Such... Is Life: The Story of the Trials and Tribulations of an Immigrant

By Willy W. Schneider

This is the story of a life full of "derailments." The author might have grown up under secure circumstances, yet, even his young years were full of confusion, caused by the divorce of his parents in his very young years and full of apprehension because of he dictatorial manner with which his grandmother ruled her flock. He has to learn the true facts of life very early when he chose a profession, which, he innocently thought, would fulfill his dreams about his professional life. Reality, however, turned into twelve to fourteen hour workdays on a highly efficiently run large farm.

His years of apprenticeship has hardly come to an end, when he was drafted into the army and after boot camp, he was promptly shipped to Russia, where he experienced more hardship, brutality, death and misery than most of us experience during a lifetime. Even though he was wounded several times, he survived that war in one piece, only to find upon his arrival in his hometown the Russians again as occupation troops, which led to new and sometimes dangerous problems, which convinced him to leave the "Workers" Paradise and flee to the "Golden West" in Germany. Not all was gold that glittered and the long harbored idea of emigrating eventually became reality, not without considerable obstacles.

The initial years in the new homeland were a cultural shock and full of surprises. Some quite funny, others not. After nearly five years of doing what he had never thought he would be doing, he finally found his niche in the financial service business, from which he retired in 1999 and is now enjoying his "golden years." He has never regretted his decision to emigrate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Apr 17, 2008
• ISBN: 9781490721880

Willy W. Schneider

The author was born and raised in Germany; in the province of Saxony, the former East Germany. After completing high school he chose agriculture as his profession and was trained to be an agricultural estate manager. Immediately after the completion of his three-year training he was drafted into the army and was shipped to the Russian front, where he spent two and a half years in the vicinity of Leningrad. He was ordered to become an officer and after the completion of officer's training school, he was shipped to the western front, where he served until the end of the war. With East Germany, the agricultural base of Germany lost to the Russian, his professional opportunities were very limited and he decided to immigrate to Canada. After nearly five years working in the forest industry, various types of construction and sometimes simply as a handyman, he was eventually introduced to the financial service industry. He joined Sun Life of Canada in January 1959 and retired in 1999. During those years he ad his wife have always lived in Terrace, B.C.

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© Copyright 2008 Willy Schneider.

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ISBN: 978-1-4120-8343-0

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD

My Family

MY EARLY YEARS

THE ROYAL VISIT

MY TEENAGE YEARS

GERMANY’S TRANSFORMATION UNDER HITLER

LIFE IN THE REAL WORLD BEGINS

RITTERGUT THOSSFELL

THE ARMY CALLS

OFF TO THE SHOOTING WAR

LENINGRAD

THE REAL UGLY WAR BEGINS

BECOMING AN OFFICER

BACK TO THE WAR A STRANGE ONE THIS TIME

PEACE HAS BROKEN OUT

LEARNING TO BECOME A CIVILIAN AGAIN

LIFE IN THE SOVIET OCCUPIED ZONE

POST-WAR GERMANY WEST GERMANY vs. EAST GERMANY

RITTERGUT FAHRENBACH August 1946-September 1947

SAM

Mrs. X

HOEXTER on the WESER RIVER

NEHEIM-HUESTEN

DRIFTING 1949-1950

GISELA My Future Wife

MY MOTHER 1901-1951

BIG ERIC

CANADA HERE WE COME!!

PREPARING FOR THE BIG JOURNEY

THE JOURNEY ACROSS THE BIG POND

STEAMING ACROSS THE LAND

CALGARY

THE MEADOWS

THE FAIRMONT HOT SPRINGS STORE

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

LIFE IN A LUMBER CAMP

CANAL FLATS

NEW ADVENTURES

WITH SUN LIFE OF CANADA

TERRACE

This book is dedicated to my family, my friends, and posthumously, to my mother who perished in the frozen vastness of Siberia

All persons in this book are real, although many of them are now dead. The names of some have been changed to protect their privacy and that of their descendants.

