The radio

By May of 1944, the daily barrage of victory news on German
radio had ceased. After events in North Africa and the Allied
landings in Italy, Germany went from an offensive to defensive
posture overnight. Our news reports were undoubtedly censored, but
over time a vivid picture still developed that didn’t bode well for
Germany. Nazi commentators couldn’t totally gloss over the bad news
from the east and west. Every setback on the battlefronts resulted
in more deprivation at home. The real truth was all around us,
and it gave more and more people the courage to risk turning to
another source of information — the BBC German language broadcasts.

It may seem ridiculous that we feared being caught listening to
foreign radio. Naturally, it was impossible to police every radio
in every German kitchen and living room, but in a totalitarian
state, constant surveillance in each village and town wasn’t
necessary to establish fear. You worried about the neighbors and
their possible ambitions in and loyalty to the regime. The Gestapo
didn’t need an agent in every block, only people willing to report
the sins of their neighbors.

The shortages in food and materials for the civilian
population worsened, compounded in 1943 and 1944 by the poor
potato harvests. The scarcity of this main staple in our diet did
as much as anything to dampen German spirits. In the past, any
shortages were supplemented by shipping the product in from
another place, but bombing and strafing attacks on transportation
made this nearly impossible.

(Erich was home on a short leave from the Navy, but grew angry
when he learned Mama was pregnant to cure her severe illness. The
new baby was to be named Peter after my grandfaher.)

After Erich had left us in a huff, we heard nothing for months.
I wrote to him regularly, describing Peter’s progress and sweet
nature, and hoped the lack of mail from him was caused by sea duty,
not anger. Finally, in early July, a letter came. He explained in a
somewhat cryptic fashion, that he’d just been able to catch up
with his mail. While he was never allowed to state specific
information about assignments and missions, we were able to figure
out that he’d spent some time in Denmark. He covered quite a lot
in the letter, but didn’t acknowledge his new brother.

On July twentieth, the radio brought shocking news of an attempt
to kill the Führer. We were reassured that Hitler was only slightly
hurt, and he took to the air himself a short time later, promising
to punish the perpetrators and fight on against all enemies inside
and outside our country. This time, not many people found
inspiration in his words or voice. After a few days, the incident
amounted to no more than another hammer blow to numb the senses.
We all had problems closer to home to worry over.

"Papa's amazing blind cousin"

Excerpt from Ch. 9:

We were on the road very early in the morning, so Papa stopped at
a bakery in one of the first villages. He bought two piping hot hard-
crusted rolls,fresh from the oven, and a small chocolate bar. We
each took a roll, literally cracking them open to reveal the
steaming soft interior. Quickly popping chunks of sweet chocolate
into the center, we closed them again to await the delicious result.

All along our route, we drove through inhabited places of varying
size. Tiny villages like Marienthal, the castle ruins of Falkenstein,
the larger market town of Rockenhausen, and a big wine-producing
monastery overlooking the quiet Nahe river, were all part of the
passing scene. I felt like a tourist, for much of what I saw was
new to me.

Bad Kreuznach reminded me of Bad Kissingen, with all of its fancy
resort hotels and gardens, mineral-water Salinen and lovely open
parks. I would have liked to see more, but Papa drove into the city
center to a row of high apartment buildings right on the Nahe
river’s edge.

Hilde lived in one of the buildings with her husband Walter and
twelve year-old son Horst. Both were already gone for the day when,
we arrived, so it was Hilde herself who answered the door. She
didn’t know we were coming, but that seemed to make no difference
at all. In our family, people always ‘dropped in.’

Papa greeted Hilde warmly. “Here, Hilde, I’ve brought you company
for the day. My Annchen!”

She immediately reached out, hugging me and drawing me through
the doorway. My father had said she could only sense light and
dark, so it surprised me that she knew where I stood. Her soft
hand explored my face, head and long braids, as her kind voice
welcomed us. Shyness wasn’t my problem as I tried to respond to
the tiny lady — it was more like being overwhelmed that someone,
who obviously couldn’t see, accepted me nonetheless.

Papa briefly explained that he would come in the evening, giving
me a smile as he said it. Then he was gone. I was left to face a
new challenge of being with a blind person, and for a whole day.
I’d been told Hilde was born blind, but not much more. My head
was filled with questions for her that I couldn’t ask. Something
inside told me to watch and listen.

