Title: You’re Not From Around Here, Are You? Reminiscences
Author: Helga Stipa Madland
Publisher: Aventine Press
Pages: 202
Genre: Memoir
Format: Paperback/Kindle
I
start with when I was born, then there was a World War, and then I went
to Norman.—Klodnitz, in Upper Silesia, now a part of Poland, was my
birth place; when everything collapsed in 1945 at the end of WWII, my
family and I became refugees. We trekked across Germany, to the west,
and eventually settled in a small village and then another one. Next was
Canada, then the United States, Missouri; eventually we settled in
Idaho, where my Father, who was a forester, found a job. I did not stop
there! I was married and continued my merry journey, California, back to
three different cities in Idaho, and later Seattle, where I earned a
PhD. My children were grown by then, I was alone and ready to find a
position. That’s when I ended up at the University of Oklahoma in 1981,
and have been here ever since.
For More Information
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First Chapter:
UPPER SILESIA
In
a memoir, one probably needs to talk about one’s birth. Mine occurred
at home in a forester’s house (my father was a forester) on January 20,
1939, in Klodnitz, Upper Silesia, at that time in Germany. It is now in
Poland, and when I applied for a visa to visit Poland some years ago—we
still have somewhat distant relatives there, the younger of whom only
speak Polish and we cannot communicate—the authorities would not issue
the visa unless I listed my country of birth as Poland. I did that and
so it remains. I don’t speak a word of Polish, but lots of people in
Upper Silesia did including my grandmother on my mother’s side. And I
believe my father knew a few words, too. I have not tried to learn
Polish, but my oldest cousin who lives in Germany, has because she
wanted to stay in touch with younger relatives living there. The older
people spoke German, but most of them are gone now, and for a long time
it was not allowed to teach German in Polish schools. I believe that
has changed now.
Many Germans from Upper Silesia who settled in
West Germany after WWII agitated about having Upper Silesia returned to
Germany. The region has, in fact, been handed back and forth between
Poland and Germany a number of times and the population is quite mixed.
I am content to have not just Upper Silesia but all of Silesia remain a
part of Poland. The Russians don’t intend to return the Polish
territories they seized on its eastern border. The little country keeps
being squeezed between Russia and Germany and should now be left
alone. That’s what I think.
My father was in the German army.
Foresters in Germany wear forest green uniforms and can look quite
gorgeous, although, in general, I am not a fan of uniforms.
When he was deployed, my mother, sister, great aunt, and I were left
alone in the rather large forester’s house somewhat out of the village,
at the edge of the forest. There was a lovely sandbox in front of the
large stone staircase leading up to the entry. When the war grew
fiercer and prisoners were taken, a group of English soldiers ended up
in a camp in our area. Next to our house was a potato field, and when
it was time for the harvest, the British soldiers helped with the work.
Of course there were frequent air raids, which required that everyone
go into the underground bunker. My sister and I were around three and
five. The English soldiers would grab us and stuff us into the bunker.
Then they would sit outside on the steps of the bunker cheering the
Allied planes overhead. I believe this to be a remarkable example of
humanity. How could they not cheer their planes, but they did not want
the German children to get hurt.
Before these events, when the war
had not yet accelerated, we often visited both pairs of grandparents;
mother’s parents, who lived in the village of Malsdorf, and my dad’s
parents, who lived in the forester’s house near Johannsdorf since his
father was a forester too. The Malsdorf grandparents spoiled me
terribly, especially since mother’s aunt, Tante Eva, lived there two.
The two women decided the little girl should be able to play in the
sandbox even when the weather was bad, so they moved a great pile of
sand under the stair case in the hall and created a happy child. They
also piled a great number of feather beds on top of each other so I
could have a trampoline. I was one happy grandchild.
My dad’s
mother was a somewhat different kind of grandmother. A very energetic
woman, she visited us in Jefferson City at the age of seventy. At that
time, you traveled by ship, and it wasn’t a cruise. After arriving at
the shores of the promised land, which the United States was for
European refugees after WWII—I cannot remember which port—she took a
train to St. Louis, where we picked her up in our dilapidated , an
ancient, sickly green Ford. She stayed six months looking after my
little brother Michael. Her favorite entertainment was watching
wrestling matches. She would sit in front of the black and white
television screen, clapping on her thighs and laughing loudly, while the
fat wrestlers were rolling around in the dust.
Back in
Johannsdorf, “Oma” ran a tight ship. Christmas cookies were baked early
and stored in tightly sealed canisters that, in turn, were placed on
top of the very tall china closet in the “good” room. My cousin Lothar—
who is two days younger than I am, something I enthusiastically lorded
over him—and I spent much time scheming how we could get to those
cookies without being caught. I don’t think we succeeded, but now and
then Oma would come into the room and give us a delicious pre-Christmas
cookie, but just one—and after that, we had to scheme again.