This book might never have been finished had it not been for the continuous encouragement by my family, friends and many others. At the very beginning there was Clarence Nyce, who introduced me to the complex world of writing the manuscript on a computer program. I soon needed Olene Moi’s help to cope with it. (I am still struggling with it sometimes.) Then came Rana Nelson as my editor; unfortunately for a short time only. My sincere thanks to the three you I am especially grateful to Mags Gingles, Bill and Helen McRae, Murdoch and Marion Robertson, Brenda Silsbe, Sarah Zimmerman, formerly of the Terrace Standard, now self-employed, and the members of the Terrace Writers’ Guild. I must not forget Bev Bishop, who always found time for me in her busy schedule whenever I called for help. I thank all of them for their helpful suggestions, critical readings, professional support and enthusiasm.

I am deeply indebted to Ray Hallock, the computer genius, who always and without hesitation came to my rescue whenever I was at odds with the little electronic monster, which happened far too often. I take my hat off to all the helpful people at Trafford Publishing in Victoria, who were the only ones who not only considered my manuscript, but went out of their way to assist me in having it published. And last, but by no means least, I owe a big thank you to Ed Curell, our librarian, who not only pointed me in their direction, but also made valuable contributions to the manuscript.

To all of you, my sincere Thank You.

FOREWORD

For years I have toyed with the thought of putting on paper some of the frustrating experiences we had during the emigrating process and our first few years in Canada.

However, this seemed to be such a mammoth undertaking and, having never been involved in anything remotely similar, it was always postponed. I was still working full-time in the insurance business and had no problem finding enough excuses to postpone to the next month or next year. But that month or year never seemed to materialize, and we all know how time flies.

However, the idea never left my mind, and the more I talked to friends and family members about it, the more I was encouraged to go ahead with it. Those who pretended to know all about it assured me that it was actually quite simple. Write down or put on tape whatever comes to your mind, and, sooner or later, something comprehensive will develop. Let me assure you, it’s not that simple, but I have now decided to give it a fair try.

My original idea was to concentrate on the period just before, during and shortly after out arrival in Canada. When I compare our two years of utter frustration, disappointment and expense with some of the bizarre stories about so-called refugees and immigrants who are hell-bent to reach our shores and who cost us millions of dollars, I sometimes wonder if this is taking place in the same country.

However, as time went by, and more and more people not only learned about those experiences but also my sometimes rocky and colourful life in Germany and my service during the war, I was encouraged time and again to broaden this book into a biography. It was especially our daughter’s family who wanted to know more about our past. This book is the result.

Although I have made reference to many political, military and economic events, I do not pretend to be an analyst or expert in any of those fields. I have simply described them as I saw and experienced them.

It is indisputable that many of the events mentioned in these pages had a profound impact on my life. I would have to ask myself where would I be and what would I be doing if,

Hitler had not come to power,

the second World War had not taken place and

Germany had not been divided?

Most likely, we would not have emigrated to Canada, the country which gave us the opportunities we had dreamed about and hoped for.

Willy Schneider,

Terrace B C

Summer 2007

My Family

On the occasion of our 75th birthday, our daughter Barbara arranged a most memorable surprise party for us. When I say our birthday I must explain that my wife Gisela and I are born on the same day, same month, same year and, if what our respective parents have told us is true and we remember correctly, in the same hour. Truly remarkable.

Our daughter, who loves to entertain and has become very good at it, was able to persuade a great number of friends, some of them we had not seen for years, to attend this memorable occasion. There was much hugging, kissing, back slapping and even the odd tear of joy. As the evening progressed we had some sing-alongs with my good friend Derek, also known by some of his close friends as His Nibs, singing Lily Marlene, the well remembered World War II love song, with great gusto. Derek sang in English, I in German. The party lasted until the wee hours, the champagne was flowing freely and a jolly good time was had by all.

The biggest, most memorable and touching surprise, however, was the unveiling of a large picture frame with a collage of nearly one hundred small pictures of Gisela and me at various ages and occasions. It was like a time-warp bringing us back to the very early and tender years of our lives.

Apparently our daughter, together with our grand-daughter Sabrena, had raided our house for all those pictures we had brought with us from Germany-some quite old and yellowed-while we were vacationing. A family friend was recruited to help putting the collage together. And what a fine job they did! It is by far the most meaningful and moving present we have ever received. It is now mounted in a prominent place in our new home where we can sit in front of and relive those early calm and carefree days.

