Suddenly We Hear Bombs Whistling

By Giselle Dietrich

Suddenly we hear bombs whistling is an explosive first-person narrative which unmasks the difficult life of common citizens in World War II-ravaged Germany.

Gisela’s diaries, lost for decades, re-discovered in 2013, and translated by the octogenarian author, lift the curtain on a country’s darkest historical past showing how propaganda, diabolically hidden social plans, and the relentless Nazi war machine unhinged a proud, compassionate, and industrious people, and shattered relationships between friends, neighbors, and families.

Suddenly we hear bombs whistling reveals the author’s terror when Allied bombings, targeting nearby industrial facilities, killed thousands of innocent civilians and destroyed 95 percent of her home town of Mannheim; her fear that her father’s clandestine anti-Nazi activities would be discovered; and her apprehension when she discovered that her uncle was sending her young cousins to sneak Jews out of Germany. Life-changing betrayals traumatize her and fracture her family; yet, she continues her search for love; relies on the strength of friendships; and struggles to survive the suffering and corruption that continue after the war.

This is a story about the strength of the human spirit and an intimate insight into the joys, disappointments, frustrations, and triumphs of a young girl growing into womanhood as the world around her broke.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Giselle Dietrich
• Release date: Jul 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386099390

Book preview

...suddenly we hear bombs

whistling...

Gisela Diehm

Author: Gisela Diehm

Translator: Gisela Diehm

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Printed in the United States.

Foreword

––––––––

Born in Mannheim, Germany, in 1926 to an apolitical, open-minded, middle class family, Gisela Diehm grew up as a single child. Like other young girls, Gisela received a diary for her thirteenth birthday (in 1939). By writing in her book she soon found refuge from her only-child loneliness. She faithfully recorded her thoughts and feelings about her family and her young life experiences.

Her in-depth, first-person narrative of her early teen years is enough to make this work a significant contribution to coming of age literature, but the setting against which her story plays out adds an astonishingly insightful historical perspective of civilian life in World War II Germany and the deprivation which followed.

Gisela left Germany for the U.S in March 1953. She packed her clothing, her diaries, family photographs, and forty dollars to start a new life. She immigrated legally to the United States, fulfilling the only childhood dream World War II had not destroyed.

In the years that followed her arrival in America, she married, raised a family, and moved nine times. Her diaries were not forgotten but they somehow had disappeared.

In 2013, when, again, Gisela was relocating, a mover took a last look around Gisela’s home’s attic. He spotted a cardboard box in a corner and brought it to the top of the attic steps to show to her. While turning it around in his hands he was asking: "Do you need this’? The box slipped from his hands, tumbled and bounced down the ladder, landed on the garage floor, and burst open. Hundreds of old photographs and an aged parchment package spilled out.

Gisela was reunited with her sixty- and seventy-year-old diaries, which revealed, in their original writing her life from so many years ago. In exquisite detail, the younger Gisela talked about the nightly wartime horrors, the joy of family life, the strength of friendship, the pain of betrayal, the whistling bombs, the suffering and corruption that continued after the war, and of her determination, through it all, that she would survive.

Gisela’s friend, Kathryn Barber, suggested that the now 87-year-old should translate her diaries into English. One year later, Gisela gave her the translated diaries to be crafted into the book which you now hold.

This is a story of the strength of the human spirit and an intimate insight into the joys, disappointments, frustrations, and triumphs of a young girl growing into womanhood as the world around her broke.

It is an amazing work.

Contents

The Beginning

1939

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

1946

1947

1948

1949

1950

1951

1952

1953

Dedication

––––––––

To my parents Carl and Lydia Diehm,

To Elisabeth Keller, My Oma.

You have been very influential in creating who I am,

What I believe,

And what I have become.

The Beginning

My mother gave me my first 200-page diary for my 13th birthday. I have been sitting at this table now for nearly an hour just thinking. Not much worth writing about comes to my mind. I‘m thinking: who is this for anyhow? Who is going to read it and why then should I write it? Will I ever read this again?

It is finally dawning on me that this is really for me!

I will begin with my parents; they seem to me as if they are somewhat different from most of my friends’ parents, why and how I cannot really figure that out.