As we walked through the small apartment to the living room, I
could see that Hilde moved with grace and ease. Everything was
sparkling clean and neatly arranged. The temptation to ask how
she kept the place so nice was strong, but I resisted.

“Come, child. Sit by me and tell me all about yourself.” She then
reached to a side table, picked up a knitting project, and quickly
started working the needles. “I’ll knit while you talk.”

I was amazed as I watched her fingers expertly purl and knit the
yarn. I had gotten to be a pretty fair knitter, but in no way could
I match Hilde’s skill. She obviously knew what I was thinking. “I
knit all our sweaters. The only difficulty is putting together
all the finished pieces. Walter’s mother lives near by, and helps
me do that part.” She changed the subject back to me. “Tell me
now about school and that rascal Erich, and dear Marie too.”

In no time, her interest and attention to me had my mouth going
non-stop. Because she always turned her face my way when I spoke,
and by witnessing all her abilities, Hilde’s blindness was nearly
forgotten. When I discovered that she also knitted garments for
regular customers to bring in extra income, I knew what Papa meant
when he called her a special person.

After the noon meal, she showed me around the apartment. Its
neatness and order told me the old saying, ‘A place for everything
and everything in its place,’ was especially important to someone
who couldn’t see. I was also shown the balcony projecting out over
the Nahe river. At one end was a small enclosure which I learned
was the toilet. The inside of Hilde’s balcony outhouse looked just
like mine at home, except our waste went into an underground
storage to be emptied several times a year for eventual use as
garden fertilizer. For Hilde, and others living along the river,
waste disposal was less of a problem. I was not exactly comfortable
with the idea of dirtying the river, but that’s the way it was.

Hilde had flower boxes along the balcony rail that were filled
with showy red Geraniums. Most of the balconies I could see had
similar displays, and it made me sad that she couldn’t see them.
From my balcony vantage point, I could also see one of the land-
marks of Bad Kreuznach. Just downstream, the river swirled beneath
a group of large houses built across a bridge.

Later, when Hilde and I walked to the town center to shop, we had
to cross the famous stone bridge that had been built several
hundred years before. Going along the inhabited side, there was no
sense of being on a bridge. All of the buildings, arranged in a
solid line,appeared like the usual apartment houses, with businesses
at the ground level. The realization of being on a bridge came only
by looking across the street. There, beyond a low wall, was a view
of the Nahe flowing away. I had to wonder what it would be like to
live on a bridge.

As we went from shop to shop buying for the evening meal, she took
my arm and hardly used her walking stick. Normally, she said, the
stick was used to warn her of obstacles, but she had the exact
steps to each turning point and store put to memory. “It’s nice,”
she laughed, “to not have to count today.”

I smiled, studying this person who was only as tall as me. “I just
hope I don’t get us lost.”

“Don’t you fret about that,” she chuckled. “I’ll say something
when the sidewalk doesn’t feel right under my feet.”

It was to Oma Klein’s side of the family that she belonged. That
explained a lot about her sweet nature, but more than that, I
learned disabled people could be productive and happy.

In the evening, I met Walter and Horst. Hilde already had the
potatoes peeled and the other ingredients prepared. Her husband
did the actual cooking. How I expected Walter to look didn’t
match reality. Slightly taller than Hilde, he was a pleasant
looking man,one that any woman with sight may have been pleased
to have. It was another lesson — jumping to conclusions was a
bad habit.

Driving home and talking with Papa about Hilde and others in
the family, I began to realize what he wanted for me. Over the
summer, he’d been using our travels together as a main chance
for me to know and understand his love of family. I never
doubted that he loved his wife and children, and I’d seen his
great affection for his mother, but until that day I’d never
fully known the true size of his heart.

Hitler and women.

Excerpt from "On a Green Twig":
The Deutche Frau was Hitler's main early target - - -
The dour and sometimes bitter demeanor that best described Mama
during the Marnheim years started giving way to a new positive
outlook after the move to Kirchheim. Her behavior in early 1939
surprised me at times. A near radical fervor for National
Socialism grew stronger in her with each passing day. And, it
worried Papa.

“Mariechen, he is not a god,” He said, following another speech
by Hitler.

“He’s only a man, and can make wrong decisions too. It’s not good
for you to have total faith in a politician!”

Papa wasn’t all that concerned about the excitement his children
had for all the radio talk of ‘a new and greater German Reich.’
We were young and needed a feeling of pride in our country. He
believed most people of his generation and older weren’t
completely taken in by Nazism, and would go along without
complaint only as long as the programs of the government continued
restoring financial security. As for the more radical elements —
those who espoused complete loyalty to one man and his ideas, my
father looked on them with suspicion.