Lothar
and I were probably four or five years old when we turned into the
terrors of the quiet forester’s house in Johannsdorf. Our grandparents
had a large flock of chickens, which lived in a chicken house,
naturally. At any rate, I remember a good-sized facade of small,
square, framed windows. We decided those little windows were excellent
targets on which to practice our stone throwing skills. Luckily, Oma
and my mother stopped us before we had broken out all of the windows.
Another
of our accomplishments was the great tree scaling caper. Imagine four
beautiful, large pine trees, standing in a square near the house! They
were Opa’s, that is, my grandfather’s pride. What forester does not
love his trees? One day, while Opa was checking things out in the
forest, Lothar and I located a scaling tool, an item intended to scrape
bark off trees. We went to work, and an hour or so later Oma and
Mother, or “Mutti,” as we called her when we were children in Germany,
discovered our handiwork. As they stepped into the side garden, they
were confronted by four trees that had huge swatches of bark shaved
off. The tree trunks were dark, but the areas Lothar and I had attacked
were a light, clear wood color, wood without bark, beautiful light wood
that should not be exposed to the world. Mutti and Oma were close to
fainting. Opa would be home soon and he would be extremely irritated.
Quickly, they tried to think of a solution. Both of them were bright
women, which may have been one of the reasons they did not get along—the
other, of course, being that mother-in-law lore promotes iffy
relationships with daughters-in-law—they quickly thought of the
solution. Oma remembered a barrel of tar stored in one of the sheds.
They dragged out enough for their purposes and covered the assaulted
trees with enough of the dark, sticky stuff to cover the outraged,
exposed wood. When Opa returned home, he did not notice, and the word
was mum around the forester’s house. Only much later, when it had
become part of family lore, was the story of the scaled trees told.
Here
might be a good place to tell about the fate of my grandfathers. Both
were fairly old as World War II got going, certainly too old to be
drafted into the German army. But because their professions required
wearing uniforms, they were suspect; it was difficult to tell them from
soldiers. My mother’s father wore the uniform of a locomotive engineer;
yes, it’s true, Germans like uniforms, and when a traveler saw someone
dressed like my mother’s father was, everyone knew he was responsible
for driving the train. My father’s father was a forester. Foresters
had lovely forest green uniforms, my father wore one himself. Indeed,
it did have the kind of trim, including epaulets, you can find on
military uniforms. When the Russian Army moved into East Germany, both
elderly grandfathers disappeared. In time, we heard that they had been
taken to a concentration camp in Siberia. It may not have been Siberia,
but we never heard from or about them again.
My uncle, mother’s
brother, a blond, blue eyed young man at the time and quite a
nationalist—he most likely he belonged to the National Socialist
Party—swore he would find his father, or his grave, in the depth of
Asia, after WWII ended, but he did not. Where would he have started to
look, and how could he have gotten there? Uncle Franz was an annoying
and interesting man. Fastidious to a fault even for a German—he brushed
his only blue suit so long that my mother feared the fabric would
disappear. He was in the army, of course; it seems every male who did
not have a job essential to the welfare of society was. And like so
many, undoubtedly he supported the national socialists. But, he told me
many years later that when the notorious “Kristallnacht,” or “Night of
Broken Glass, occurred, that is when the Nazis destroyed Jewish homes
and businesses, and synagogues, he thought “this is the end of the
national socialists.” As young as he was, he apparently understood the
evil of Hitler’s Germany. That made me happy, because for a very long
time, especially after I moved to the United States in 1954, I did not
know that there were any good Germans.
Back in our house in
Klodnitz, there were only women, children, dogs and the assorted
poultry, etc. one finds in foresters’ houses. There were
rumors—partisans, soldiers and others who were fighting the war on their
own, were roaming the countryside and no one was safe. Perhaps escaped
prisoners of war were out there too; my father escaped from the British
and undoubtedly it worked the other way around, too. My mother, who
was not exactly a woman to wield a gun although she could if she had to,
practiced shooting from the attic window. We kept all doors locked and
dogs in the house. I don’t remember being too scared, I guess I was
too young. But I have always been fairly alert, so I heard things and
did things I was not supposed to. Whether the following really happened
or was just one of the many stories floating around I don’t know, but
apparently in the attic there was a large cage in which pigeons were
kept. Or some kind of birds, because my childish brain was certain I
saw many seeds on the ground of the enclosure. I don’t know what these
birds, if there were birds, would have been for. Carrier pigeons? I
don’t know. I know we did not eat them.
