee and wrapped a blanket around my knees. Every night I sat there and tried to do the required reading.

Fortunately I was never disturbed, but I didn’t get much done during the week. The main studying was done on Saturday and Sunday. It was quite a struggle. Cal State didn’t offer all the required courses at night. However, my German literature professor found a solution. She made an arrangement with Cal State in San Francisco. They offered the required courses in the evening. I could enroll without paying, could take the classes, and write the midterms and finals at Cal State in San Francisco. At the end of each semester, both professors would grade my papers.

Frequently, I had to take a class with post-graduate students. I remember one evening in class, I had to give a talk on Goethe, the most famous of German poets, had forgotten my reading glasses, which meant I had to do without. The professor was sitting on the side and watched me closely. Since I was teaching for several years already, I had no problem speaking in front of a large audience. To invigorate my presentation, I told a practical joke which Goethe had played on a lady of the Weimar court, and had to laugh very hard myself. So did the professor, who was sitting not far from me. All of a sudden, I remembered that years ago Hartmut had made the remark: “You know, Mom, you look so funny when you laugh. Your whole belly is wiggling”. When I told that to the student who was riding home with me in the car, she was giggling without stopping for 15 minutes.

Finally my senior year came and I had another problem. The last courses had to be taken during the daytime on campus. What could I do? My boss was very understanding. Since I was a trainee on a computer, I could do my exercises on the monster by myself. I was allowed to take off two hours per day if I would come in at 7 in the morning and leave at 6 P.M. It worked out allright, especially since my German professor again came to the rescue and let me do the midterm by mail. I finally made it and got my BA, in cap and gown, of course, on June 9, 1973 (cum laude).

The year 1973 was something else. Everything possible came together. Shortly after graduation, I had a physical examination. I went to Dr. Rodney and told him that I had a backache that wouldn’t go away. It didn’t matter if I was lying down, sitting up, or walking. He ordered an x-ray. The next day I got the disturbing news that I had a gallstone and needed surgery. He suggested that I get a D&C at the same time. His voice didn’t sound very concerned over the phone -- more amused. “Ha, ha, you didn’t think this could happen to you, did you?” To go to the hospital came as a surprise, indeed.

In all my life, in spite of the four children, I had never been to a hospital for an operation, and I was frightened. In serious situations, I panic easily. I called the pastor and made my last will and testament. When a phone call came from Dieter, I urged him to come to Oakland quickly because I wanted to see him just once more. Dieter had brought his V.W. camper from Germany in order to travel with his wife and 5-year old son through the United States. There were also two friends - students - with him. Their trip to Yellowstone Park had to be cut short in order to come to Oakland.

When I told my boss that I had to have surgery and had to take sick leave, I got a surprise. He listened to me and then - reluctantly - told me that he was just in the process of telling two-thirds of his employees that they had to be laid off. The company had changed hands and he was very sorry, but I had to go, also. However, under the circumstances, he would extend the company’s health insurance. That, at least, was some comfort and I felt I deserved it. I had been working with S.H. for sixteen years and had never been sick or absent.

I entered the hospital with mixed feelings. Dieter called and said that it was impossible for him to be there before the surgery, but he would hurry to make it in a day or two. The surgeon had a wonderful way of calming me down, and when I woke from the anesthesia I felt fine, except for the six-inch cut across my stomach.

Yet another surprise was waiting for me. When the good doctor came to see me, he made a serious face and hesitated to speak: “We found some cancer in the uterus and you need a hysterectomy,” he said. “But it can wait. For two or three months you should be safe”. “No way”, was my response. “I want it out right away.” “You don’t understand,” he said. “Your body will not tolerate two major surgeries in a row.” I was very upset. “Is it your body or mine?” I asked. “I can take it. I will go home in a few days but will be back in a week for my second surgery.”

In the meantime, Dieter and his family had arrived. When I woke up one morning, there stood three bearded men in the doorway (Dieter and the two students). I was happy to see my son, but I worried how they would get along without me. “Don’t worry, Mutti,” Dieter said. “We have the V.W. parked in the driveway and all of us can sleep in the car.”

I didn’t have to stay too long in the hospital and spent a week with my family and their friends. I recovered in no time, but I couldn’t walk very well. It rally didn’t matter, though, we drove everywhere -- to San Francisco Zoo, Golden Gate Park, to Piedmont and the University of California. A few trips were done without me. Dieter wanted to show his wife his old “hunting grounds”, Brentwood, Bethel Island, etc., where he had worked almost 15 years earlier.

Time, however, was limited. Vacation time was half over and there was so much more they wanted to see -- Yosemite, Utah, Indian reservations, and some of the big cities. If I remember correctly, the trip ended in New York where they left the VW bus at the airport parking lot. Reiner later on flew with his dog to New York, picked up Dieter’s car and took a leisurely camping trip back to San Francisco where he eventually sold the VW bus.

Before my tourists left the country, I had to go back to the hospital where the second surgery, a total hysterectomy, was performed by Dr. Rodney. This time the incision on my lower abdomen was about ten inches long. Dr. Rodney proudly called it the “bikini cut”. The first cut hadn’t healed yet and I had a hard time walking. Before surgery, a friend had dropped me at the lobby of the hospital. The nurse came and told me to take my things and go to the sixth floor. When I told her that I couldn’t do that because I had had major surgery just two weeks before, she couldn’t believe it. I had to show her my belly.

