"Ja, Ja Mein Kind."

"Ja, ja" does not mean necessarily yes. We use it very often this "yeah yeah" and it could express a lot of things. It all depends where you put it and on the way you say it. Oma always took a deep breath and wrapped these words
into a resigned sigh and nodded her head ".yeah, yeah mein Kind she said "yeah,yeah mein Kind"These words were always layered into the knowledge that one day I would see that life is hard, very hard indeed but that all the hardship would be necessary for a good outcome.
That it all would be good for us, and that even I would understand it later on.

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About The "Gnädige Frau"

Mutti stayed a while in Rekow with her mother and then decided to go to Berlin. First she lived with a nice family to take care of three adorable little children. But they all died within a very short time of the dreaded diphtheria. Mutti could never forget the three lovely children and
the grief at their death.

Then she found a place as a "Zofe." That was a Lady's maid. Maybe it was called differently. In any case she had a beautiful "gnädige Frau." Gnädige Frau was the way, and in many places it is still the practice, to address a lady. Here you say madame. But gnädige Frau is a little bit more, perhaps like your ladyship. No - I think - perhaps in between.

Mutti had to take care of the clothing of "the Gnädige Frau". She had to make sure that all was in perfect condition. All the buttons, all the ribbons, all the bows, all the seams. If they showed a tiny spot she had to give them immediately to the laundress. That was nearly all Mutti had to do. Not even to dust porcelain or palm leaves with a feather whisk. Not even make beds or set the table, or even pound carpets, or cook, no, not at all. There were other servants to do this kind of work. But there was one thing Mutti had to do. And that was- to accompany her lady wherever she went. To all the places, all the stores, all the restaurants, all the spas and...(now you will hear it) always three steps behind her. Papa would get extremely furious whenever Mutti just mentioned this fact, and it made me very angry too. But Mutti, oh no, she was not bothered by it at all. On the contrary, she was very proud of this part. It did not humiliate her in the least. It was probably the same that a duke thought it was right that he went behind the king, and the count thought that it was right that he had to walk behind the duke. There you see. No, Mutti was not insulted, she was proud that she was a lady's maid to a very fine ladyship. Only a very few would still insist on this old tradition. Only the very finest- of course. And Mutti had the great luck to be with a lady who would still observe the rules of the court.

Mutti never mentioned the husband of the "gnädige Frau." I am sure that he was very rich and very old and without any color. Once I overheard something, when a door was half open. I liked overhearing things especially when they were whispered. Mutti said, that sometimes there was a houseguest in the home of the "gnädige Frau." A young officer, a good looking young officer, a dashing young officer. And one day a cleaning maid found hairpins of the "gnädige Frau" in the guest room bed of the officer. But Mutti never thought less of "the gnädige Frau" on account of that. I think that shows very clearly what type his lordship probably was and why Mutti never mentioned him.

I remember how Mutti would rave about this time of her life. She was young and beautiful and the world was open. The world was Berlin. The world was elegance and charm and it surrounded her with radiance and allure. She was embraced by things she had never known, never seen, not even on pictures. Now she could not only view but feel them, let her hands glide over their superb surface, inhale the scent of their beauty. The thick soft carpets, the soundless steps, the polished furniture that blinked like mirrors. All the
porcelain all the silver. There was porcelain in silver. There was silver in crystal and crystal in porcelain and porcelain in gold and gold everywhere.

And the bedroom of the "gnädige Frau." The lace covered bed linen. The lace covered nightgowns. The famous Brüssel lace. This lace from Brüssel was so fine that women had to work it in damp basements because the thread was so thin that they could not hold it with their fingers otherwise. It was fine as a spider's web. Many lace makers had to work for months on a tiny piece, a piece that would cost in an exquisite store at least 500 Goldmark. That was over a hundred dollars in gold coins. And this was at a time when a farmhand received three Goldmark for a whole year of hard work.

Thirty years later I was able to give Mutti a lot of these treasures, and her grandchild wore a bridal gown covered with many meters of the finest wide Brüssel lace and a train so exquisite that I am sure her ladyship might not have seen a more beautiful one. But that was at a time when hardly anyone was interested in genuine lace anymore, and only a few people still knew what Brüssel lace really looked like.

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My Little Sister Ellen And Other Things

Ellen was four years younger. I cannot remember her too much when she was a little baby. Nearly all my memories are from the time when we were a little bit older, sitting together close to the huge warm tile stove is what I
mostly recall. The huge warm tile stove, the one with the beautiful color, the slightly green one, that was the best part of the whole apartment. That was the place where Oma loved to sit and where it was warm and safe. This
stove had something special. It had a little door in the middle. And behind it was a space where you could keep things warm. But Oma used it only to put apples in. They would be soft and warm in a fairly short time. And before the reading of the fairy tales we could eat them with a little spoon slowly as a great treat. You see Oma could eat only soft apples, she had no more teeth. The fairy tales and the smell of the baked apples. Oma in her large apron,
the one she would always wear and which reached nearly to the ground. We on little footstools at her feet.