At any rate, the story
arose that someone who had stopped by the house, a man, hanged himself
in the bird enclosure. Again, I do not know if that was true or if I
saw him, but I did see the many seeds on the floor. It left a weird
imprint on my brain. A layer of disorderly seeds, in fruit, vegetable,
or plant, makes my stomach turn. An uneasy feeling occurs; I want those
seeds to be orderly. Weird!
My other scary Klodnitz memory
involves Santa Claus. Now, in Germany not Santa Claus by the Christ
Child brings the Christmas presents. More about that later. Santa
Claus or Sankt Nikolaus, or simply Nikolaus, visits the children in
their own houses on December 6
th. German parents take great
delight in threatening their offspring with Nikolaus’s visit for weeks
before the actual event, especially if children were as cheeky as I
apparently was. As I was showing her a current photo of me when I was
in my forties and had three grown children, my own mother told me: “Du
hast immer noch das selbe freche Gesicht.” In other words, “You still
have the same sassy face,” (that I had as a child). But my mother also
once told me that she thought I had more courage than she, although she
was pretty courageous herself at times. So that’s that.
The
German Santa Claus is sometimes accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht, who is
dressed in a long brown robe, sort of like a monk’s robe. His belt is a
rope and he has a scruffy, brownish beard. He definitely terrifies
children. He carries a potato sack slung over his back, and the story
is that bad little children will be stuffed into the sack, dragged off
into the woods, and dumped there. Every German child lives in fear of
this happening to her or him. Sankt Nikolaus and Knecht Ruprecht are
responsible for lots of well-behaved children in the weeks leading up to
their dreaded, yet welcome visit, because if you have been a good
little girl or boy, Nikolaus will reward you with lots of candy and some
praise, along with the admonishment to continue on your good behavior.
St.
Nikolaus is, of course, modeled on the fourth-century Greek saint and
bishop of Myra (now in Turkey). He is said to have walked around the
city in order to throw little bags of money into the (open) windows of
the poor. He morphed into Santa Claus in the United States and other
countries, but in Germany he remained closer to the historical figure.
Therefore, the German Santa Claus wears a long, red robe, a hat
resembling a bishop’s miter, and a beard. Or variations thereof. It is
easy to become Santa Claus in Germany, because the costume is not as
iconic as he is in the United States. I personally played the role of
St. Nikolaus once, dressed in my mother’s long, red house-coat. As I
recall, the neighbor’s little children loved it because I brought them
lots of candy.
But back to Klodnitz! As I mentioned earlier, my
father’s aunt, his mother’s sister, lived with us. She was a funny and
kooky woman. She had been married once, a long time ago, but the
marriage ended in divorce, an unusual occurrence in those times. It was
not much talked about.
Her name was Hilde, but we called her
Tantelusch. Why, I don’t know; I don’t really even know what it means.
But I’ll look it up.
Okay, I am back. According to the
Wikipedia, Lusch is a last name. Maybe that was her married name, and
we called her that to distinguish her from my father’s sister, whose
name was also Hilde, as in Tante (aunt) Hilde. At any rate, Tantelusch
loved to tell stories and was a great joker. My sister and I used to
urge our parents to go out often so we would be left alone with
Tantelusch, and then we could really have fun. Tantelusch liked to
tease me, and I undoubtedly deserved it. One year, when it was close to
St. Nikolaus Day, she called me and told me to open the door to a large
pantry; it was long and narrow. To my horror, a giant St. Nikolaus was
looming against the back wall. Undoubtedly, I screamed. Much later
the truth came out. Tantelusch had created a dummy St. Nikolaus and
propped him up on a broom stick.
Clearly, Tantelusch was a
lot of fun and we loved her. But she was also a little weird. My
mother liked to tell the story of how Tantelusch carefully balanced
pennies, or Pfennige, among her lingerie in the closet to see if
anyone had messed with it. Of course no one was interested in
Tantelusch’s belongings, but she wanted to make sure.
I
remember my mother telling stories from this time, later on, when the
family was together and I would hear them. The stories were often about
me, not so much about my sister. They say the first born always gets
more attention, and may be that is true. Here is one of the stories:
The forester’s house was an official residence, and my father had his
office there. It was a large, solidly furnished room with a massive oak
desk dominating it. Comfortable chairs and small tables were spread
about the room, facing the desk. One day, the ‘village elders’ were
meeting to discuss a matter urgent to the welfare of the forest.