Perhaps because we take 3-4 week vacations every summer? Nobody else we know does that. Or we take a taxi when we go to the railway station when they take the streetcar.

We don’t go to church like they do.

My mother is very well educated, she reads book after book, and she sings operatic music as well as classical songs.

My Papa is very interested in what they call ‘politics’ and he sure has his own, often controversial opinions which he lets anyone know who is willing to listen. He definitely speaks his mind on every subject.

He always stresses that one could do anything one wants to do. He proved it by teaching me early on to perform typical boy things. Mama and especially Oma, are teaching me girl things. Had Papa been a healthy man, I am sure his teachings would not have stopped at fixing bikes, making big kites from scratch, or pursuing photography in all its aspects. He was an adventurer and had always had dreams of seeing other countries and even continents. His biggest dream was to go to America which never came to pass.

I was born and am growing up in Mannheim as an only child, and I feel very lonely having no siblings. We frequently visit Papa’s hometown of Stuttgart. His parents have passed but there still lives his only sister, Alice, and her husband Eugene, as well as their two sons, Herbert and Manfred.

My Oma (grandmother) on my mother’s side is very influential in my life. I see her every Sunday, and she shares with me her artistic gifts, not only in mind and spirit but also in reality, demonstrating her advanced crafting know-how’s and teaching me to master knitting, crocheting, and sewing, as well as drawing and designing. She is not only a perfectionist at replicating what she sees, but also produces ingenious, original works of art. I adore her hundreds of sayings she has at her disposal at any given time; her humor is as catching as her kindness and patience.

Everything I am going to write in my diaries is true.

It turned out I wrote a total of six books. They had been thought lost for years until they were discovered accidentally just recently in the summer of 2013.

Typical for my father, he had carefully wrapped them up in parchment paper which has turned brown and brittle. He had taped them to the bottom of a box, beneath hundreds of old family pictures, several dating back as far as 1865. It was that box which seemed to have disappeared.

I personally translated the contents of the diaries directly from these books. I had written them from 1939 to the beginning of 1953, when I emigrated from Germany to live in America.

This will not only be a book about the war, the hundreds of bombings which killed thousands of people of Mannheim, and where we heard the bombs whistling while sitting and praying in our cellar. It is also about the powerful and horrifying politics of that time. It is strictly a book about me being a young girl living through all of those war years under Nazi restraints and rules. It depicts how I survived many ugly events and was often cheating death. My dream to go to America as a young girl was real. It was instilled in me by my Papa because I became his alter ego, when his big dreams to immigrate to America could not be fulfilled. As far as I was concerned, I had my own program:

1. Graduate from Medical school.

2. Visit and perhaps work with Dr. Schweitzer at his laboratories in Africa.

3. After that, I would go to America to meet with the American Indian population.

1939

Tuesday, 27 June 1939

Yesterday I was 12 and today I am 13, a genuine Backfisch. (teen) how wonderful is that?

It is a very important step in my life, so they say.

I am in the compulsory entry level of the JM, the German Girls League of the Hitler Youth, which goes from age 10 - 14. The school informs the JM when girls turn ten. Our weekly meetings are fine with me because I can make new friends and we giggle a lot. We sing a few folk songs and then we march to the sport’s stadium across from my apartment building where we practice to run, broad jump, high jump and throwing balls. Our meeting room is located cattycorner across the street.

Both Papa and Mama assured me that I would get an allowance when I turn 13. I will get 1.30 Mark per week for this year. 1.40 Mark for when I am 14 and so on. I can do with it what I want,

I decided to budget my money. I will save 20 percent, I will spend 20 percent on sweets or ice cream, I will put some money away for buying books and pencils, and what is left over can go for peanuts. This afternoon will be my usual birthday party. Mama has invited several neighbors with their children and some of my friends, like Sascha, Ruth and Margot.