The second surgery went as smoothly as expected. The cancer hadn’t spread and I didn’t need chemotherapy. I couldn’t resist asking the nurses to call Dr. Henry (the physician who did the gallbladder surgery) to my bed before I was released. “You see, Doctor, I have survived. I told you so,” I said, and I think he was probably glad to get rid of me. However, I had decided to become a volunteer at Alta Bates, since they treated me so nicely.

After a week in the hospital I was allowed to go home. A few days earlier I got a phone call from Dieter: “Mom, how did everything go? Are you all right? I couldn’t leave the country without calling you but I must tell you, these are my last six dollars.” I was touched by his thoughtfulness.

The “Jinx Year 1973” wasn’t over yet. As soon as I was well, I had to look for a job. Who would take me at age 62? Help came sooner than expected. Before my unemployment benefits had expired, I got a call from Bob S., a former co-worker. “I have recommended you to Safeway, the big grocery chain here in Oakland, as an accountant. Bring in your resume as soon as you can.” When I went there a few days later, Jerry, my future boss, remarked - “Young lady, you are over qualified.” “Yes, sir,” I replied, “but I have to eat.” I got the job and worked there for the next three years as a typist, switchboard operator and bookkeeper. I liked my work. Thanks to Jerry, the atmosphere, the working climate, and the comradeship among the employees was excellent. They frequently came to the switchboard to chat with me. One time they told me that my voice carried tremendously - “Margot, when you speak into that phone - ‘Mr. Smith, telephone, please’ - we all wake up!” While I am writing this, in the year 1996, I am still seeing, off and on, old Safeway friends.

Before I applied for a job at Safeway, I went to to Piedmont Unified School District and asked them why they didn’t offer German as a foreign language. “We don’t have a teacher”, was their answer. “Take me”, I replied. “Yes, we’ll do that,” they said, “but you’ll have to get a teaching credential.” That was no problem. I applied at the Board of Education in Sacramento and got a lifetime limited credential to teach German and English as a Second Language. That was good enough for me. I wanted to teach part-time only and started at Piedmont Adult School (evenings) in spring 1974.

Shortly after I started to work again, the little redwood house we had rented for $90/month was sold to a neighbor for $35,000. I was heartbroken. As long as I was in California, I had always wanted to have a house of my own, but in 1974 I just didn’t have the money, not even for a down payment. When I asked my two sons for help, their reply was: “What shall we do with a house, mom, both of us are on our own now.”

My new landlord comforted me and promised not to raise the rent, but he was in financial difficulties himself and a few months after he took over there came the raise. Having lived on the same street more than a decade, I knew almost each house and everyone on Monte Cresta Avenue, which was a very short street. I kept asking around to find out where I could move with my Dachshund, “Heidi”.

One day Mrs. Jones, who lived up the street and who loved dogs, came by to tell me that in their apartment building there were always vacancies, but they had only a few one bedroom units. “I will keep my eyes open and let you know,” she said. In the meantime, I prepared for the move. What a job! Over the last sixteen years I had accumulated so much. That stuff just had to go! Reiner had moved to Belmont but he came on weekends to take care of the basement. He didn’t even ask me, he just threw out things he thought I didn’t need. “Reiner, what did you do with the little covered wagon you made for me at your wood-work shop?” “Well, mom, there was a wheel missing, so I threw it out”. - I was very angry, but it didn’t help me at all. It was true, I had too many things and it wasn’t easy to move from a house to a one bedroom apartment. However, I still had a few months to wrap things up.

From Germany came the news that my daughter-in-law, Liesel, Dieter’s wife, was expecting her third child. Bernd, my eighth grandchild, was born on October 10, 1974. Shortly after that, Reiner announced that his wife, Linda, was pregnant also, and grandchild number nine, a little girl, Jennifer, was born on May 14, 1975. Jennifer was only a year old when she went with her parents to Saudi Arabia. TWA had a contract with the Saudis to build a new airport in that country. A few employees were chosen to go and Reiner was one of them. The three of us (Reiner, Linda and myself) had just purchased a house in Belmont. It was meant for my “old age”. Since I couldn’t take care of the house when they were gone, we had to sell it again. My dream of a house of my own just wasn’t meant to come true.

I am not sure the young couple had realized what it meant to come from the United States and live in Saudi Arabia. Financially, they had no worries. TWA had agreed to double the salaries of all those who volunteered to go to Saudi, but money is not everything in this world.

The culture shock must have been tremendous, especially for Linda. In these countries, women are treated like in the Middle Ages. There were so many taboos. They had taken Shawn, their beloved dog, along, but that didn’t help either. The primitive living conditions, the sometimes unbearable climate, and last, but not least, a job that was less than satisfying, all added to the disaster. Linda had some problems with her thyroid gland and had to go back to the States for surgery. Due to some disagreement between the Arabs and TWA employees, Reiner’s job came to an end. TWA called it quits and the volunteers had to return to San Francisco.

I think it was on the return trip from Saudi Arabia when Reiner caught pneumonia. He wanted to visit his father in Pfronten/Allgau, (South Germany) when he got sick and had to spend a week in the hospital. Reiner was the spitting image of his dad, and it always had amazed me how a boy who had never seen his father, could have the same facial expressions. That was when we lived in Japan. Later on Reiner saw his father and paternal grandmother off and on. Since he worked for TWA he got free flights and took advantage of the opportunity to visit his brothers and his dad frequently.