Maintaining the forest is a big issue in Germany, probably because the
population is dense, but the forest is not. According to my mother, I
was really angry about something I do not remember. I picked up a broom
holding it up in the air with both hands, walked into the astonished
gathering, and threw the broom on the floor with a vengeance. Everyone
laughed heartily, including my father and probably my mother, too, but
of course she felt obligated to correct her disobedient daughter. She
probably sent me to my room. There are other stories of this sort, but I
will leave it at that.
# # #
Time
went on and so did the war. The Battle of Budapest between the Soviets
and German and Hungarian forces began in December 1944 and ended in
February 1945 with a Russian victory. In January 1945, the Red Army
crossed the Oder River and was less than fifty miles from Berlin.
Rumors were bountiful, everyone was afraid of the Russians who were said
to be ruthless and uncivilized. Many Germans living in Silesia decided
that the Americans were the lesser of two evils, and an exodus to West
Germany began. My mother, sister and I were among the first to leave,
but only because we had information about the approaching Russians. My
Uncle Joseph, married to my father’s only sibling, Aunt Hilde, was a
police detective and therefore was not drafted, while my father and
other male relatives were. Being a member of the police, Onkel Joseph
had access to more information than private citizens. He got my mother
and aunt together, told them to pack a suitcase and gather up the
children—my sister and me and my three cousins—and starting moving
westward, in other words, get out leaving absolutely everything.
My
grandmother was enormously distressed. She tried to help my mother
back, putting an evening gown in the suitcase. My mother took it back
out and replaced with warm sweaters for Ingrid and me. It was winter, I
can’t remember if we left before Christmas or immediately afterward. I
also don’t remember the first leg of our trip. Trains were still
running, and while no one had a car, people traveled a lot. Train
stations were scattered about the countryside, and I guess we just
walked to the station. I do remember riding in the back of a very
crowded pickup once. By my sixth birthday on January 20, 1945, we
definitely had traveled some distance from our home and were staying in a
room somewhere. My birthday present was a beautiful purple African
violet, I have loved violets ever since. One day, a few years ago,
Ingrid was visiting me in Seattle and I pointed out the gorgeous purple
African violet in the window. “It probably thinks it is in Africa,”
Ingrid said. She is always good for a “bon mot.” I have no idea where
my mother found a blooming plant that January long ago, but she did and I
had a birthday present I have always
remembered.
Until I was around
eighteen, moments from our “flight,” (Flucht, in German) popped into my
mind almost every day. We were “Fluechtlinge”—refugees. Since I was
only six years old at the time, I cannot give a coherent narrative of
the experience, only disconnected fragments. There was the time when a
train finally pulled into the station, it was so full, we children were
handed in through the windows. Refugees were literally hanging from the
doors, grabbing onto any train part they could get a hold off just so
they could get out. Once we rode on an open car at the end of the
train. It was filled with injured soldiers and as many refugees as
could fit. Another time when we got off the train and our suitcases
were stored on top of it, my mother climbed up on the roof and the train
started moving. Ingrid and I screamed! Mother threw the suitcases
down, jumped off—and we had a mother and our meager belongings. Another
time the word was out that because of massive confusion, the engineer
had taken a wrong track and we went in a circle. We missed the bombing
of Dresden. That was February 13 and 14, 1945.
What and how we
ate, I don’t know. I think the Red Cross had set up soup kitchens in
the train stations; that could have been the only way for fleeing
refugees to survive. My sister, who was four at the time, became very
sick from exhaustion and lack of food. We were extremely worried about
her, but luckily were getting closer to West Germany and would soon be
able to stop. One night when we were in West Germany but had not
settled in, we and many other refugees slept in a school on the floor
covered with hay. That night there was an air raid attack and the
siren, located on top of the school, went off. We slept through it!
At
one point, my father was taken a prisoner of war by the British, but
somehow he managed to escape. He found us when we were temporarily
staying in a small village. Everyone was terrified because the word was
out that the Americans were about to take revenge on the village.
Apparently, a group of partisans which was roaming about the countryside
had killed some American soldiers, and in return, the Americans were
going to blow up the village. Whether this was actually the case or
not, I do not know. At any rate, we believed it to be true. I remember
my father in a little group of American soldiers in the middle of the
village. They were all crouching on the ground and drawing in the
sand. My father spoke some English, and I always believed he saved our
lives when he managed to explain to the soldiers that the village had
absolutely nothing to do with the partisans.
Another time, in
another village, my father showed up with a “Panzerfaust,” a hand thrown
grenade designed to destroy tanks. A group of German soldiers were
going to stage a last stand and blow up several American tanks that were
approaching a certain highway. My mother threw a fit and made my
father and his Panzerfaust leave the house immediately before we were
blown up. I don’t think the German soldiers ever did stage their last
minute defense. Someone must have used their brains; maybe it was my
father.