The main event is making the traditional strawberry ice cream which Mama is famous for and which she always makes every year. Papa uses an ice pick to chop the big block of ice he orders especially for this event from the ice truck which normally delivers 1 block of ice daily at about 7 a.m., but on this day, they bring us 2 blocks. Making the ice cream usually makes a big mess as the pieces of chopped ice fly all over the kitchen. I try to push the ice down with my hands and add rock salt in with it. My freezing hands turn red and hurt. I go and get the crystal dishes for everyone, and this ice-cream party is under way—2 chocolate wafers are crisscrossed on top of each huge portion of ice cream, and the whipped cream gets decorated all around it. It is so delicious and to die for.

I still miss my longtime childhood friend, Alice Herzberg so very much—she never failed to join in this happy celebration. We met when both of our families moved to the Weisse Block practically at the same time. She is also a single child, and we were as close as sisters, and told each other all our secrets. Her family is Jewish, and they left Mannheim about a year-and-a-half ago to move to Palestine. We cried and cried and hugged each other with promises to stay in touch and meet again when we are older. Her family left abruptly. Their departure was kept very quiet. They owned a nice notions store where Alice and I spent many happy hours. She usually comes home with me after school because her parents are still at their store, and we do our homework together in my house ever since we were in first grade. I got one postcard from her since she left, confirming her safe arrival. I miss her so much; just thinking of her makes me weep.

Oh, I almost forgot—my parents gave me a new bike for my birthday—with full balloon tires—not those skinny ones most everybody has!

I can’t wait to ride it and show it off.

Bringing up my bike makes me think about the sunny Saturday after my birthday last year. It was in the early afternoon, just a day after school let out for the long summer vacation, that I fractured both bones of my right wrist. Sascha and Almi Moos were riding bikes with me. We rode around the block, over and over. I practiced riding without touching the handlebars. That can be done by using your tosh to squeeze the saddle to make the bike go where you want it to go.

After 5 or 6 times around the block, I was still not touching the handlebars. All of a sudden my bike hit a small rock, and I slipped off. Bracing against the fall, I landed on the ground and broke my arm. The bike was, of course, unharmed! The break was quite evident because my arm was totally contorted but not bleeding. I grabbed it by the elbow with my left hand, walked home, and announced to my mom: I think I broke my arm. She wailed and said: Did you have to do this on a Saturday afternoon when all the doctors’ offices are closed?

After her initial shock, she gave me a stern lecture, and finally decided that we would call a taxi to go to the hospital, where after an hour’s wait and increasing painful discomfort, I had an X-ray taken. A spindly doctor came in and inspected my arm. They took me into his office. With the help of a rather large, imposing nurse they pulled my hand and my elbow in 2 different directions to straighten out the twisted bones! I screamed so loud that everyone in the hospital could hear me! That was more painful than anything I have ever felt before.

I got a cast and a sling and was sent home—I felt faint, was in agony and in tears. Even though, we took the streetcar to go home—no more taxi. By now, Mama was also in shock while I was in great pain. It happened the first day of the school summer vacation. The doctor announced that the bones will probably be healed by the time school starts again.

Because of my mishap, we left for the Black Forest vacation a few days late.

There I had only little fun because I could not even go swimming. Papa also had problems with his diabetes. He had several reactions and we all were not in the best of moods. We returned home earlier than planned.

I am always scared when I am home alone with him, because when I was only 9 years old and was alone with him he fell on his back onto the floor and passed out foaming around his mouth. That scared me no end, I just kept staring at him.

Suddenly I noticed that something grew and moved on his body under his nightgown which made it look like a tent. I was so frightened when I saw this that I screamed again, calling for my Mama.

Wednesday, June 28, 1939

Papa told me over and over that he always wanted to go to America. His dream never became a reality due to his father’s wanting him to be in his real estate business with him in Stuttgart. His father had sent him to Mannheim in 1910 to learn business management, and that is when he worked for the Papyrus Factory. In 1918, after the war ended, he returned to Mannheim to resume his former job when he met Mama, and they got married in 1919. That ended his plans to immigrate to America, and 7 years later, I was born. Just about that exact time, he was diagnosed with diabetes.