Shortly after their return, Reiner and Linda got a divorce. Reiner kept the house and paid Linda her share. Linda moved with little Jennifer to Sonora. Reiner was so depressed that I was worried about his mental health. It was good for him when a friend who was also separated from his wife, moved in and stayed with him in Belmont for quite a while.

Mrs. Jones had kept her promise and when two 1-bedroom apartments became vacant at the apartment house she lived in, she saw to it that I got one. I moved in July 1975 in a matter of hours. Both of my sons and some friends helped and in no time we had carried my few belongings up the street to the new apartment.

A little more than a year later (on my birthday) I had to retire. In 1976, there was still a law in the United States that anyone (like it or not) had to retire at age 65. I protested heavily and told our newly appointed Safeway boss what I was thinking about the law - “Sooner or later, even Safeway will have to abandon that policy.” I was right. Just a year later, the law was changed and the new retirement age was set at 75 years. Too late for me! I wasn’t long enough with Safeway and wasn’t entitled to a pension, but they were generous enough to give me a few Safeway shares.

Well, I wasn’t that bad off. I got, aside from Social Security, two small pensions -- one from my former employer and one from Germany. It was a bit of a struggle to get the money from Germany, even though I had paid into the fund for many years. I had become an American citizen and there were special rules for such people. I also couldn’t and hadn’t paid my dues during the war and had to make it quite clear to them that I was interned in Indonesia, not because I was an American, but because I was a German. It finally worked and ever since, I am getting the German social security. In spite of retirement, I was still teaching twice a week in Piedmont and every Saturday in San Francisco.

And now it was time to re-organize my daily life. I didn’t have a garden to take care of anymore, but I could have a few flower pots in front of my apartment. But still, what would I do all day long?

It was in the spring of 1977 that I discovered several swimming pools in my area and I decided that swimming was my kind of sport. I started out to swim three times a week, but pretty soon made it a daily affair. The pool and especially the shower/dressing rooms were kind of neglected, but it was an outdoor pool and I loved it.

In December 1977 I quit the German School in San Francisco. I had been their teacher for 25 years and was tired of fighting traffic every Saturday. I also wanted to go on weekend trips once in a while.

I was still teaching in Piedmont but that was during the week and I could take the summer off. I had nine grandchildren by now, but saw them very seldom. By now, my oldest one, Ulrike, was a teenager. She was the only one of the bunch who had dual citizenship since she was born in Berkeley, California, to German “natives” and lived in Germany.

Free flights from TWA made it possible to get over to the “old country” frequently. Jochen, who was an Army sergeant, lived with Annemarie in Andernach on the River Rhine. Annemarie was teaching elementary school there. They had a huge garden where Jochen could nurse his hobby to grow bonsias. Most of the time I took the same routine on my German trips -- Landing in Frankfurt, I took the train from there to Munich and further to Rosenheim, Bavaria, where by brother, Werner, picked me up in his Audi. Werner and his wife, Trude (my best friend from my youth) lived by that time in Bernau on the Chiemsee where they rented an apartment. They had lost their beautiful apartment in Bad Godesberg to the English Occupation Forces after World War II. Their only daughter, Ruth, was married and worked for the Goethe Institute as a teacher in different countries.

Bernau is a quaint little town in Bavaria, between Munich and Salzburg. My brother saw to it that on each visit I got to see that beautiful “Sound of Music” country. In addition, there was a super-modern swimming pool at the place,, the Ozonbad, as they called it.

From O.W., as my sons called my brother (Onkel Werner), I usually went to the River Rhine to see Jochen and the grandchildren and after a week or so, traveled on to see Dieter, who lived in the country near Osnabruck, a big city in northern Germany. I usually took the train for my round trips. It was the cheapest way. As a senior citizen I could travel with a special railroad pass for half the price. I could have taken a plane, also. As the mother of an airline employee, Lufthansa would have given me a 75% discount. Lufthansa has hourly criss-crossing the country.

One time I wanted to spend a typical German Christmas with my family. I flew to Munich first, visited by brother and wanted to continue on Christmas Eve to north Germany. I hadn’t thought of “these strange German ways”. I phoned the German airport to make reservations and got to hear: “On Christmas Eve? No way! Don’t you think the Lufthansa employees deserve a holiday, too? There are no flights scheduled for the next three days”. I was crushed and had to stay where I was. It was a cold winter, high snow in Bavaria and we walked to church at 11 P.M.

“Werner, can’t we take the car?” I asked. “No way,” he answered. “On Christmas Eve we always walk to church, but you don’t by any means, have the intention to come along in slacks? I am not going to go with you to church like that.” What could I say? I had no choice, even if we would be late. I re-learned quickly - you never dare to be late in Germany.

“Remember, dear sister, breakfast is at 8 A.M., lunch at 12 noon sharp, coffee time at 3:30 P.M. and dinner at 7:00 P.M. No exceptions.” A bit inconvenient sometimes, but this is the German way, like it or not. Anyway, the way it turned out, I celebrated Christmas twice that year, once with O.W., and the second, a few days later with Dieter and his large family in Lotte near Osnabruck. I didn’t fly there after all. I took the train, as usual.

That was the only time I spent Christmas in Germany in all those years. Since my daughter-in-law, Marlies, came from Dusseldorf, Germany, we created our German Christmas in California. It had become a tradition that I would spend Christmas Eve with Hartmut, Marlies and their sons. I would stay overnight and all of us would go together to Reiner’s on Christmas Day to celebrate a typical American Christmas with lots of good food and friends, with neighbors dropping by.