With Mama, he worried that she was the perfect target for the Nazi
message. Since the collapse of Seppel’s empire, forcing them back
to Marnheim, Papa had lived patiently with her despondency and
absence of faith in anything but the Bible. For years, he lost every
effort to make his wife believe that success would come again. Adolf
Hitler had succeeded where he’d failed. Hitler was very clever in
winning the loyalty of the common people through the kitchen door.
His speeches constantly extolled the virtues of the “Deutsche Frau”
and “Deutsche Mutter,” as guardians of the home and the nation. And,
we all heard when the Führer repeatedly used phrases like “Gott ist
mein Zeuge!” (God is my witness!). God and the ‘German mother’
references always had a special appeal to religious women like my
mother.

Starting church in Kirchheim

Chapter Seven

I started attending church with Mama after our move. At the time, it wasn’t customary to take children until they could comfortably sit through a service. We went to the smaller St. Peter’s, a charming yet plain church with well-worn pews on the ground floor facing a simple altar and pulpit. A curved balcony covering the back half held a pipe organ and extra seating. I found the
church experience a little surprising. Except for singing, people kept quiet and
paid close attention to the Pfarrer (pastor).

St. Peter’s Kirche was located behind the city hall on Langstraße, but faced the Amtsstraße. Back when it was built in the year 1200, and for centuries after, it was Catholic and called St. Remigius Kirche. The Reformation in the Fifteenth century, led by Martin Luther, changed all that. Later, as Kirchheim became primarily Protestant, it was decided by the ruling Prince to build a church five times bigger, across and just up the Amtsstraße next to the old palace grounds. The new one was named St. Paul’s. It was too big to heat in winter, except for special occasions, and the smaller St. Peter’s would come back into use for the cold months.

Most memorable was my first Christmas service held in St. Paul’s, especially heated for the occasion. December 25th fell on Sunday that year, a fact that enabled Erich to come along. Sunday meetings of the Hitler Jugend usually kept him from attending. With Papa, it made for a rare appearance of our whole family seated in the pews. My father went to church once a year — on Christmas.

On Christmas, I heard for the first time the grand “Mozart” pipe organ, so named because Wolfgang Amadeus performed concerts on it. The congregation area, both on the ground floor and upstairs, struck me as rather plain.

The sidewalls and rear area were also without embellishment, except for the lovely stained glass windows, still in place at the time. All the glory was concentrated in the front altar area, and in the pulpit at the second level. Here was all the grandeur of the woodcarver’s art. The railings, tables, chairs, lecterns, pulpit, and even the wall behind the altar were all beautifully hand-carved. At the third level above, was the famous pipe organ created by master craftsman
Michael Stumm. When it’s glorious roar reached out to me on Christmas day 1938, there was no doubt of my new addiction.

In many ways, St. Paul’s didn’t appear like a church at all on the outside. No fancy steeple reaches for heaven, no bell tower of any kind — just a huge block of a building with only stained windows to indicate it’s religious purpose. Even these beautiful works of art were later removed, leaving only the altar and pipe organ as the center of beauty and religion.

Mozart, on his first visit in January 1778, was also confused about St. Paul’s lack of religious appearance, asking his hosts if it was the Royal Theater. Mozart would learn that it was the Schloßkirche (Palace church), as it was called in those days. The church was built next to the Schloßgarten (Palace garden) wall, which allowed the royal family private access to it. It was Princess Caroline, wife of Prince Carl Christian, who asked that Mozart performed an evening concert at the church’s massive pipe organ. He apparently entertained well enough to be invited back two more times. All this, I read in a pamphlet from a holder by the front door.

I have no idea as to the truth of it, but folklore says that Prince Carl August von Nassau-Weilburg, father of Carl Christian, had the church built in the 1740’s from ill-gotten money. Seems that Carl A. loved to gamble, and he especially liked to go to France and wager against King Louis. According to the story, the last time he traveled to Paris was in 1741 when he promptly got into a high stakes game with the king, losing all his money. Apparently, in the heat of the moment, the Prince became a bit rash and bet all his lands, including Kirchheimbolanden, against the King’s hand in the next game. Agreeing with the bet, this Louis — the fifteenth in a long line — is said to have taken the time to figure the worth of the lands in question. Once settled, the bet went forward. Luckily, for us, Carl August won and Louis XV graciously paid off in gold!