Papa also told me that prior to WWI (in the early months of 1914), he was slated to be sent to Indonesia by his employer, the Papyrus Factory and Paper Mill in Mannheim. He was to learn all about the quality of the trees to be felled, assist in running the wood production, and prepare the trees for transportation to the paper-manufacturing plant in Germany. He had his tickets and all the arrangements had been made when World War I broke out, and everything was cancelled. Instead he was drafted into the cavalry. First, he was unable to go to America, and now, also, not to Indonesia. That is so sad.

My dad is a very interesting man, and it is indeed a pity that he is plagued with this disease. While I know that he loves me, I also know that he is very sad that I am not a boy. He treats me as one and shows me all the things that boys do. For instance, he bought me a boy’s two-wheeler bike when I was barely 5 years old, skipping the tricycle totally. To his delight, I learned to ride the bike within days, and off we went—first in the neighborhood, then we went farther and farther away. Eventually we rode to the ‘Strandbad’, which was about one hour away. My mother was immensely upset and probably also afraid.

In the mid-1920s, he became interested in having his own shortwave radio, and he built one himself. After this was accomplished, he turned his attention to photography and soon produced fabulous artistic pictures, which were even published in the local newspaper. He soon got his Rolleiflex camera and taught me how to take pictures, how to place the selected objects in the proper position, how to use the sun and the clouds for enhancement. I was only 6 years old when I had my own camera, and it seems that, from the start, I also had a good eye for suitable subjects and objects. That alone was not enough. He started to develop his own pictures and also enlarge them by setting up his darkroom in our small bathroom—to my mother’s dismay. Needless to say, I became his helper and soon knew what to do. We worked for hours in the dark, with only a special black light that would not destroy the negatives. He strung a line over the bathtub, from the front to the back of tiny bathroom, onto which we hung the enlargements to dry.

On weekends, he took me to fly kites. He also insisted that we make the kites from scratch by ourselves. He has his ‘boy’ but he is also proud of me—his girl.

Thursday, 29 June 1939

Suddenly my parents and their friends heard a rumor of a possible war which Hitler is supposedly starting. They talk of bunkers in Mannheim which will be huge, holding thousands of people. Many underground bunkers and several huge aboveground bunkers (some as tall as 8 stories high) have already been built, unbeknownst to us.

Today is Margret N.’s birthday—also her 13th.

They said her father is cheating. I wonder what that means.

Friday, 30 June 1939

My friends Sascha, Inge, and I went with Mama and Frau Gerstner on a long bike ride to the ‘Strandbad’ on the Rhine River. We had to bicycle through much automobile and streetcar traffic which was very dangerous.

Once we get to the Strandbad we go to our usual place right at the river. Most of the time we meet friends of Mama and Papa and their children and we are always sitting together under the trees. According to Mama, I taught myself swimming when I was only 2 years old. The current of the river is very strong; it flows at almost 4 km/hour towards Holland.

Now that I am 13, I require no longer any supervision.

Swimming is considered a class in our school. I was already required to swim in the city indoor pool under observation for one full hour without ever touching a bar or stopping at the steps. We were clocked and the teacher announced our progress every 10 minutes. We started with 11 girls; it was very hard and tiring. Only one girl from a different school also passed, and we both got congratulatory certificates from the city of Mannheim.

The ship traffic on the Rhine River is quite heavy and runs both north to Holland and eventually to the North Sea and south to Basel in Switzerland, where it flows into the Waterfall of Schaffhausen. Swimming there can be dangerous.

When boys are with us girls we always attempt to swim towards the barges. We all agree that this is so much fun, even though it might be dangerous. Nobody can catch us because we are automatically floating down stream with the current while our parents sit on the beach and we escape their view after a short while.

Many of the boys (12 to 16 years old) swim all the way toward the double- or triple-long barges in the middle of the river and climb onto them and then dive off.

Saturday, 1 July 1939

Before going to the Saturday Jungmädel meeting, I have to don my uniform, which consists of a navy blue skirt, a white short-sleeve shirt, and a black tie made by folding a square piece of black cotton material into a triangle. It goes around my neck under the collar of the shirt and is then held together by a brown leather woven knot.

First we practice sprinting 60 meters, I am never the fastest, but either second or third. When I improve, so does the best girl as well. Shucks! Then we go to the broad jump area. Next we do high-jumping in another area of the stadium.