There was one exception, though. A week before Christmas in 1980, I had to undergo surgery. Again, it was cancer. I still remember the doctor calling me: “Hi, how is your swimming coming along?” My answer -- “Don’t tell me, doctor, that you call me at 7 P.M. to find out about my swimming. What is the news?” “Well, yesterday’s x-ray doesn’t look so good. In my opinion, you need surgery right away.” That was indeed important news - cancer of the breast! I walked around like a chicken without a head. I knew I would not be able to sleep that night and decided to try not to think about it. So I baked Christmas cookies until midnight. By then, I was so dead tired that I slept well after all.

Dr. Henry, the same surgeon who took away my gallbladder, agreed to do the mastectomy right away, and thus I had to spend Christmas in the hospital. It wasn’t bad. They all came, brought fir branches and decorations and many Christmas cards.

I had no pain, was in good spirits and could go home after a week in the hospital.

In spring 1981, we got a rare visit from the boys’ father, my ex-husband, Wolf, and his second wife, Li. Li also had been married before to Wolf’s brother, Henner, who died in W.W. II. She had two sons from her first marriage - Lutz and Uwe. They were my sons’ cousins and, at the same time, their half-brothers. Li and Wolf had planned a short vacation only, but had time enough to visit with the children and grandchildren and see some of the beauty of California.

One afternoon they came to Oakland to see where I lived. I showed them around and toward evening, I took my 1962 VW Bug, parked it at the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station and all three of us headed to Hayward where Reiner picked up his father and stepmother. When I came home around 10 P.M., my car was gone. What a shock!

After reporting the missing vehicle to the police, I phoned my neighbor to pick me up. The night guard saw me when I came home and after I told him about the incident, he promised to get my car back to me. He was a kind man, a retired police officer, and he kept his promise. Early next morning he called: “We got the Bug”, he said, “We found her in Berkeley - she was involved in a crime”. I never found out what kind of crime it was, but I suspect the thieves wanted to steal my motor because the only thing missing from the car was my bathrobe.

I don’t recall if I went to Germany that year, but in the following years I went frequently, mostly in the summertime. I remember one time I got a little bored - I wanted to see the neighboring countries, too. I contacted a former German student who lived in Switzerland, to give me some addresses of reasonable hotels. Then I called the Rigiblick Hotel in Zurich. “Please reserve for me for three nights your cheapest room,” I requested. “But lady”, he said, “We have other reasonable rooms.” “I know, I know, but I want your cheapest room. And, by the way, do you give any senior discount?” “NO”! I think he was a little shocked - one doesn’t ask such questions in Europe.

The hotel was outside of Zurich. I had to take a streetcar and then walk up the hill with my suitcase for about fifteen minutes. When I arrived, my room wasn’t ready.

“But we have other nice rooms,” the manager said. “I know, I know, but I want the room I had reserved and I am hot and sweaty and want to take a shower.” He gave in and after a few minutes I was in my “cheap” room. It wasn’t bad. In front was a big parking lot, in the back a laundry cabinet where the maids started to work at 6 A.M. The elevator was also in the back. Then on the side there were the bathrooms and showers of the entire second floor. One would expect it to be a very noisy room, but - the Swiss go to bed at 9 P.M. - I at 11 P.M. They sleep in in the morning but I get up at 7 A.M. It was really not bad, very clean and comfortable. Breakfast was included - and a very rich one, too. I don’t eat much for breakfast, but put a sandwich in my pocket. That was enough for lunch, too.

I really didn’t have much money, but I wanted to see at least Luzerne and a bit of the beautiful landscape. So I took off by streetcar and train to Luzerne. What next? I stood in line at the travel office in the train station, when a bus driver approached. “Where do you want to go?” he asked. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here,” was my reply. “Well, then, come with us, we are going by bus and cable car to the mountains.” “Do you have any senior discounts?” “No, of course not.” “Tough luck, then I have to stay here”, I replied. He took off, but was back in a few minutes. “Lady, I have been thinking it over. I’ll split my commission with you.” “Fine, then I’ll come.”

It was a beautiful trip. From the snowy top of the mountain, one could see half of Switzerland. But when we returned to Luzerne, the travel guide dropped me like a hot potato. Sightseeing of Luzerne was not included in my discounted ticket. I had to do it on my own. I looked for the famous lion monument, took a few pictures, bought some chocolate bars, ate dinner at McDonald’s and headed back to the Rigi Hotel in Zurich.

The next day I had to return to northern Germany to see Dieter and from there back to the United States. But before I left Zurich, a few humorous episodes come to mind. I had a few Swiss francs left, and went to the bookstore at the railroad station and bought a funny book for my sister-in-law. Coming to the counter, I mentioned - “Oh my, this is my last franc.” The owner of the store came by quickly and said to the clerk, “Let her have it, don’t take her last franc.” Thank you, sir.” I headed for the next store to buy a yogurt with my precious franc. I got into a conversation with the lady behind the counter, but then I had to pay and leave. “But this is not a franc, it’s an American quarter”, she said. I, for the world, couldn’t find any Swiss money and had to leave the yogurt. I had gone only a few steps when the lady from the store came running after me. “Here, take this,” she said, “as a greeting from me to California - I have relatives there, also.” In the bag she handed me was the yogurt, a napkin and a plastic spoon. I was wishing there would have been a mirror. What did I look like that people always wanted to give me things?

My third experience at the Zurich railroad station was even funnier. In Europe, one always has to pay if one wants to go to the bathroom, but I only had the American quarter. Would they take it? It was a struggle, but I finally managed. By now, I was late for the train and still had to go through customs.