Supposedly the gold was used to build St. Paul’s later on. It did not include a bell tower, according to legend, because the new church was already higher than the Prince’s palace. Besides, he thought the bell tower of St. Peter’s, just across the street could be used. And so it was as I settled into Kirchheim life.

(The famed Mozart Organ can be heard by searching YouTube.Com for "Harre Meine Seele")

Climbing a mountain

In late spring, for the Pfingsten (Whitsuntide) religious holiday, Germans make a special commune with nature. I first participated when I was four yearsold. I know that because of a photo taken of the 1934 outing. My parents, Erich and I, and a group of neighbors are shown resting on a grassy embankment that ran along the narrow road half way to the top of our Donnersberg (ThunderMountain). The Donnersberg is 687 meters, or 2,273 feet high — the highest elevationin the Pfalz. It’s always had a great significance in the lives of our people. Oneof our Pfälzer writers, Heinrich Weis, once wrote that the mountain reminded him of a god, who in the form of a huge bull, came to rest among the forested hills. Happy there, he stayed and allowed the trees to cover him as well. While small as mountains go, it does obstruct and disperse severe weather coming from the west, but I don’t know if the name comes from that or Celtic mythology. Tramping up the mountain each year as a young girl, such things meant little to me. In time I would learn that the Donnersberg had many legends, some that came down through the centuries from Celtic tribes that made thetop a fortified home. Much later, Napoleon Bonaparte would be so impressed by the mountain on one of his campaigns into Germany, he designated the region Departement du Mont-Tonnerre. For the moment, however, local history had no place in the excitement of reaching our destination. We young ones always separated from our elders upon reaching the peak, to make the more arduous climb to the top of the watchtower. Called the “Ludwigsturm” after one of our old Kaisers, it was higher than any of the tallest trees. Entering through a door at the base, we’d start up a spiral stone staircase. Except for the occasional small square opening in the outside wall, it was quitedark. Even young legs began to ache before bright daylight greets the climber stepping out on a large platform, enclosed by a meter-high stone wall. The viewfrom the top of Ludwigsturm is breathtaking. Erich took pleasure in showingoff his knowledge by pointing out distant big cities like Kaiserslautern far to the south, Mainz in the north, and Worms on the eastern horizon. In between, was the panorama of rolling fields of every hue, deep wooded valleys, andvillages spotted here and there. To the west and southwest, the landscape was almost entirely rugged forest, as far as my eyes could see.

On a Green Twig

EXCERPTS FROM "ON A GREEN TWIG":

From the foreword:

The Pfalz, as most Germans call it, was once a part of Bavaria, but came into its own as a state early in the 20th century. This heavily forested, hilly area, bordered on the east by Germany’s famous wine region, is special to the native Pfälzer. It became so as well to British and American bombers heading for targets along the Rhein river in war. These included Mainz, Ludwigshafen, Mannheim, Worms, Speyer and Neustadt along the river, and on south toward very industrial Kaiserslautern.(Pfalz is pronounced like 'False.' A native citizen is a Pfälzer, pronounced 'fell-sir.')

I’m blessed with a clear memory of my youth, for which I credit the absence of television and other such diversions while growing up. Even listening to the radio and recordings didn’t enter my life until the age of seven, and then sparingly. Daily entertainments revolved around simple play with friends in a sheltered environment, school studies, and a constant flow of stories told within the family. All of it is indelibly etched in my memory.

From the prologue:

Adam Herbst was the youngest son of one of my mother’s uncles. While Adam was first cousin to Mama, he was just ten years older than me and, over the years, I was often treated as more of a younger sister. An incident on the occasion of his confirmation celebration at the end of eighth grade set the later course of our encounters on a humorous note. I stuck my tongue out at the camera taking the mandatory formal family photo. I have a rather long tongue, so there was no doubt in the photo about my five-year-old behavior. The image made Mama mad, but Adam thought it hilarious, teasing me about it for years to come.

(The following is a reference to my Opa Peter known far and wide as “Seppel” after his father before him, though neither man was so named at birth. After Peter‘s death my Papa became “Seppel.”)

#####

Peter Klein died on April 14, 1932. He was sixty-six years old. I was only two, but heard often about his funeral in later years, especially from Mama. “The burial procession was so long,” she said, “the end of it was still in the village when the casket reached the cemetery high on the hill.” Sometimes, when she was in a bitter mood, she would add that the scene was also one of shame. “So many of those black-clad people owed Seppel their respect, but also a lot of money.”