Javelin throwing is my favorite sport—there I out-throw everybody. This is the end of the Saturday JM meeting.

Tuesday, 4 July 1939

During our school vacations we love to ride our bikes all over the neighborhood, sometimes for 2 hours or more. Frequently we buy peanuts when we make tents with umbrellas and bed sheets and there we gossip about almost everything and nothing, or about school and boys. Right now, I love Werner T. He kissed me once on my cheek, and I can still feel it. I told no one, I was afraid Mama could see it.

I love to read and also visit with my girlfriends who go to different schools, it is so wonderful. I am the only one going to Hans-Thoma School, which is an academic Secondary high school with graduation and a diploma after the thirteenth grade. This diploma is needed for admission into any university; however, the grades achieved are of major importance. An ordinary elementary school ends after eight grades.

To get to my school, I take a streetcar, switching trains after crossing the Neckar River Bridge. It takes about 30 minutes to get to school if all goes as planned. I can also go by bike, which is dangerous because I have to ride next to the streetcar through the center of the city which also has heavy automobile traffic. Mostly I take the streetcar; especially in the wintertime. I started this way when I was only 10 years old, in the first grade of the high school, which compares to the fifth grade of grade school.

Many times the streetcar is so overcrowded that 4 to 5 people hang outside on the steps at every entry of the streetcar. These streetcars run about every 10 to 12 minutes.

We are required to be in class at 7:50; classes start at 8:00. We have 6 classes each day except on Wednesday, when we have only 5 plus 2 hours of outdoor sports in the afternoon, and on Saturday only 4 classes. There is one fifteen-minute break at the end of the eleven o’clock period. We all are required to go into the enclosed schoolyard to eat our sandwiches, which we bring from home. There are always 2 teachers on guard. All schools in Mannheim are either boys’ schools or girls’ schools, never mixed; that also holds true for elementary schools.

One day a week, we have a class of religion, either Catholic or Protestant. From the fifth grade on, we have 3 classes per week of English, 2 of Latin. 5 classes of math, 5 of German, 1 biology, 2 chemistry, 2 history, 2 geography, 1 physics, 2 laboratory (physics and chemistry), one art, and the rest is indoor gymnasium sports. In the ninth grade, they add home economics. Just now we have our big summer vacation of 6 weeks.

Tuesday, July 11 1939

It seems that I have neglected my journal for a while, but I was helping Mama to pack for our vacation. I saw Werner again; he gave me a small brooch of a dark blue, yellow-beaked swallow in flight. I wear it every day. I wonder what he is trying to tell me.

We are off on our trip to Oberstdorf, Bavaria. We are leaving at 6:00 a.m. by taxi for the train station. Trains are very smelly, noisy, and rattle a lot. All I can do is stare out the window. The train shakes so much that I cannot read the book I brought along.

We stop at the station in Stuttgart. Pretzel vendors go up and down the platform along the entire train selling their delicious, warm, buttered pretzels; who could resist? All 3 of us had one.

The landscape outside the dirty window is changing, it gets hilly and soon a bit more mountainous, and finally we see the snowcapped Alps. We arrive in Oberstdorf. It is sunny and the air is warm. We get a taxi and quickly find our small hotel. I sleep with my parents in one room. The room has only 2 beds and a sofa. We got there at 1:30 p.m.; dinner is served promptly at 1:00 p.m. The food is served on assigned tables in the small dining room.

The dinner is meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a salad; dessert is strawberry pie with a big glass of milk for me. There are no other kids my age – it is so boring.

Wednesday, 12 July 1939

It is sunny! For breakfast we had: a soft-boiled egg, Broetchen with butter and jam or honey, and chocolate milk for me.

We went for our first long hike, which was pretty boring also, just the 3 of us. There was nobody to talk to but Mama and Papa; they talked again about a coming war. Today’s dinner consisted of Beef broth with noodles, carrots, and goulash with potatoes. I am not crazy about the food. Both my parents are taking a two-hour nap, I’m glad I have my diary. I wished either Sascha or Werner would be here. Ohhh!