“Anything to declare?” the man asked me. “A few bars of chocolate only,” I said. “You will have to declare it.” “I will not, that is ridiculous. If you want them, you keep them. I just wanted to bring some chocolate from Switzerland to my grandchildren.” He gave me a certain look, but let me go and I managed to catch my train back to Germany.

It was September when I arrived in California and after a few weeks of fighting jet lag, I got used to the old rhythm.

The next Christmas was an exciting one for the entire family. On December 22 I got a call from Reiner, asking me to come over and house sit for a while. He had to take Mary to the Hospital. Little Sarah, grandchild number ten was born on December 23, 1982. The baby was a little premature and had to be put into an incubator for a while.

Mary was a colleague of Reiner. They both worked for TWA and had gotten married in spring 1982. I was glad for Reiner that he had a family again. They stayed at the old house in Belmont, but little by little, the interior was redone - new furniture, new windows, new rugs and new wallpaper. A new bedroom was added and solar heat plates installed. I inherited the living room set from them. It’s in Norwegian style and I love it.

Little Sarah didn’t thrive the way she should, and in the spring of 1983 we found out that there was something wrong. As the doctors explained it, the connection from the brain to the muscles was missing. Otherwise she was a healthy little baby. From now on for years to come, Mary mastered the very difficult task of working and taking care of a handicapped child. She had several au pair girls over the years to help her, but is still was very, very hard.

The mental strain was just as hard. Should they dare to have another child? They took tests and we searched for abnormalities in both families. The doctors finally decided that it was a birth defect and had nothing to do with the genes.

Sarah was just two years old when Justin, grandchild number eleven, was born on November 17, 1984. I think his name was perfect. There was certain justice that he was a delightful, completely normal child.

Justin was the last of the bunch. There were no more grandchildren to be expected, neither in California nor in Germany.

I had taken up teaching again at the German Saturday School, first in Oakland and later in Berkeley at the U.C. campus. I met some very nice German teachers there, but with the children it was a constant struggle. They didn’t want to waste their Saturdays learning German - they rather wanted to play.

For a while, I drove the ten miles out to Lafayette three times a week to teach the language to children of German parents. I had to be there early in the morning, before regular school started.

After a while, I gave up. After all, I was retired and teaching Adult School was enough. I had other hobbies, too - knitting, sewing, and last but not least, swimming. In addition, after my last surgery, I had started to become a volunteer at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley.

Through the evening school, I met some wonderful people. One evening two girls invited me to come to dinner with them after class. I didn’t exactly like going out to dinner at 10 P.M., so the week after that I asked the girls to come to my place and eat leftovers. They responded enthusiastically and from then on they came every week. When a third lady wanted to come and then a fourth one, I had to put a stop to it -- my table was not large enough. All four of the girls were unmarried and were looking forward to the weekly German meals. Each time they brought plenty of wine and cheese. They drank the wine, but pretty soon I was drowning in cheese and asked them not to bring any more. We then agreed that it would be much better if they would pay a small amount toward the dinners and then that wonderful club got a name:

“The Honorable and Esteemed Association of Enthusiastic Diners, known as -- The Dining Society”.

This delightful experience has now become a tradition which we all enjoy so much. It was - and still is - fun to cook for them. After more than ten years, we don’t meet every week anymore, but it is still lots of fun to have them once or twice a month. We became such good friends.

In 1986 I wanted to go to Germany again. Dieter, whose birthday was in October, would be 50 years old. Reiner had again made it possible that I could fly first class. That gave me plenty of room and time to finish the blanket I had started. I had knitted 50 squares and was putting them together. It was a heavy blanket and I almost regretted that I had to carry it, in addition to my other luggage. At the last minute before the plane left, Reiner came with a bottle of champagne.

“Oh, no,” I said. “Please, Mom, take this to big brother. I wish him a Happy Birthday.” What could I say? I had to change planes in New York and had to wait a few hours in between. So I asked the TWA employee at the gate to keep my champagne until my plane to Germany would leave. I almost forgot it and when I came to the counter, it wasn’t there any more - they had changed shifts and the new man had put it in the back room. In addition to the blanket, I had given a pipe to Dieter. The enclosed poem for his 50th birthday expressed the motherly thought that with 50 he was now ready to use the rocking chair a lot. I still don’t know whether he thought it was funny or not.

Today is November 1, 1996. A few weeks ago was Dieter’s 60th birthday. How fast the years go by and the older one gets, the faster the days--months--years fly! I try to get faster in swimming, too, but that doesn’t mean that “Father Time” has to race also.

I have now been retired for twenty years, but it hasn’t been much of a retirement. Day and evening classes in German; volunteer jobs at a hospital and a senior center; classes in creative writing, handicrafts and swimming, and last--but not least-- church choir singing, all keep me more than busy!

Also, the hospital didn’t let me out of its clutches entirely. In 1987 I had to have carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand. A year later I had some skin cancer removed behind my ear. In 1989, I had a tumor removed from one of my fingers.

It seemed that the hospital didn’t want to let go. I had bladder surgery in 1990 and it was cancer again, which was the most frightening event to me. I remember asking the doctor, “What if your knife slips and goes through the wall of the bladder?”

He smiled patiently and said, “You know, your bladder is an amazing organ. Should such an unfortunate thing happen, the walls of the bladder will close immediately, like one of those modern rubber tires.”

