Ever get lost...? No, not looking for a street address in the city. Out in the countryside where there are no addresses. Out where, as they say, "God lost His shoes."
About 30 miles north of Chicago -- on my way to Wisconsin -- I took a wrong turn and ended up on a gravel side road which in turn ended up at the wet sandy edges of a small weedy lake. Well, why not? I parked and started to stroll the shoreline, for it was a perfect September morning in the American Midwest. It had all the triumphant footprints of a God who so loved the world, He gave us spectacular Autumn.
The thick oaks and elms were just starting their ceremonial transfiguration from rich greens to startling ambers and reds. The air cracked with the snap of a bracing chill, while the white waves lapped gently at the shoreline as if inviting you in. As for the sky and the sun overhead, well it's never like this back in the city where towering glass and steel foolishly try to compete.
This small secret cocoon was well worth getting lost in. One of those unscripted moments when nature takes its proper place in the hierarchy of your busy little life. When whoever (or whatever, if you prefer) gave it life whispers to you: "You are so very small, and you have so very little time."
It was just then that I saw it...!
About 100 yards down the beach a rickety dock nervously poking its head out a few feet into the lake. Suddenly, amazingly, I recognized that old pile of weathered wood. Hurry now to be sure. Ah yes, I'm right. Oh my God -- some 70 years later I re-discover where our family's Depression era cottage once stood. Not an especially impressive cottage, and yet the extended family's modest adventure during the summers of those terrible 30s.
Here's where nature and memories and God and I fall into one another's arms. The dock, though no longer used, is the same....the site, though no longer occupied by any building, is the same....the adjoining landscapes, though overgrown, are the same. The only thing changed is me.
However, for one shimmering moment, I am seven years old again. Blond, thin, scruffy, uncoordinated, one of a large loud family of aunts and uncles and cousins. Yet right here right now, I once more stand in the light of my young parents' love for their firstborn son. (Unknown to me, Richard was already stirring in our Mother's summertime dresses).
So I am standing and staring and weeping all at the very same impossible moment. I had to get lost on this September morning to find a precious piece of myself that once lived and breathed right here. Richard is still a member of this moment. But not Mom. Not Dad. Long gone back to the very same God who gifted me with this moment. One I shall treasure all the remaining moments of my life.
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Ahhh! Memories! I know exactly what you mean, Jack.
ReplyDeleteMemory is a funny thing, it has been said by experts, "That we never forget anything, but you need to find the right key, to open it".
As you know, there were many things I wanted to forget from my childhood, and thought I had done this, for not only did I 'forget' my birth language, but the 'memories' were no longer haunting me.
In the 1980s, I had a stroke, and though I had not spoken my birth language, German, for over 50 years, when my ability to speak returned, I had 'lost' my English, and though I could understand what the Doctors said to me in English, I was only able to answer, in German!
This did not last long, only about 2 days, and then the English returned, slowly, but with a heavy European accent, which the Nurses just loved, as they were always asking me to 'say something'.
This, I understand, happens sometimes with stroke patients, and the reason, in my case, is that German was my 'first' language, and English my second, so the German was imbedded, even though I had not spoken it for all those years.
Then, some years later, I had to go to Germany, and decided to drive there with my future wife.
As I drove through France on the Motorway, I was getting near the border with Germany, and Christine asked me how I felt returning to Germany ?
I answered, 'No problem, I'm not even thinking about it', and yet, just as I drove past the Motorway sign stating I was entering Germany, I felt the tears start, and had to stop at the old border control, which is now a Cafe, until I could see, and the tears stopped.
How strange! My old Country was more inside me than I knew. I had a strange feeling of returning home, and felt fully at ease driving around Germany.
Memory is indeed very strange, and nobody realy knows just how it works.
When I was talked into writing my biography, and I started to try to remember all the things I had tried so hard to forget, once I started, the memories returned, not without a great deal of sadness, and inner pain, and there were odd things that helped...an old German song heard in a WW2 War Film, other times, just hearing German on the TV, or Radio...so many things that were the 'key' to open the 'lost' memories...sometimes, just the scent from a flower, everything that I had heard, or smelt in my childhood, opened new memories, and just like you Jack, the tears were always there, and so did the nightmares.