Saturday, 15 July 1939

We finally met some people with an eleven-year-old boy. Better him than nothing. The entire vacation is awful. The grown-ups are talking again about the likelihood of the war, while Paul and I walk barefoot and splatter around in a wild stream.

Monday, 17 July 1939

Papa is in the hospital, the same thing as during our vacation at the Baltic Sea. He walks too much, which uses up the insulin too fast, and he has a reaction. He needs to be reset. No matter where we go, it is always the same thing. I love him very much, but I am glad I am not alone with him and that Mama takes care of him.

Thursday, 20 July 1939

I do not like this vacation.

I think about my 2 cousins, Gerhard and Richard. Their father is my mother’s favorite brother, Carl, just 2 years older than she is. They visit us often at home because of the good food my mother cooks, which apparently they don’t get at home. These 2 cousins are the oldest of 5 children, the rest are girls, one my age. A while back, they were trying to teach me to play a card game called Skat which I then could play with them. It is actually a men’s game which is played everywhere in this country.

Most beer joints have certain round tables reserved for the Skat players, who drink tall glasses of beer, make a lot of noise, and often bang their fists on the bare wooden tables. One would think they are going to fistfight momentarily. There are only 3 players needed for this game but there can be 4 and it can go in rotation; This is what they wanted to teach me, assuming, of course, that I would probably not get it and I would always lose because I was a girl and just 12 years old, whereas they were guys and they were 14 and 16.

I must admit, it is a very complicated game, with many rules and one has to have an excellent memory, a mathematical mind, and, also, much finesse. It took me a while to catch on, but eventually I did, to their greatest surprise. After a while, I started to win here and there, and now I am beginning to beat them regularly.

My uncle Carl has always worked at the Arbeitsamt, (Government Department for Employment), but now they promoted him to be its Chief Officer. This new job required for him to become a party member. He despises this because he is against this regime. He had, however, no choice; it is compulsory for a manager of a government department to be a party member.

In 1938, after the ’Kristallnacht’, Uncle Carl helped many dozens of Jewish families escape NAZI persecution. He hid them in various places in his and his good friends

basements for days or weeks on end and provided them with food and water and whatever was available and needed until he was able to smuggle them out of Germany.

His wife and the 3 girls had no idea he did that, except for the boys because they became runners, for him and they let me in on it as well. I swore to God and ho

Last year on November 9, 1938, after school, I walked to the streetcar st ped to die to secrecy and to keep my mouth shut and not even tell my parents. It was a very dangerous thing to do and had to be kept a total secret. He managed to arrange an escape for all of the people he was hiding. His strategy was to smuggle them out one by one. Either one or sometimes both of the boys accompanied them appearing as their sons on trains or buses. They carried their coats with the yellows stars on the arms hidden while they wore their HJ uniforms. They usually went through the Saarland which bordered France or from Aachen to either Belgium or Holland and also from Lake Constance to Switzerland. Those countries have the closest borders to Mannheim. The families never left together, but individually which made their flight less conspicuous. Thank heavens they were never caught. The boys confessed that this was nerve wrecking and always dangerous; it added a big strain on them.

With his job, Uncle Carl had a certain cover because nobody would suspect that a man in his position would work against the government. The smallest error would have put him and his entire family in jeopardy. There had to be at least 60 people, probably even more whom he smuggled out in that fashion. Thank God this is all over and done with because every Jew he knew and who wanted to leave is gone.

Sunday, 23 July 1939

Papa is back from the hospital; we are preparing to go home. Thank God. It will take a few days before we can leave because Papa is quite weak, the train ride will be strenuous for him.

I just reread my last entry and wonder whether I should rip out that page about Uncle Carl. I will think about it.

Monday, 24 July 1939

I decided to leave it in. I also just remembered the Kristallnacht, and I want to write about it. We were very upset and did not understand why this happened. My Secondary school is located in a section of town where a great number of Jews resided; it was close to a big, beautiful synagogue. I did not know this because I did not distinguish until then what it meant to be a Jew other than they went to a synagogue and we went to a church. I learned in my religion class that Jesus was a Jew. So? I still don’t really get it; perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention and all of a sudden while walking on the sidewalk, all kinds of stuff rained down from mostly upper floor windows onto the sidewalk, barely missing my head. I dodged the falling objects and started to run. Down came lamps, books, dishes, sofa pillows, and many other things. I was scared and thought somebody had gone crazy. It was not only from one window but from many and from different floors. What is going on?