Photo found at the beginning of the "Marnheim Years":

No doubt,this has to be the first picture taken of me. I was
perhaps one and a half years old. As for the quality of the photo,
I can imagine that it was taken by one of the neighbors using
a primitive box camera. So it goes!

####

From Chapter One:

The personalities of my father and mother were so strikingly different; anyone might wonder what had brought them together. I’ve come to believe that in the beginning, Papa’s attraction to Mama was ninety-percent physical. He was a hard-working optimist (from Bolanden); bowled over by a petite Marnheim girl with an ivory complexion and the most beautiful hair he’d ever seen.

From Chapter One:

Every winter it was the same. People around the house became accustomed to seeing me with a patch over one eye or the other. One morning, a customer came into Onkel Heinrich’s workshop while I watched him stuff kapok into a mattress. The stranger saw me with the black eye patch, and expressed his sympathy that I had lost an eye. Onkel immediately quipped, “Ach, don’t feel sorry for the girl. We’ll start to worry when she has two eye patches.” Then he roared with laughter. That kind of humor always eluded me. (We lived above the workshop and I visited daily.)


From Chapter Two:

The Christmas when I was four, our parents took Erich and I to Kirchheimbolanden to see the decorated shops. It was a five-kilometer walk,and that’s just how we got there, often trudging through heavy snow cover. It should be noted that when I was a very small child, such winter trips outside the village saw me bundled up and pulled on a sled to our destination. Erich never let me forget my pampered treatment. For a couple of youngsters from a village where few homes had electricity, it was a wonderment to see a place so aglow with light. In the town center of Kirchheim was a huge Christmas tree covered with white lights from top to bottom. Tall as any of the buildings that surrounded it, the tree alone was worth the walk from Marnheim.

The twenty-sixth of December is called the Second Christmas Day in Germany, and is also a holiday. It’s a day usually spent with members of the extended family. For us, that might mean a quick visit to Mama’s relatives at Heyerhof nearby. We would likely also encounter Tante Giloy a the estate, in which case, we wouldn’t want to linger. Though Papa was always nice to her, I’m sure he knew that the woman believed Mama had married below her Herbst station. My father’s nature allowed him to accept her attitude with a grain of salt and good humor. We all looked forward to a warmer welcome from the Bolanden family. As soon as it was polite, we would be on our way to visit Papa’s mother, sisters and brothers. I loved visiting Oma Klein. She had more than a dozen grand-children, but always treated me as if I was the only one. She was small, energetic, and good-natured — traits passed on to Papa in abundance.


From Chapter Three:

1935 and 1936 were filled with events that would shape my family’s future. Adolf Hitler’s position of power was firm, and the trickle-down effects, which seemed mostly positive at the time, became more evident every day through-out Germany. Mama and Papa were beginning to believe that the promise of National Socialism meant economic salvation — plain and simple. Common folk like my parents wanted only to feel good again about themselves and Germany’s future.

There were signs that not everyone shared the new optimism. One evening in early 1935Papa informed us that he’d learned the Stern Clothing store in Kirchheim was going out of business. The Sterns had been given a short time to sell out by the authorities. Papa was still driving a delivery truck for a flour mill in Kirchheim owned by the Decker family. Though he always kept a sharp eye for bargains, news of the Sterns didn’t set right with him. The Sterns were Jewish, as was his boss Isaak Decker. How soon would it be before Herr Decker was forced out? And would a new Nazi owner keep Papa on?

(As expected the Nazis sent the Deckers on their way. Papa had to travel about now on a bicycle looking for work.)

In my pre-school years, I often tagged along on Papa’s bicycle outings. He attached a wooden platform on the cross bar for me to sit on while he pedaled. Like the visit to the villa, our trips together weren’t always for happy reasons. Now unemployed, he had to report to the government finance office in Kirchheim once a week to collect a small amount of money used to buy staples like sugar, cooking oil, and bread, but between our garden and previously stored food, starvation wasn’t a threat. Unemployment was the big problem in our area, so we often waited in a long, slow line that extended out into the street. Papa knew so many people, and if he wasn’t chatting with them, the two of us never lacked for subject matter.

