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When the singing stops on Christmas Eve in bombed-out Europe: Sitting at my computer in Philadelphia, looking back

12/19/2019

5 Comments

 
By Henrik Eger
Die schönsten deutschen Weihnachtslieder—The most beautiful German Christmas songs
I have not lived in Germany for a long, long time. However, here in Philadelphia, quite far from the land of my birth, when I turn on my computer every December and search YouTube for “Deutsche Weihnachtslieder”—German Christmas songs—my screen fills with a little church in the mountains of Bavaria, where I grew up during World War II.
 
Snowflakes fall down onto my laptop, church bells start ringing, and a children’s choir sings carols in my mother tongue—and then, something hits me hard every year.
 
The world of my childhood suddenly seems whole and perfect for a few seconds—a few minutes, maybe—with the illusion of peace, harmony, and goodwill for all.
 
But then, reality hits me. 
Picture
After the bombardment of Wuppertal, only ruins remained. Remscheider General-Anzeiger, 1945.

Days in bombed-out Europe

In 1945, millions of Europeans who lived in London, Rotterdam, Warsaw, Dresden, and other cities that had been bombed into ruins were either killed or trapped in basements—with relatives desperately digging through rubble, trying to find survivors.
 
World War II had thrown millions of people out of their homes all over Europe and turned many survivors into refugees without money, jobs, or hope. Countless people lived in refugee camps, bunkers, in the streets, or in overcrowded places.
 
My father, a young journalist and war correspondent, aged 31, was missing in action.
 
In 1948, an old relative invited my mother, my little sister, and me to share her small, one-bedroom apartment with two other families in Wuppertal, a city near Düsseldorf and Cologne. When we looked out the window, blackened ruins of a once-large apartment building stared us in the face. 
Picture
My grandparents lived in a large apartment building in Wuppertal that looked very similar
to this photo of bomb-damaged buildings that had somewhat survived.

When the singing stops
​on Christmas Eve—year after year

As children, we did not understand the horror behind the destruction. We rejoiced when we heard my mother’s little brass bell that let my sister and me into the festively-decorated room, when we saw the Christmas tree with all its candles burning—initially puzzled why our old, beaten-up tin bucket filled with water was sitting next to the tree—and when we began to sing Christmas songs with our mother and our two grandparents.
 
Soon, my grandmother stopped singing. She took out her little handkerchief and sobbed. Two songs later, my grandfather stopped singing, too. He rubbed his eyes with his big hands, pretending that he had some dust in his eyes. It took me some years before I realized why they stopped singing: both my grandparents had lost their only son, drafted at 17, killed in Russia. 
Picture
At Eternity's Gate. Old man grieving with his head in his hands. Vincent Van Gogh, Lithograph, 1882.
However, my mother, my sister, and I kept singing.

My father had disappeared in the Soviet Union. None of us knew for many years after the war that Russian partisans had thrown a Molotov cocktail under his car and blown him and his driver up in the summer of 1944. My mother, unaware that she already was a widow, yet filled with fear and apprehension, stopped singing and started to cry.


In spite of all the tears, my little sister and I kept singing, no matter what. We both wanted to save Christmas—Heiligabend after Heiligabend. The same scenario repeated itself every year, way into the 1950s.
Picture
Burning candle on a Christmas tree.

Each Christmas song in Philly brings back the sorrow and the joy
in the ruins of Europe 

My grandparents died many years ago. My little sister, Birgit, who became a librarian and an astrologer in Munich, died way before her time from breast cancer, shortly after the publication of her first book: Of Fairy Tales and Greek Myths--presented from a literary and an astrological perspective. My mother, broken and burdened by the loss of her brother, her husband, and her daughter, cried often. A year later, she followed them into timelessness.
Picture
The Astrologer, my play about my sister. Image: Book opening to the Zodiac signs.
And now, a writer and retired professor, I am sitting at my computer in Philadelphia, writing new articles, stories, and plays, and listening with joy and sadness, both tinged with the emotions of those annual family events when we sang Christmas songs in bombed-out Wuppertal during that postwar period. Each December, whether I want it or not, each song brings back lost time and memories of events past.
 
As in all the years before, I fight tears, aware that after all these many decades, I’m still allowed to re-live those Christmas evenings of my childhood whenever snow falls gently onto my computer screen and a children’s choir in Bavaria sings Weihnachtslieder, courtesy of YouTube.​
Picture
Kinderchor Neubeuern, Bavaria.

Christmas wish:
May those who come after us
​do a better job than we did

One thing I know, even when all those of us living today have gone for good, “Stille Nacht,” “Silent Night,” and all the other old Christmas songs will live on—provided we do not destroy our world.
 