I kept running to the streetcar station. Finally, after I returned home I tried to find out, but both Mama and Papa did not know about this until a couple of days later when we heard it on the radio; we found out that Hitler’s Party was behind this. My dad was especially angry and furious, which did not do anybody any good. He always spoke his mind to whomever he encountered, and Mama begged him not to say anything in public because it could get all of us into deep trouble. She and I held our breath. He was quiet.

––––––––

*Historical Note: Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, (November 9-10, 1938) was a series of coordinated attacks against Jewish citizens, Jewish-owned stores and buildings, and synagogues. German authorities made no attempt to intervene as SA paramilitary groups and non-Jewish citizens shattered windows in 7,500 Jewish stores and businesses, burned over 1,000 synagogues, and beat and massacred unknown hundreds of Jews. Kristallnacht proved a pivotal change in Germany’s treatment of the Jews, changing the policy of discrimination and isolation to one focused on confiscation of Jewish wealth and racial annihilation.*

Wednesday, 26 July 1939

We are now packing. Papa feels better, and we are going home the same way we came.

The vacation was to last 3½ weeks, now this is only our fifteenth day. That is fine with me.

Saturday, 29 July 1939

Nobody can imagine what is going to come. Mama said we should go see a movie because that is where they have a special twenty-five-minute news show with all the latest happenings, before the movie starts. We did, but all we saw is NS troops marching while flags could be seen all over the screen and Hitler speaking as usual to thousands of people and everybody screams: Sieg heil! Sieg heil! I don’t understand his loud speeches at all. He is actually from Austria and has kind of a strange enunciation; my parents don’t like him either. There is nothing that anyone can do about it. Many people say he is good for the country and the economy because he built the Autobahn and everybody is now working again. My papa, however, says bad things about him. Mama reiterates her warnings to papa since he does not keep his mouth shut. She fears that someone will report him. So far, so good!

I just know that all the people around here are very nervous and afraid.

Monday, 31 July 1939

I went to the Schreber Gardens, an area where the Mitteldorfs have a patch of a garden with a fence and they grow vegetables, lettuce, beans climbing on strings, strawberries, cucumbers and more. But most of all they have a small garden house about the size of ½ of my bedroom with a couple of benches, a small table, and a shelf with all the gardening tools and watering cans. I was sent there to pick some of their salads, radishes, and some carrots. When I looked up, to my surprise, there stood Werner.

I had no idea where he had come from or how he knew that I was there. We talked about school, vacation, swimming in the Rhine and seeing each other again by bike. Suddenly he gave me a kiss on my cheek and I got goose bumps. And then he kissed me again on the other cheek. I am trying to describe how this felt, but I cannot find the right words. My cheeks seemed to burn, ohhh! These are my first kisses from a boy—how wonderful.

Saturday, 5 August 1939

Aside from the war talk, I am more interested in my feelings for Werner. We planned to meet 2 more times, same place. Since these gardens are sort of hidden away and a fifteen-minute walk away from my house nobody will look for me there. Also there is this little garden house and when we kiss, we cannot be seen. He still kisses me on my cheeks, and I did the same. I think I love him, but I cannot be sure if what I feel is love. I know I got goose pumps

This is the first time I have a secret that I will not tell Mama or even my friend Sascha!

Monday, 14 August 1939

Today was the first day of school. It was exciting to see everybody and to compare our stories on what we did during the vacation. It seemed all the girls knew about the impending war, but of course we all don’t know what it really means to us. There are already troops marching through the streets, and we saw some tanks.

The National Socialist propaganda is in full swing, but I am still too young to grasp it all, I am just so frightened.

The war seems ready to start any moment, and Papa told me that our troops will probably march into Poland and declare war. I am so scared. Germany has a non-aggression pact with Russia. I know the meaning of the word, but I have no clue what that really means to me and my family.