In 1936, the Third Reich began to affect my family life in other ways. Erich, at the age of ten, began his mandatory service in Hitler Youth. He was so proud to finally be old enough to wear the uniform — brown shirt, black kerchief with leather knot, and a black leather shoulder strap. Twice a week, he attended meetings at the school, where leaders taught the ideology of the Reich through pep talks and songs. Marching songs replaced older folk songs in public. Even in little Marnheim there seemed to be lots of marching to the new music designed to instill love for the Fatherland and absolute loyalty to the Führer. Both boys and girls in Hitler Jugend, as we called it, frequently marched down my street singing lustily of our new pride. I would soon be leaning out of our window singing along, having quickly memorized many of the songs. I also dreamed of the day when I would be old enough to be in Hitler Jugend. “Ein frischer Wind kam durch die Gegend!” This was a phrase heard often in this time of rapid change. Everyone around us felt like there really was ‘a new wind blowing through our country.’

####

Getting drunk for the first and last time: Jean, Mama’s first cousin and an itinerant barber, was a bitter man. A hunchback, he peddled his bicycle out from Heyerhof to customers far and wide, including stops in Marnheim. Since one of these was Onkel Heinrich in the shop downstairs, I got to see Jean often. It was his habit to make my uncle’s haircut the last one of the day, as he worked his way home. Since the two were friends as well as relatives, the arrangement allowed for a bit of relaxing with a glass or two of wine. On one of these evenings, I made the mistake of going downstairs when they were sitting at a work table drinking wine. Jean acted much friendlier, almost jolly. My uncle was his usual happy self, inviting me to visit. Curiosity got the better of me, and I asked what they were drinking. When I was told wine, I must have thought it strange. They were filling big water glasses, and I knew that you drank wine from wine glasses. Poor as we were Mama and Papa used fancy wine glasses, and I told the two so. Being all of six years old, I was beginning to exert my opinions more freely.

“Here,” Onkel Heinrich said. “Take a drink and see for yourself!”

I did — a big swallow. It was my first really good sampling of the famous liquid of the Rheinland-Pfalz, and I liked it. Pestering for more, even the normally dour Jean decided to share until my initial good feeling turned to sour dizziness. It was time to leave and I started back up the stairs to Mama. From this point in the story I must rely on my brother’s details of the aftermath. He was there to witness it, and I have no personal memory of events. No doubt he may have improved on the tale with much retelling over the years, but knowing Mama, it sounds mostly true. Hearing a noise on the stairs, Mama opened the door and saw me trying to negotiate the steps on my hands and knees, whimpering. Quickly helping me up the stairs, she immediately recognized my state and sat me down in the kitchen. As there was always barley coffee on the stove, she made me drink some — probably hoping it would sober me. Putting me in Erich’s care, she headed for her brother’s workshop below. My brother said he had never seen Mama in such a rage. The laughter in the shop ended abruptly as she ripped into both brother and cousin for making her daughter drunk. Erich said he could hear both of them pleading with Mama not to do anything reckless, and promising never to give Annchen any more wine. He didn’t know what the ‘reckless’ thing was that had Heinrich and Jean pleading, but it sure made him curious. Finally, my brother couldn’t resist tiptoeing down the steps to see what Mama was doing to scare the two men. Peeking around the corner he saw that she had picked up a leather strap that Onkel had been working on, and was slamming it repeatedly down on the work table like a whip.

Both Onkel Heinrich and cousin Jean were up against the wall, cowering like two trapped rats. It was all too unreal, Erich would say, with each retelling of the story. Onkel Heinrich was much taller and stronger than our mother, yet he crouched as low as Jean in the face of her fury.

Chapter Four:
With my seventh birthday, I was enrolled in school. The first day, Mama accompanied me to be sure the teacher placed me up front in the class. Her fear was showing through again, this time about my ‘poor eyesight.’ Since I was taller than most of the other kids, her concern bothered me — I didn’t want to be so conspicuous in front. As we moved along in a line to meet the teacher, I noticed that a mother in front of us made the same request for her daughter that Mama had in mind for me. I heard the teacher, a man, ask the girl to look across the room at a picture and tell him what it was “Flowers in a pot?” she replied.

“Fine,” he said. “You’ll do okay in the back. Next.”

After Mama had her say, I argued that I really had no problem seeing.

“Well then, child,” he said. “What do you see on that wall over there?”

“Flowers in a pot,” I answered.

It didn’t work. Mama insisted that I be placed up front, and that was that.