That calmed me down, but I still kept a close watch on the surgeon. I had only a spinal anesthetic and was fully aware of what was going on. There was a shiny metal disk above my head and I could see into it like a mirror. The good doctor was not quite as patient any more, when I asked some irritating questions. At the following two biopsies which followed the surgery, they put a little something into the intravenous fluid to make me fall asleep. The surgeon was very good-natured, and when he was through, he shouted, “You can get up now, Margot, and go swimming.”

Yes, it was sometimes difficult to fit all these operations into my tight swimming schedule. Since retirement I had been swimming almost daily, at different pools. I had joined the Pacific Master Swimmers and the U.S. Master Swimmers. There were swim meets here and there, all the time.

In the Fall of 1991, I got an application from the “U.S. President’s Council for Physical Fitness” for the “Presidential Sports Award”. I had to swim 25 miles within three months and made it a week before my birthday.

I think Dieter and Jochen, my two older sons, were almost as excited about this award as I was. Jochen took photos right away of the document and of President Bush’s signature.

The boys had flown in from Germany to celebrate my 80th birthday with me and to be with Hartmut and Reiner, their younger brothers.

All four of my sons hadn’t been together at the same time for almost thirty years. It was quite emotional. For once I wanted my entire family for myself. For the first half of the day I didn’t want any guests. Several of the young folks didn’t understand. “Why?!” they said. But they never do, and never will understand that a mother wants, once in a while, to have her brood all to herself. When you are 80, you don’t care too much any more what other people think about you.

I had arranged the whole party and felt good about it. I am of the opinion that when you are over 70 years old, you should celebrate your life at least every five years and be grateful to the Lord that you are “way up there” and still are physically and mentally in good shape.

I had asked my family to start the day (December 1, 1991) with me in the Piedmont Community Church at 10 a.m. I wanted them to listen to the very talented church choir, of which I have been a member for many years. I thought it was such a nice beginning of the day.

After church, we went to a restaurant near the beach, ate lunch, walked along the shoreline and took photos.

The afternoon and evening were spent with family and friends at my apartment. A mountain of prepared open sandwiches, salads and cakes were waiting for us.

It was a wonderful birthday, and as Dieter wrote later, “...an experience we’ll never forget.”

Guess what I got from him for Christmas? An album with photos of all of us, taken on my 80th birthday--a little, but bright spot in my life!

Life is not always that favorable and fair. In late December of 1992, shortly after her 10th birthday (December 23), Reiner and Mary’s little daughter, Sarah, had to be taken to Children’s Hospital in Oakland. Nobody thought it was that serious, but she died within a few days. I wrote a short story in her memory:

Jennifer is not that little girl anymore. She just turned 21 and is studying architecture. Ulrike, the oldest of my grandchildren, is married and has two children -- Moritz born on July 30, 1992, and his sister, Nele, on August 8, 1995. Ulrike’s sister, Anette, gave birth to a girl a month earlier. Anjuli Aida was born on June 7, 1995, in Koblenz, Germany, but lived on Calvi on the island of Corsica. Ulrike’s and Anette’s brother, Ruediger, is not quite finished with his education. He wants to become a physical therapist.

Hartmut and Marlies’ two sons are now completely on their own. James is a computer programmer and Jason is a Navy Engineer. Jason surprised all of us recently when he announced that he had gotten married to Tammy, a good friend from the Naval Academy.

Three more grown-up, but not married, grandchildren are living in northern Germany. Ute, who switched from designing for an architect to selling jewelry; Bernd, who is in the process of becoming a homeopath; and Ralf, the oldest of the three who just graduated from college as a biochemist, had chosen to continue his studies at the University of Hong Kong and works at the same time as a T.A. at the university. Fortunately, I could see my six German grandchildren during frequent visits to Germany - almost more than the four in California.

This is one bitter pill I had to swallow: I didn’t get to see my grandchildren regularly. Either the parents didn’t take the time to visit Grandma, or they didn’t want to leave the children with me overnight. I remember after having complained about that, Reiner remarked, “Don’t be upset, Mom, my children will visit you as often as you want them to.” Yes, he probably had the best intentions, but Jennifer, who is now on her own, came a few times, but Justin hardly knows his grandmother and has, during the twelve years of his life, never been with me alone or overnight. I will probably never understand -- is it jealousy or fear that I am too strict, or too old, or what? Are they aware what they are doing to the children by denying them a grandmother? I only hope that the same thing doesn’t happen to them when they become grandparents.

In a few short years, all four of my sons have already experienced, or will have to experience, the “empty nest” syndrome”. It will be harder for them than it was for me. I was most of my life independent and on my own and yet it was depressing when both of the boys left me.

I tried all kinds of things -- joined a German Club, did some choir singing and went on hikes with the Sierra Club. Finally I decided to go back to school to work toward by B.A. degree. That helped, but when I retired in 1976, I had more time and added swimming to my “entertainment”. Pretty soon that sport became serious business. In 1987, the first National Senior Olympics would be held in St. Louis, and if I wanted to compete, I had to train hard.

For the following ten years, swimming became my main focus. It was not a bad choice, and helped me to stay young and healthy in spite of my advanced years.

The biennial event of the Senior Olympics, or Senior Sports Classic as it is called now, is indeed an adventure. It is a national event and therefore each second year in another city and another state.

All I remember from the first one in 1987 is that it was very, very hot. I had qualified and flew to St. Louis, Missouri. There were probably 1,000 participants. They gave us an impressive welcoming party on a ship that was anchored in the Mississippi River.