Friday, 1 September 1939—War!

Germany declared war on Poland and started to march into that country. We had to go to the movies where we saw a 20 minute newscast before the actual movie. Mutti said all they talked about was propaganda showing uniformed German soldiers marching in Berlin.

We are now ordered to darken all our windows—front and back—so no light whatsoever can show through. So-called wardens working for Hitler’s Party patrol the streets at night and will give us a warning slip if we should fail. Papa went immediately to purchase a huge role of thick black paper, at least 1 meter wide. He will glue it to our roll-ups, and he said he will see if this will be sufficient. He also bought a stack of huge sheets of cardboard, which he plans to use on the bathroom window as well as at the extra wide door from the kitchen to the balcony. We are all anxiously awaiting the night to see if it will work. After one warning is issued, people will have to pay a hefty fine if they are caught a second time.

According to the radio reports the invasion into Poland is for real. At first the people in the West did not take this very seriously. Now that it is all over the radio, we are shaking our heads. Nobody knows much about what is really going on. We live in West Germany close to the border with France, and the Polish borders are easternmost from us toward Russia; that is very, very far away from here. Papa said: We cannot ever believe what they tell us because they won’t tell the truth, just what they want us to hear.

Everywhere one looks, there are troops marching toward the main RR station in Mannheim, many of them are singing, and I don’t know why. It almost feels as if they are happy, maybe not exactly, but for certain they all seem to be very enthusiastic and excited. Some soldiers wear green uniforms, some gray/blue, some black and brown. I am just too old to not care and too young to understand.

Friday, 15 September 1939

So far our life at home has normalized to some extent. I have to go to school, we all listen to the radio, and there are many speeches held on various plazas. We are now told that food will be rationed. Various people of the neighborhood who belong to the party come around and talk to us about the war and what could happen. Some of these officials informed us that there is a bunker we belong to, etc. It happens that our bunker is more than a mile from our house, and if we don’t have young children twelve and under, we cannot reserve any of the particular rooms where we could possibly stay overnight. Well, I am now 13, so it does not apply to us. They expect air attacks. It is amazing to me who these party officials are. Primarily neighbors whom we had never suspected would be members of the party. My father is fuming, and Mama is trying to prevent him from saying anything to anybody. He is in real danger if he cannot keep his mouth shut.

Friday, 22 September 1939

I am more interested in boys than in the war. I have not seen Werner in a while, and I think he is too young for me anyway. He is 4 months younger. I think that peculiar feeling was not love. I am not wearing his brooch anymore.

Now, Guenther is making big eyes at me, I am not interested; he is not athletic.

The food is now definitely rationed. The portions we get are based on the amount of calories that are allotted—1,200 for women and children, 1,500 for men, unless they work as laborers in factories, and then they get 300 more. Children under 13 and pregnant women also get 300 more calories. This has to include the 1 cup of milk per day for children over 13, no coffee for children under 16, 4 oz of butter or margarine or oil per week per person, 8 oz of meat per person per week, and 8 oz of sugar per month. Only veggies, fruit, and potatoes are not rationed—if you can find them at a market or perhaps a grocery store. We picked up the printed coupons from the newly set up party office. Mama stood in line for about 3 hours.

There is nervousness everywhere. I took the only money I had and went to the City to buy a pair of shoes for fewer than 12 Marks. The only ones left were at least one number too big. I’ll just wear them with heavy socks.

All of a sudden, the merchandise in the department stores as well as smaller family-owned stores is shrinking to next to nothing. We are urged to buy party flags, the bigger the better. Mama bought a really big one, made of 100% cotton and so did Papa. So far they are rolled up and stored in the hall closet. They are available everywhere.

School goes on. Almost all male teachers under 40 have been drafted and are gone. The classes have doubled in size, as not enough teachers are now available. It is very crowded in the classrooms; the back rows have no desks but only chairs. Some old, retired teachers are temporarily substituting and may perhaps stay.

Tuesday, 2 October 1939

I have a new math teacher, he is a retired teacher who was recalled to work. He used to be in a boys’ school for 35 years and has no clue how different we girls are from the boys. He uses a long