Foreword

Yes - why and for whom, have I all this written down. That question I have asked myself already too and it is not easy to answer. For the children and grandchildren? - Maybe. But I really don't think so. Otherwise it would be a book full of warnings and full of advice. And who wants to read this and who wants to write it. There were probably different reasons.

My era has been full of events and changes and entirely different from today. It was Spartan hard and merciless, but it was also completely natural, full of vitality. There was love and passion, there was fear, shiver and horror but there was also the laughter, the tremendous nonchalance, and the unbelievable resilience of that period. I will tell what my family and I have lived to see, what I experienced and observed from my little corner, I want to paint a picture of that period with its color, its sounds and its texture, and how it all felt on my skin. I have written the full truth to the slightest detail, even when it was sometimes painful. There are still many people living who can testify. I did not exaggerate to make it more dramatic. There was enough drama, that you will very soon have enough of it. Two or three persons I had to give other names. If my grandmother would have known about my writing she surely would have lamented, "What will the neighbors say to this." If Mutti had known she would have been very furious. But Papa would have said: "go ahead my child and tell it right the way it was"

I wrote my story in a very short time. Each night I got up and wrote. I wrote intuitively and spontaneous-ly, just the way it came to my mind and exactly the way it was imprinted in my memory. It is, therefore, in the beginning still in the language of a child.

I like to add that my grandfather, from my fathers side, the one who got so poor later on, was also a reason for my writing. I know so very little about this Nicolaus Graf, because all is gone. I know almost nothing about all my ancestors. Only when they were born and when they died, but not a bit of what happened in between, what they thought and felt, and that is really too bad. I think that everybody should write his life down. What a treasure that would be for the coming generations and what they could learn from it. I hope they are able to see from mine that you can be happy any place any time, even in the middle of very bad circumstances.

I have written in German, all my recollections of Germany are stored in my memory only in my native language. I decided also to translate it myself, even though I was told that an author should never do this. But I already have done so many things which "thou shall not do." I am sure that somebody skilled would be able to translate it much better. But it might ruin it also because I am an immigrant and I should write as an immigrant.

In the German language we have often another word order. However that might also give the German flavor. It would be even better if I could read it to you with my funny German accent. Lately I have ask a friend to correct some of my word orders but only if they sounded too horrible. By the way I like to mention that I did not allow anybody to change anything in my book. I did not want it perfect. I like it rustic.

I will start with my early impressions, because a child observes more. In the beginning you might have the feeling that I dwell too much on trivia, but I let my subconscious do the writing and that was very stubborn and not willing to skip any of the details. It had the idea that the reader would learn more from the little things than from the titanic ones, which have been already talked to shreds.

And since my intuition has been often right - I thought- well - I better let it go ahead. So I will begin with the small details from that special time far away and long ago

But coming again to the point for whom I have written, I think I can say that I mostly have recorded it for my friends. All my life I was searching for kindred souls. I have found a few. But some were from other places, and some from other centuries. Many I have never met. So I hope to meet them now.

Yes - for all my friends I have written this.

For all my friends.