Oma, dear Oma how long ago was this, and how short was the time that has passed. We begged our dear Oma forever to read fairy tales to us, and when twilight came and it was too dark to see, to tell us our favorite ones. By the way 0ma was used to put that costly electric light only on when it was absolutely necessary. I loved the mysterious blue twilight. It went so well with our favorite tales and we wanted to hear them over and over again, and each time with exactly the same words. We wanted her never to change anything, not even the slightest little bit. That was very important, because these were not stories, no, they were events, real ones. There was no question about it. Oma knew that it all was true and that all the people in
her village could testify that it really had happened, that once upon a time it really had taken place in this fantastic gruesome world of the fairy tales. We never doubted that, never. Ellen put her head always on Oma's lap and positioned herself between me and the safe corner of the stove. She would make sure never to be too close to the door leading to the hall. Often I had to hold her little hand when there was too much talk of witches and ghosts.
Ellen was scared of many things especially of the dark corridor. Me too - of course. But a big sister could not admit to being afraid.

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Hitler Hitler Hitler

My confirmation dress was not the only tragedy at that time. There was also another one. Hitler had gained power. The event did not change my life too much. Papa was raging about the political situation and cursing Hitler, but
he had done this before. It was nothing new. Something new, was, that his friend Herr Herzog who had always talked so enthusiastically about Hitler now started fuming too.

In the meantime Papa had painfully worked himself up again. This time he wisely had not started any complicated fabrication. Now he had a simple "Spulenwicklerei", a workshop to produce transformers for electrical devices.
His business flourished because it was needed for the war. First he employed two female workers then more, and later on their number increased to forty.

Papa said in five years we will have war. He miscalculated by only one year. I myself had no idea what war meant. Five years seemed an awfully long time. What could all happen in the meantime. And who knows, Papa could very well be wrong.

Many of Papa's colleagues got large contracts for their factories, if they produced parts for the armaments industry. But in order to get commissions you had to join the party. Lots of people did just that. You could tell by the flags hanging out of their windows. On ours- of course- was none. At the stroke of the hour with Hitler's takeover in 1933 a tremendous number of people became party members. Nearly all higher state employees. Anyone who did not join had to expect to be fired soon.

Our schools were state schools. And teachers and most other employees would be helplessly lost in the savage jungle of self-employment. They were used to getting their monthly check. For the teachers it also made much more sense to join the party and do passive resistance than to leave the school.

Nearly all of Papa's colleagues joined, but not Papa. Papa never - in his whole life - said Heil Hitler, not even once. Very few who lived at that time in Germany could claim this. It was also only possible in Berlin. In any other city he would have landed in a concentration camp within a very short time.

Berlin detested Hitler and his pack. Everybody who had some common sense loathed Hitler and his party, except the ones who participated for their little roll of bread or hoped for great advantages. In Berlin were very few
idealistic members.

During the whole Nazi time - whenever the Nazis had their parades and big political celebrations they could never find enough enthusiastic people in Berlin to border the streets or fill the squares even when they forced the population to show up. And when the people were ordered and came, they looked embittered gloomy and angry. They needed cheerful faces to show the world how the people in Berlin loved their Führer. Therefore they had to bring in
tremendous numbers of train loads with Nazis from other parts of Germany even as far as Bavaria. We always saw the bus loads and heard the strange dialects
of devoted Nazis when Goebbels was preparing a "spontaneous" dynamic rejoicing welcoming hail for Hitler in his Capital. The Bavarian look better on the news reel we joked and they have bigger feet. It was not too hard to
find faithful members in other provinces. There were the many idealistic Nazis. And there were many Germans who longed to be part of the German Reich. Former peace treaties had forcefully put pure German regions to other
countries and often these people suffered under foreign regimes. And therefor they hailed Hitler as their liberator.

1933 was the time when many Jews left, but a lot stayed. Leaving is not so easy, and they hoped that all might not be so bad as the pessimists predicted. But when the first political persecutions started, the mass emigration of the Jews began. A horrible thing of that time was also that you
had to be so careful. Some are by nature, but for me it was hard to mistrust. The Hitler regime was only sustained by the "Spitzel"(informers) and the concentration camps. There were so many Spitzels. And these were mostly not
party members but people who would ridicule and blame Hitler. You could never be sure who was what, an informer could be anyone and anywhere. Germans who would attack or only slightly criticize the Nazis were put into these horror
camps where your chances to stay alive were very slim. A harmless remark to the wrong person could be very dangerous. We also had an informer in our school, as we found out too late. He would always make a funny face when the name of Hitler was mentioned. I even liked that man because he was so witty. It was a teacher and I trusted him.

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