However, there was one memory I wish had not returned. I was cooking some pork chops in the kitchen, and suddenly I was returned in my mind to my mother and myself escaping from my German home just in front of the Russian Armies, and our little train passed through Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp north of Berlin, and the smell of pork, reminded me of the crematorium smoke we passed through. Pork is very much like the smell of people being burned you see, but they do say that pigs are very much like humans, so I was off pork for a long time after this memory.
Memory is two edged, its not all happy memories, but horror ones as well, and in this case, is a curse!
But, its nice to remember the good times, and even in a war, there were some. A child born in a war, regards the things it sees, as normal. It knows no other life. Its only later, when the war is over, and it grows older [if its lucky] does it start to understand that its life was far from being a normasl one, and then it tries to forget, but the 'memory' is still there, deep inside, and it only needs the 'right' key for it all to come streaming back, like watching an old film, but all mixed up, and in the wrong order, but still there.
It takes an inner strength sometimes to survive memory!
Alfie ~ You are a living memory who himself carries its key!
ReplyDeleteWhat you have locked and embedded inside you is WWII in a tiny time capsule. I'm so glad to have met you this way, and to have others do likewise.
But as with all time capsules, it holds hurts as well as happiness. Living safely here in the US I cannot imagine your life. But now -- 70 long years later -- your life has intersected mine. And I am easily motivated to share some of your tales with family and friends here.
Not to impose too much, but can you comment further on (1) those times you were with Uncle Adolf & Auntie Eva? (2) that last meeting with your Father?
Jack
Well Jack, I will try, but as you know, my life story is rather complicated, however I will try to answer your two points;
ReplyDeleteEva Braun was a very nice lady, even in my childs eyes, rather pretty, blond, and a very good cook. One reason I remember her, is that she always had some cakes and sweets for me when we called on her next door.
We lived in Strausberg, East of Berlin, and Eva lived next door to us, when Hitler was working in Berlin.
She was a very good friend of my Mothers, so we saw her often.
I called her Aunty Eva, out of respect for an older person.
When Hitler arrived, I met him as well, and he was also a very nice person, he loved children, and was, in my eyes at the time, a real Gentleman. Seems odd, knowing what happened to others, and he was nothing like he is on the Films of the period, and he brought me sweets as well. At times, when we called on him, he would dangle me on his knee, and he had a very soft voice, I remember it as a, what I would call, a deep brown voice. Very attractive, when he told me little stories.
It may sound very odd, but I did not 'know' who these people were at the time, they were just 'nice people living next door' who I liked.
I called him 'Uncle Adolf' for the same reason I called Eva, Aunty...out of respect for an older person.
My first meeting with my Father, [1998] after I found out he had not died in 1944, as we had been told in 1944 while we were in a refugee camp outside still burning, and still under attack by the British Army, was complicated by the interest shown by the German Press, as well as by the Britsh TV and Press back in England, and so it was hard, but I knew him right away.
As I arrived at the house in which we were to meet, an old man was standing by the door, and I just knew it was my Father, even though, the last time I had seen him, and in his Uniform, was early in 1944, and it was now, 1998.
He knew me as well, even though the last time he saw me, I was a little child aged about three, but there was a connection right away.
We both wept, and held each other, but it was, as I said, difficult with all these other people about, but there were tears in many eyes as well.
I met for the first time, not only his wife, my step-mother, but also a step-sister and step-brother as well, which I did not know about, until then.
It was not until things calmed down, and the Press left, that we were able to get together, fully.
Then, when we could, we both left, and walked into the fields and forests around this house in the little Village in Bavaria, and were able to be alone.
Sometimes we just walked in silence, other times the words flowed like a river in full flood, and he started to tell me parts of his story, and asked about my life.