I clearly remember when I saw my first American. My
mother, sister, and I had temporarily settled in the house of a forester
my father knew. When the word spread throughout the village that
American tanks were approaching, everyone was terrified. The residents
of the house, including mother, Ingrid and me, of course, took refuge in
the basement. We sat, with lights out, very quietly. It was spooky in
the basement. We waited and waited and started to get hungry. At a
certain point my mother had had it. “I am going upstairs to see what is
going on,” she announced; “you stay down here.” She looked directly at
me. Over the protest of everyone in the basement, she crept up the
stairs. I waited until I could hear her shut the door to the basement,
and then I ascended the stairs myself. Keeping my distance behind my
mother, I followed her to the kitchen and the window that looked out
onto the very long, fenced front yard. And then I saw them!
The
large gate with its stone pillars on each side stood open. The large
front yard was empty, but next to each side of the gate, a soldier was
comfortably lying on his back, on the grass, his rifle propped up next
to him, standing straight up into the air. No one moved, it was quiet,
the soldiers did not look frightening at all. Nevertheless, my mother,
who had spotted me by then and scolded me heartily, decided it was best
to return to the basement. She grabbed my hand and we rushed down the
stairs. We were greeted with relief—apparently some thought they would
never see us again.
Within a few hours the front yard was filled
with military vehicles and soldiers milling about. They took some
interest in my mother, she was a beautiful woman. It was thought best
she stay in the house. Only an officer or two entered the house to make
sure there were no escaped German soldiers hiding anywhere, but left
again quickly when they found no one. The enlisted men were not allowed
inside the house. I, however, saw no reason why I should not sneak
outside and look around. One of the soldiers gave me a candy bar, but
instead of handing it to me he threw it on the ground in front of me.
Of course I grabbed it; I was six years old and German children had not
seen much chocolate in the last several years. Triumphantly, I ran into
the house to show my mother, but she had seen the entire exchange
through the kitchen window and made me go back outside and throw the
chocolate bar in front of the offending soldier. That was my mother!
Later, a bunch of us children worked out a scam. Having figured out
where the soldiers would pass by on their way to the mess hall, we lined
up, smiled sweetly and said: “Onkel, hast du Schokolade?” (Uncle, do
you have some chocolate candy?) German children call even adults who
are not related to them “uncle” or “aunt.” As I recall, we made quite a
haul.
In the long run, at least the children got used to their
new situation rather quickly. During one short stay at another
forester’s house, I was playing outside in the sandbox when airplanes on
a bombing mission were flying overhead. My mother frantically called
for me to come inside, but I responded casually, “Oh Mutti, it’s just
thunder, let me play.” This particular house is memorable because some
peculiar people lived in it: an older woman, her grown daughter, and the
woman’s sister. The daughter had a severe mental illness and was kept
locked in a room next to the kitchen. I don’t think she was mistreated,
her room was taken care of and she was well fed, but she was not to go
outside her room. Now and then, however, she escaped and wandered about
in the yard. She had a peculiar habit: before she went outside, she
took all her clothes off and wandered about naked. Everyone was afraid
of her except my mother, who would be sent after her to coax her back
into the house. I don’t know whose job that was when we left.
The
young woman’s mother was short and chubby, while her mother’s sister
was somewhat taller and scrawny. The chubby mother presided over the
food in the house. In fact, she had a large storage room up in the
attic which she kept locked with the key attached to a large key bundle
attached to her belt. One day, when I sureptiously followed her up the
stairs and peeked around her, I got a glimpse of the wonders in her
locked attic room. It was completely filled with shelf after shelf of
fruits, vegetables, meats, and stuff I did not recognize, all of it in
glass jars. Beautiful! She did bring some of the jars downstairs for
us, she was not a miser, but she apparently had hoarded food for some
time, and maybe it was not such a bad thing at the time.
I have to
admit that while I dismissed the sounds of bombers overhead as
thunder, I was scared to death of the family turkey. He was huge, with
giant tail feathers and practically as tall as I was. And he was
mean! We did not have indoor plumbing, it was extremely rare in the
countryside at that time. Instead we had a nice outhouse located,
undoubtedly for sanitary reasons, at the far end of the large yard.
This made it quite a hike from the back door, and sometimes you had to
run. I am certain that the mean turkey watched the door to see who was
running to the outhouse, and then he chased them. Not only that, he
kept you imprisoned in the outhouse, throwing himself against the door
which you could open only at the risk of immediate attack. It was
terrifying for a six year old, scarier than bombs falling from the sky.
Luckily, we did not stay in that house very long.