Two years later in 1989, the games were again in St. Louis and again it was really hot. I had picked the right sport, swimming, but this time the participants had doubled and the waiting lines were longer. Even though we were in our swimsuits, it was almost unbearable to sit in the hot sun from 8 A.M. to 3 P.M. There was no shade and the events for the 70 and 80 year olds came last and when my turn finally came, I was already exhausted from the heat. Fortunately, my son and daughter-in-law had come along to give me some support. Coincidentally, my granddaughter participated in the Junior Olympics while her grandmother was in the Senior Olympics. We flew together to St. Louis.

I had practiced diligently all these years and had qualified again for the 1991 Games. This time I had a coach and this kind lady was very patient and helped me a lot. She also accompanied me to Syracuse, New York. We stayed at the Holiday Inn and were treated like queens. It was in June again, but not quite as hot.

The Senior Sports Classic IV took place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1993. I could now qualify in the 80+ age group which gave me hopes that there wouldn’t be so many competitors. Whom was I kidding? By now they had over 4,000 athletes. In the 80+ group there were over 100 (fortunately, mostly men). I managed to win a ribbon for 4th place and was as proud as a peacock. After our experience in St. Louis’s hot sun, we had suggested that they let the older athletes swim in the mornings. They did that in Syracuse, but switched back after the first day and we couldn’t go on the bus trip to Niagara Falls. In Louisiana, the same thing - time and event changes all the time. But this time, we got all the news and changes right away. My daughter-in-law and I stayed at the dorms of the University of Louisiana and since the accommodations were so reasonable, we had added an extra day, participated in a picnic with a “Mardi Gras” performance and visited a famous ranch nearby.

The extra day was spent in New Orleans, a city I adore. The Hotel d’Armes near Bourbon Street, where we stayed, was worth the visit. In a cottage type garden setting with the swimming pool and antique furniture, it was just charming. The next morning we took a boat trip to the site of “Battle of New Orleans”, which was very enjoyable in that hot climate. What an adventure!

But not only are these Senior Olympic trips adventurous, they are also educational. This is my way of getting to know the United States.

After Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I was asking myself: “Would I be able to participate in the next games also? Would I still be alive? I wasn’t getting any younger. My doubts were well-founded. Early in 1994 I fell and broke both legs at the same time. Six weeks of training time were lost, but little by little the muscles came back. It was actually easier to swim than to walk. When in January 1995 I got a letter telling me that I had made the “Top Ten” for 1994, in the United States Master Swimmers (they have 28,000 members), my optimism came back. Telling myself - “Why shouldn’t I make it - the others were getting older, too?”

I trained daily, as before, and at the end of January came the expected letter: “You have qualified and are invited to the Senior Sports Classic V in San Antonio, Texas.” The date was June 17-24, which meant that I had four months to get ready. To swim 30 to 45 minutes per day was not enough. Until May I swam twice daily and got to the point where I didn’t want to see a pool anymore.

While I was still in training for the 1995 Games, there were already qualifying swim meets for 1996 going on. I participated in the one in Fairfield, California and got two gold and two silver medals. That gave me some confidence and calmed me down a bit. The entire month of May was exciting enough. San Antonio was expecting 8,000 athletes and 23,000 visitors. We had trouble getting room reservations. My son, who was going to accompany me, couldn’t get the entire week off from work, but could leave 1/2 day earlier.

We finally made it. Left at 12 noon on Saturday, May 20, and arrived at 9:30 P.M. in San Antonio. That is, we arrived half an hour late and our reserved Budget rental car had been given away to another customer. We waited and waited and finally got a car for two days. When we arrived at Trinity University, where we had made reservations, around 11 P.M., the doors were closed and we couldn’t get our keys to the dorms. No answer to our phone calls. Here we were in a large university parking lot at 11 P.M. What could we possibly do? Well, the campus police came to the rescue and opened our room. At this point we didn’t even care that we couldn’t lock the door all night.

Next morning our first question was: “Where is the cafeteria?” We hadn’t eaten dinner the night before and we were hungry. We found the cafeteria, but the special dining booklets for the senior athletes were all sold out and we had to pay full price.

We had Sunday set aside to get acquainted with the entire organization, to go to the headquarters, to pick up permits for my son and myself, the keys to the room and my credential. Then I had to go and practice in the 50-meter “Palo Alto” pool, which was a 20-minute drive away, and finally we had to be back by 5:30 P.M. to take the bus with the rest of the crowd and have dinner at Seaworld. While I was practicing, my son watched the track and field events.

We were back in time and were looking forward to Seaworld, but it took the buses a long time to transport the hundreds and hundreds of people and there were very long waiting lines before they finally opened the gates to Seaworld. They had announced that we first should see the whale show and then pick one of the many restaurants for dinner.

Seaworld is a beautiful place but almost everything was closed. They had one small trolley car for over 1,000 people and hopelessly long lines. My son said right away: “Come on, Mom, let’s walk.” The distance was huge and I realized then that I hadn’t practiced walking at home. My legs hadn’t quite recovered from surgery and they felt kind of shaky. I must have looked kind of doubtful but there was Reiner’s convincing voice again: “Come on, Mom, you’ll make it. We’ll walk slowly.”

Well, we made it to the whale show and enjoyed it (I especially enjoyed the sitting down part). After the show, we had to find a restaurant. “Reiner, let’s look. There must be one nearby,” I said. No such luck! the first one was out of food. The second one, a mile away, had a long waiting line and they almost ran out of food, also. But there was at least a stone bench for me to rest, while Reiner stood in line again.

