It is 1944,
The big war has been ravaging Europe for five long years. Millions of citizens,
men, women and children have lost their lives and millions more have lost
everything they owned. Today was no different than yesterday. Early afternoon
the sound of the birds chirping and children playing is interrupted by the
shrill sounds of the air raid siren.
Folks grab
the few belongings that are worth carrying with them and run down the
street to a cave opening. This cave is the remnant of a mine, active some
600 years ago. Precious and semi-precious stones once came out of the tunnel in
small coal cars. These stones were, for
centuries, the sole income of this small town,
nestled between the Hunsrueck Mountain and the Nahe River. Every child grows up
in this town knowing what life has in store for him or her. Men and women work
side by side cutting, polishing and setting these valuable stones into pendants
and rings made by the skilled hands of the local goldsmiths.
The war changed all that. The boys are off
to war and the women work for a small income.
After work, they do their best to keep them undamaged parts of their
homes tidy. My family is the same.
Opa and Oma have four children -- two boys and
two girls. The oldest son is drafted into the Wehrmacht and fights
for his survival on many fronts. The younger son, who's civilian occupation was
with law enforcement, volunteered for the SA. The SA (unlike SS or Waffen SS) are,
by this stage of the war, considered elite soldiers with party affiliation. My
mother, their eldest daughter, works part time to help cover household costs,
and then helps Oma keep the home. The
youngest girl has traced Oma’s roots and
found herself on a farm in Holstein, North Germany. Born to a family of
farmers, Oma is still familiar with working the land and makes bi-weekly trips
to her childhood home. She does this so
she might bring back vegetables, flour and meat.
Opa is too old to be of any use in this war,
though he is a veteran cavalry officer and served most of the First World War
in France. On this fateful day, he has
departed our home in the morning to mow some fields in the mountains. Since
we live on the outskirts of the city, we possess neither oxen nor horses,
so all of the mowing is done with a scythe. Opa must care for his
property. After his return from the war,
he had built himself an enclosure on a small piece of land not far from our
home. Here he raises chickens, rabbits and occasionally a pig. His pride and
joy is a big black crow he brought back from the war. At the end of a
battle, he found the crow with a broken wing and picked it up, placed it into
his saddlebag, nursed it back to health and brought it home. He taught it to
speak and it became his lifelong companion.
When
evening comes around and Opa has not returned to the house, Oma goes to
look for him. When she finally locates him, she cries out. Laying in a pile of
hay, it is clear that he has suffered a massive heart attack.
One year later, I was born. Though I never knew the man firsthand, Oma
made sure that I knew who Opa was and what he stood for. At the age of eight, I
was finally allowed to climb the stairs all the way up into the attic. When I
opened the door, I was greeted by a very large room filled with the treasures
that Opa had saved during his lifetime. The German uniform, his sabre, his
Pickelhaube (Cavalry Helmet), and his collection of handmade pipes. In the
corner sat a most precious item -- his rocking chair…
Now, I am the grandfather and I imagine myself
sitting in that old rocker amidst my most beloved possessions, imparting wisdom
as my Opa had once done with his children.
Take the journey with me. Read my
stories, tell me yours, and recall the people of the past that made all of this
possible for us.
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