####

In late spring, for the Pfingsten (Whitsuntide) religious holiday, Germans make a special commune with nature. I first participated when I was four years old. I know that because of a photo taken of the 1934 outing. My parents, Erich and I, and a group of neighbors are shown resting on a grassy embankment that ran along the narrow road half way to the top of our Donnersberg (Thunder Mountain).

The Donnersberg is 687 meters, or 2,273 feet high — the highest elevation in the Pfalz. It’s always had a great significance in the lives of our people. One of our Pfälzer writers, Heinrich Weis, once wrote that the mountain reminded him of a god, who in the form of a huge bull, came to rest among the forested hills. Happy there, he stayed and allowed the trees to cover him as well. While small as mountains go, it does obstruct and disperse severe weather coming from the west, but I don’t know if the name comes from that or Celtic mythology.

Tramping up the mountain each year as a young girl, such things meant little to me. In time I would learn that the Donnersberg had many legends, some that came down through the centuries from Celtic tribes that made the top a fortified home. Much later, Napoleon Bonaparte would be so impressed by the mountain on one of his campaigns into Germany, he designated the region Departement du Mont-Tonnerre. For the moment, however, local history had no place in the excitement of reaching our destination.

We young ones always separated from our elders upon reaching the peak, to make the more arduous climb to the top of the watchtower. Called the “Ludwigsturm” after one of our old Kaisers, it was higher than any of the tallest trees.

Entering through a door at the base, we’d start up a spiral stone staircase. Except for the occasional small square opening in the outside wall, it was quite dark. Even young legs began to ache before bright daylight greets the climber stepping out on a large platform, enclosed by a meter-high stone wall. The view from the top of Ludwigsturm is breathtaking. Erich took pleasure in showing off his knowledge by pointing out distant big cities like Kaiserslautern far to
the south, Mainz in the north, and Worms on the eastern horizon. In between, was the panorama of rolling fields of every hue, deep wooded valleys, and villages spotted here and there. To the west and southwest, the landscape was almost entirely rugged forest, as far as my eyes could see.

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(Jumping a head to 1938 I was 8 years old and our lives in two small rooms above my uncle's workshop came to an end by moving to our own home in the larger town of Kirchheimbolanden. The date was easy to remember for we rolled into Kibo exactly one week after hundreds of synagogues across Germany were destroyed on what became known as "Kristall Nacht". That included the synagogue three blocks from our new home. This was the first time I became even slightly aware that Jews are hated by the Nazi government. At 8 years none of it made sense.)

The weather on that long ago Saturday night was dreary, cold, and rainy, with the usual late autumn fog. None of it dampened our enthusiasm as we all worked to load Papa’s new truck. Some of the neighbor men helped with the heavier furniture, though we didn’t have all that much in the two rooms. It was mostly personal belongings such as clothes, dishes and kitchen utensils, lots of canned and preserved foods, and even the firewood and coal. Darkness came
early on that evening, and oil lamps and flashlights were brought out to help guide the way as we went back and forth from house to truck.

Even an eight-year-old girl was expected to do her share. With so many helping hands, the loading was done quickly. While my father checked to make sure it was all tied securely onto the truck, Erich and I went with Mama for one last look around our old two rooms. I don’t know if she was taking a look for nostalgic reasons, but it was I who saw what everyone had overlooked. There on the wall in the bedroom were two large pictures. All of my young life I had stared at and loved those pictures. One had an angel carrying a baby toward a village below, and written across the bottom were the words Von Gott (From God). The second picture was similar — two angels taking a small child toward heaven. The legend on it said Zu Gott (To God). I always knew they were special to Mama because of Raul. Erich reached up, handed ‘Von Gott’ to me, and took down the other. As I turned to carry my picture down to the truck, Erich grabbed it back, saying, “Nay, you’re too small to carry such a large picture.” It was just like him to exaggerate and be bossy. I tried to get the picture back, but he wouldn’t let go. So, I tried what had always worked in the past — I aimed a swift kick at his shins. He put ‘Von Gott’ in front of my target, with shattering results.

Harre Meine Seele: A poignant song featured in On a Green Twig

This song is featured in Chapter 32 of On a Green Twig with English and German lyrics. This hymn is typically played at funerals.

Harre Meine Seele (5.5 MB .wmv file)

The performance of Harre Meine Seele is by Sofie Elisabeth Bender, playing the Mozart Orgel in Kirchheimbolanden, Germany, Anna Spencers's home town.