I had shown him a copy of a video made by Granada TV, and shown on British Television, about my story while we were in my Sisters House, and he talked about that, as there were some photographs of my Mother in it, and he loved her [and still did] very much, and he asked about her death in the 1960's, which upset him.
So much lost time, so many things to find out about each other, but, we both knew that this would not be our only meeting, but there would be many more, and there were, right up to his own death in 2004.
My last time with my Father was in 2003, and when we said Goodbye, he acted strangly, he hugged me, and would not let me go for some time, and when I said, 'See you next year', I remember he looked at me with sad eyes, which I mentioned to my wife who was with me, and I think he knew this was not to be.
I was at his Funeral in 2004, and more things came to light then, as many of his old army friends who had survived the war, and old age, were there, and conversations with them, answered even more questions. But that is another story, and his adventures are a part of my own story, in my biography due out in its enlarged version with photographs, early next year.
Sorry Folks, I missed out HAMBURG, when I was talking about the refugee camp above. The refugee camp was outside the City of Hamburg, and had been set up by the British 51st Highland Division to deal with refugge's from the East arriving by train, or on foot, escaping from the Russians, who were giving us Germans, what our killer SS groups had done to them. So they were brutal in every way, no Man, Woman or Child were safe in their hands, and people were escaping in panic from them.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the error...x
Alfie ~ Your storyline could be the basis for a screenplay. Your life touches upon most of the elements to WWII: Hitler, Bran, the SS, the Russian Front,the Allied invasion of Germany, the twists and turns and contradictions and family turmoil throughout it all. And seen from the eyes of a youngster who would eventually ride the crest of German awareness and regret.
ReplyDeleteLets see, who would play you in the film? Some child actor at the start; eventually perhaps Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks later. Wow, I'm ready to buy the tickets now!!
Keep remembering here. Especially about that "deep brown voice" in which Hitler spoke to you. That bigger-than-life man utterly fascinates me...
Like I always said, Jack, I love stories about your own adventures best! Great job! :-)
ReplyDeleteWell, the reason people are so interested in Hitler, is I think, because he is a man of contradictions. Everybody 'knows' him through the many films that show him in action, shouting, screaming, waving his arms about, in fact looking like a mad man.
ReplyDeleteBut this is an illusion...[this from my Father]..he rehearsed every move he made in front of a mirror.
His speech's sound like a rant, but again, this is an illusion, for he had to shout to be heard, and for effect..and if you understand German, they don't sound like a rant anymore.
Other people who knew him [adults at the time], told me that he always started speaking, slowly, and not very effective, a lot of hesitation, but once he settled down, he sort of 'fed' off the crowd, like a vampire, the more people about, the more he got into his stride, the louder he shouted, and sweated, and acted like a demi-God, which in a way, he was.
Hitler was without doubt evil, very twisted in his thinking, but in private, a nice person, but used to drive people round the bend in Bunker, or Alpine retreat, because he 'loved' the sound of his own voice, and would talk for hours, and hours, about himself, and how much better he was than all his Generals, the old school, junkers, who he thought were idiots.
He used to do very long monologues into the early hours, and people were afraid to leave before he went to bed himself. My father mentioned one that he attended at Berchtesgaden, when Hitler arrived in his sitting room at around 4pm, and started talking, ending at about 5am next day..everybody was knackered. To make it worse, what he started talking about, was repeated time and time again, like a tape recorder being re-played over and over again. He told me that he thought that Hitler rehearsed his 'talks', and knew them word for word, and repeated them, because, as I said above, he loved the sound of his voice.
Which is the point I made myself, because his voice was very special, very relaxing [in private] and how people did not doze off, beats me. Mind you, who would risk insulting Hitler ?
Annie ~ That's very kind of you.
ReplyDeleteAlfie ~ Your recollections jibe with all I have read about this remarkable man. A dazzling but demonic study in contradictions. Were it not for the Holocaust, not only might he have won the war as you suggest; he would surely have gone down in German history as a great figure,rather than what he is deemed today.
Your experiences are both frightening and enviable...