Fröhliche Weihnachten, merry Christmas, and a heart full of hope.

​One day, may those who come after us, doing a better job than we did, hand over permanent peace as a present for the generations to come—not just for Christmas, but for life. 
Picture
Destroying the earth by Elke Colangelo.
Picture
Holding the earth, trying to keep it alive--

an image that appears hundreds of times on the Internet.
If you find the name of the artist, please contact us.
This article was originally published by Phindie on December 19, 2019.
Back to STORIES: America
5 Comments

Brown Paper Bag (excerpt)

8/27/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
And suddenly it got dark. They heard terrible screams coming from the roof of their wagon, and Martin thought he heard something crashing down. It was like suitcases falling from the roof, but he had not seen any suitcases or trunks, just men crouching on top of the overcrowded train in München. He didn’t know what had happened to them in the tunnel. All he could hear were muffled cries from the people around him, “Oh, mein Gott, oh, mein Gott.” 

And then it became quiet again, except for the metal wheels of the train hitting the rails in the long tunnel.
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All stories are copyrighted. If you are interested in seeing the full story and perhaps publishing or adapting it, please contact the author.
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Brown Paper Bag (summary)

8/27/2014

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Picture
“Brown Paper Bag” is based on the experiences of Martin, a little boy who, with his mother and younger sister, left a small village in Bavaria where they had taken refuge during WW II.  

This journey in 1946, on a northbound train to the Rhineland, shows the desperation and poverty of the post-war period, when people were frantically hunting for food, clothing, and anything they could lay their hands on.  

The shocking experience at the beginning of the train journey is magnified upon the arrival of the little family in bombed-out Cologne, when Martin is confronted by a grandfatherly man who changes the little boy's perception of Good Samaritans. However, the story ends with a moving surprise.
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Black shoe polish:                Summary & excerpt

8/27/2014

2 Comments

 
Picture
US Army M3 Gun Motor Carriage with African-American crew, WWII
SUMMARY:

Most Germans who had survived WW II were so poor that they bartered for almost anything, including bread, butter, and shoe polish.  Martin, a little boy who had never seen anyone other than his small family and the people in the Bavarian village where they had taken refuge during the war, discovered the joy of playing with shoe polish and painting his hands, arms, and face, even smearing shoe polish into his hair.  His mother, angry that he had wasted the few old clumps of precious shoe polish which she had managed to get hold of, shouted at him that no humans look black, only scarecrows.  

A few weeks later, when the little boy and his mother were resting by a lake, a tank of American soldiers stopped at the embankment above, and threw gifts for the little boy and his sister.  Little Martin, thrilled about the experience, even though puzzled that he couldn't understand the soldiers, begged his mother to ask the soldiers whether they could give him some of their black shoe polish which, from his perspective, they must have smeared all over their hands, arms, faces, and hair.  He cheerfully waved at the African-American soldiers whom he considered his new friends and fellow scarecrows. His mother, aghast, tries to pull her son away.
Picture
EXCERPT:

He woke up with his mother shrieking like a madwoman. She had come back from milking the cows and was so upset when she saw her son all blackened that she spilled some of the milk onto the floor by accident. Milk swirled around dried old clumps of black shoe polish, creating patterns on the floor she had never seen. Within seconds, the rented room on the farm looked worse than ever before.

“What have you done, what have you done?” she screamed.

“You look like a scarecrow. No mensch looks like that,” she almost cried with anger, “no mensch looks like that, not one – only scarecrows, black scarecrows.”

She hit him over the head, accidentally knocked over the milk jug fully, and started to cry.

“My blonde little son has become a black scarecrow. How terrible!” She cried uncontrollably.
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All stories are copyrighted. If you are interested in seeing the full story and perhaps publish or adapt it, please contact the author.
2 Comments

Excerpt: Black Shoe Polish

8/27/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
He woke up with his mother shrieking like a madwoman. She had come back from milking the cows and was so upset when she saw her son all blackened that she spilled some of the milk onto the floor by accident. Milk swirled around dried old clumps of black shoe polish, creating patterns on the floor she had never seen. Within seconds, the rented room on the farm looked worse than ever before.

“What have you done, what have you done?” she screamed.

“You look like a scarecrow. No mensch looks like that,” she almost cried with anger, “no mensch looks like that, not one – only scarecrows, black scarecrows.”

She hit him over the head, accidentally knocked over the milk jug fully, and started to cry.

“My blonde little son has become a black scarecrow. How terrible!” She cried uncontrollably.
Back to STORIES
All stories are copyrighted. If you are interested in seeing the full story and perhaps publishing or adapting it, please contact the author.
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