To make a long story short, we walked and walked and finally around 11 P.M. the bus took us back to Trinity University. I was exhausted.

Monday, May 22nd, was my day to swim. Since my leg, and especially the area around my implant, had hurt all night long, Reiner insisted that I rest in the morning, which I did. But then, I was ready for a good lunch. Afterwards, I had a guilty conscience that I ate because, in general, before swimming, one only drinks water. Well, my first event (50 m Breast) was not scheduled before 5:29 P.M. and the second one (50 m Back) at 7:15 P.M. - that was a few hours away.

We were supposed to be at the pool at 2 P.M. and we were in time. When we arrived, we were told that all afternoon events would be three hours late. Good luck! Was I ever glad I had eaten lunch.

My first event came finally at 8:15 P.M. and the next one at 10:15 P.M. By that time most people were exhausted, hot (95 degrees F) and hungry. Finally, they brought in some orange and apple slices and a few bananas. I know it must have been hard for the manager to take care of the 597 people on this afternoon, but why on earth did they take the oldest swimmers last? People age 90+ finally left after midnight. In spite of all this, I did all right (swam both events in approximately 1:30 minutes).

Tuesday was my day off. After a nice breakfast, we went to town. San Antonio is a beautiful city, but it is a little difficult to sightsee when you can’t walk. Also, parking was hard to find - being a forgetful old lady, I had left my handicap sign back in the room. We managed to see the Alamo and then decided to take the River Walk. That is, we didn’t walk, we took a boat and it was beautiful. It was slightly overcast, so we didn’t have to endure the blasting hot sun. It was delightful to be driven through the lush tropical greenery interrupted by small bridges. On both sides of the river banks, there were beautiful modern buildings, restaurants, cafes and everywhere, colorful sun umbrellas. Snooping through a few stores, a short walk along the river and an ice cream cone ended our excursion.

In the afternoon, we drove by the pool (about 20 miles away) to make sure the next day’s events would be in time since it was our last day in San Antonio and the plane would leave at 6 P.M. It was close enough as it was, my 50 m Freestyle was scheduled for 4:13 P.M., but they assured us Wednesday that we wouldn’t have any problems. We drove back to the campus and since we had some time left, took a glance at the track and field events and went downtown for dinner.

We slept in on Wednesday, but then we had to rush - breakfast, parking, returning the room key and driving to downtown to see a very good movie on “The Battle of the Alamo”. We made it in time to be at the Palo Alto pool at 1:30 P.M. To our great surprise, they were on time. That is, almost on time. My 50 m Freestyle had been changed from 4:13 P.M. to 4:48 P.M. What should we do? I had already canceled the 100 m Breast scheduled for 5:36 P.M. and didn’t want to cancel this one. Fortunately, Reiner was calm and collected -- I was not!

But then the coordinator announced that they had many cancellations and would try to combine events and heats. “Goodie, goodie,” I thought - got into swimsuit and cap and jumped into the warm pool. Here it came over the loudspeaker (exactly at 4:15 P.M.): “Event #210, heat #1, take your marks, ready, go...” I dove in, swam the 50 m Freestyle (in 1.30 minutes) to the end, hurried to get out. Reiner and a very kind volunteer pulled, pushed, shoved me to the dressing room. Reiner drove the car to the front entrance. The volunteer helped me to get into the car and away we went in the direction of the airport (20 minutes). Good-bye, San Antonio, until next time!

Indeed, it is an adventure to participate in these games. We just heard that the next ones will be in Tucson, Arizona, in May 1997. I swam in June in the State of California Championship Games and have qualified to participate in the Nationals. It’s probably my last one -- but who can say? Anyway, I am in good shape and my legs don’t hurt anymore.

However, before I leave for Tucson, I want to celebrate my 85th birthday right here, with as many members of my family as possible. Dieter, Jochen and grandson Bernd have announced that they will come from Germany and I do hope that my California family can make it, too.

I will bring my story to an end with a few words by Alexandra David-Neel (from the book “On Top of the World” by Luree Miller):

And I believe that there exists a mental attitude capable of shaping circumstances

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Margot at age 14
1917 Margot age 6
My childhood home , the “Stein’s” residence
The Lenigk’s enjoying their first son Dieter 1936
View from our home to Mount
Koerintji (Sumatra)
About 1944
Dieter and his Japanese
girlfriend
in Nara
1952 (back) Hartmut and Reiner (front) Dieter and Jochen
Picture taken in 1948
(left to right) Reiner, Harmmut, Jochen, Dieter and Margot
Hartmut, Margot and Reiner Xmas 1996
Reiner, Hartmut, Jochen and Dieter 1991
Dieter, Margot and Jochen 1996
Senior Olympics
1987-1999

Illustrations
1. Cover Photo - Margot in Lavender field/France
2. After page 3 - Albrecht Stein death certificate and Stein crest
3. After page 8 - Margot’s childhood photos
4. After page 9 - Castle “ Neuschivanstein (Germany)
5. After page 24 - Baby Dieter & other photos
6. After page 39- Nara, Japan
7. After page 52 - Ship (General Black)
8. After page 55- Margot & her four sons in 1948
9. After page 57 - Yosemite, California
10. After page 90 - Family Photos, grown up
11. After page 94 - Senior Olympics (Margot/medals) & Presidential Fitness Award
12. After last page - Margot at her 84th birthday