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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
Chris Lione
2/17/2020 06:56:48 pm


"I read your story just now and have tried to mask my tears on a bus going to New York. Thank you for posting."

Reply
Henrik Eger link
3/26/2020 07:50:11 pm

Chris,

What a moving response to the war and postwar account while you were sitting in a bus on the way to New York, a city at the beginning of the Coronavirus epidemic--a modern war.

Thank you for sharing.

Reply
Debra Cebulski
3/26/2020 07:40:06 pm

My biological father abandoned us when I was three. Mom sometimes worked three jobs to support us. No matter how poor we were, she always made sure me and my siblings had a Christmas. I remember making Christmas trees out of the TV Guide, and making Christmas tree ornaments out of Popsicle sticks we'd save all year, which we'd coat with glitter and glue and glue together in star shapes. We'd cut strips of construction paper, tape them together in chains and hang them on the tree. Some years we'd make strings of popcorn. Things got easier when Mommy found my stepfather, but I remember and will cherish the times when we didn't have much and we focused tightly on and clung to each other. As adults, we had to adapt to Christmases without my brother (who died from smoking and diabetes at age 40) and without my father (who died from lung cancer at age 66). We had to adapt, but we still had Christmas. Christmas kept us sane and brought home the fact that Christmas is really all about family.

Reply
Henrik Eger link
3/26/2020 09:20:20 pm

Debra,o

What a moving account, eerily reminiscent of my childhood experiences after WWII in bombed out Germany.

Would you be willing to write more stories from those days and the years that followed? I'm sure quite a few people would like to read about those times.

I began that process that time ago. For sample, check out the STORIES section on my website: www.DramaAroundTheGlobe.com/Stories.html

Kind regards to both of you from the Philadelphia area. Once Corona has left the area, why not come and visit in the Fall?

Henrik

Reply
Michelle Quigley
12/24/2020 03:40:30 pm

My family also suffered for many, many years. I think I understand, at least a bit.

Reply



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