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We lived across the street from a lumberyard and sawmill. At that time the main road into town was still dirt. Playing in the front yard of our apartment was ok, but the sawmill seemed a lot more fun for my friend Heidi and some of the other kids close by. I was always told that if a car comes along, you go to the side of the road and walt until it passes.
One day, we all decided to play among some new tree trunks that had come on site, ready to be cut into wood planks. Heidi and the others got a jump on crossing over and then called for me to come. I quickly dashed for the road, not looking or hearing any cars coming. Bang! Just like that I was hit by a car.
Luckily, the car was high enough off the ground and I was in between the tires, so I was underneath the car, but not injured. The driver of the car pulled me out from underneath and continued on his way. I was banished to the apartment for a few days and made to promise I would never cross the road again without first looking both ways. I used to walk down the road into town to pick up fresh bread, so keeping off the road was not an option my parents wanted to consider.
The small farming town of Schreufa
A car similar to what ran me over.
At the lumberyard with my friends (Heidi is in the back on the right). Heidi lived downstairs from us, across from the lumberyard. I didn't see her again until 1993, when I visited Germany for the first time since 1953.
I would never get into trouble, you know.
I loved the chocolate Easter rabbitsImage Title-
Gypsies used to come around the countryside as some would work carnivals, others looking for jobs. It was not unusual for a wagon or two filled with Gypsies to come down the main road of Schreufa, even in the early 1950's. Although I didn't have blue eyes, I did have blond hair and that seemed to be an attraction to some Gypsies.
On a sunny, summer day, I was outside playing when a band of Gypsies came down the road in one of their wagons. My mom was upstairs doing some laundry, so she was unaware of what was going on outside. A few minutes later, a neighbor came running up the stairs to our apartment and let my mom know that some Gypsies had come by and that I had disappeared.
My mom, all 4-10 of her and a pretty good sprinter during her youth, bolted down the stairs, out the front door and ran as fast as she could down the road after the caravan. Along the way, she called out to a friend who came along with her and the two of them stopped the caravan and found me in one of the wagons.
I have no memory of this, but this was a story told often times as I was growing up. I do remember that my mom tied a rope around my waist that enabled me to go from the front door of the house we lived in no further than the middle of the yard. I was probably the first child to have a leash like a dog to keep me from straying away.
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It was 1950 and I was would be 5 at the end of September, when I began to help my mom in her garden, located directly behind the house where we lived on the second floor.
The town of Schreufa, with its dirt road through the center of town, had a butcher, a baker and a lumberyard that I can still remember. I also recall a Barber Shop, but don't know if that was a fact or not. It was a sleepy little town still recovering from World War 2.
The garden had a wooden fence with a gate. That gate was always closed so as to keep wandering animals out of the garden plots, in particular, geese and goats.
I was not good at closing the gate, but I learned quickly that if I didn't close it properly, I was in for it, not from my mom, but from the goose and the billy goat.
I remember following my mom into the garden to pick some peas, totally forgetting about the gate. Pretty soon, here comes the goose, hissing and snapping her head forwards and back.
All of a sudden, she darts right for me. I turn to run and get pecked in the behind, hard enough that I let out a scream. At that same instance, a small billygoat, named Willi, with protruding tiny horns came running at me and, bam, right in the stomach with his head. I started crying and trying to get behind my mom for safety, only to find her laughing at the scene. It took some time before I enjoyed gardening again.
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My maternal grandparents lived in the very small town of Mittenwalde, which is about 20 south of Berlin, near Königs Wusterhausen.
One Christmas when I was 4 or 5 years old, my parents and I took one of those old pre-war trains from Schreufa to Berlin. Each passenger compartment had an entry door with a handle on it.
This trip was exciting for me as it was my first time on a train and my first time visiting my grandparents (also my only time). I remember my mom and dad sitting on a bench on one side of the train compartment while I decided to walk around a little and look out the window of the door. I had to stand on my toes and lean into the door to look out when the door started to open outward. My mom, being attentive, noticed the door opening and quickly jumped over to grab me just before I would fall out of the train to a certain death. My mom ended up with a badly cut hand, as she had opened up a glass vial to take a pill and in her effort in grabbing me, crushed the vial and the glass splinters cut her hand.
We eventually arrived in Mittenwalde’s Bahnhof (train station), that still exists to this day. My grandparents lived in a one room flat on the second floor where there was no central heat. I still remember feeling ice on the inside wall as I lay in bed and listened to a crystal radio made by my grandfather.
I recall spending some fun time with my grandfather, going sleighing down a hill, but when I went back to Mittenwalde to look for that hill, I could not find it. On Christmas Eve, Santa showed up to give out presents. I don’t remember what I got but I was very excited to meet Der Weinachtsmann, who I learned years later was my grandfather dressed up.