Looking at the baby pictures of me reminds me of our apartment in Plauen/Vogtland (Saxony) where I was born toward the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century; the old fashioned way, at home, with the assistance of a midwife.

My home town Plauen, an industrial city of some 115,000 at that time, is situated in the south-west corner of Saxony, in the county of Vogtland, part of the former East Germany. During our first visit there after the collapse of communism, I had the opportunity to visit our old apartment and had a glimpse into the very rooms which had been my home for so many years. That was in 1990.

The tenants, a young couple, greeted me enthusiastically after I had explained who I was, where I came from and why I called on them. The house and the apartment were in the same sad and run-down condition as everything else was in the former Ost Zone. I felt sorry for them and they kept apologizing for the poor condition everything was in. But it was beyond their control; everything was state-owned and controlled. The rent for the large apartment, frozen at 1935 levels, was only 65 Ost Marks a month, the currency only negotiable in the East Block countries. Directly opposite the entrance to the apartment was a small room which we used to call das Kleine Zimmer. On its door was an official notice, issued by the city, warning the occupants to use this room at their own risk. The authorities had not yet been able to repair some minor damage that room had suffered during the bombing raids in the last few weeks of the war. The war had ended in May 1945. This was 1990. Forty-five years later! Truly Soviet-style efficiency.

The young couple struggled to adjust to the new economy. Gone were the days of full employment when the slogan and attitude you pretend to pay me and I pretend to work, prevailed. The young man was unemployed. His wife told me how she had spent her days under the old regime. Every second day she took the street car to the top of Bahnhof Strasse, the main shopping street, and, armed with a big shopping bag, walked down one side of the street and up the other. Whatever stores were open were inspected for anything she might need that day or perhaps sometimes in the future. There was no great selection and the merchandise was shoddy, but in the absence of any competition it was all that was to be had.

The couple had heard about Canada and were anxious to learn as much about it as my short visit allowed. I left them convinced that I had made the right decision some thirty-six years ago, when I fled the Workers Paradise.

My mother’s parents were Maria and August Bescherer. To me, they always were Oma and Opa. My father’s parents were Louis and Klara Schneider. They had three children. Even though we lived in the same city, we might as well have lived hundreds of miles apart. But more of that later

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My Opa, 1951

Following good old German tradition and strongly encouraged by Oma, my parents lived with my grandparents. Although it was a large apartment with two bedrooms, living and dining room, kitchen and the Kleine Zimmer, this arrangement was not an ideal solution for a newly married couple, especially when that household was run with an iron fist by a strong-willed person like my grandmother. It promptly turned into a disaster and eventually led to my parents’ divorce when I was only three or four years old.

My grandfather was born and raised in a small village in lower Bavaria. Under old German succession laws he could not inherit his parents’ small farm because he was not the eldest son. He decided to become a shoemaker. That’s the old-fashioned type of shoemaker who served many years of apprenticeship and journeymanship before he was allowed to call himself Schuhmachermeister, master shoemaker. My grandfather could actually fashion a pair of shoes from the raw material-a trade long gone and forgotten.

In those times a shoemaker’s workshop was a primitive and dreary affair by any standards. They usually worked in the dank cellar of the house, preferably near a window for better light. The light was intensified and enhanced by a big water bowl. All work was done by hand with tools that most likely no longer exist. I can vaguely remember the smell of freshly tanned leather, the various glues, waxes and polish used in the trade.

Despite the less than pleasant working conditions, I can remember Opa only as an easy going person, obviously quite happy with his lot, always in good mood and ready for a bit of fun and a joke (some of them rather coloured).

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With Waldi, 1928

Many years later, after my grandparents, or rather my grandmother as we will see, had advanced from the primitive repair shop to one of the leading shoe retailers in the city, there was a small corner in the store, furnished with some garden furniture, where Opa and some of his cronies would get together every now and then to enjoy a good beer and a fine cigar and tell each other the most outrageous stories. (The business atmosphere was quite relaxed in those days). What I appreciated most after I became older was the fact that he had become my friend, doing a great job filling the vacuum left by the absence of my father.

Oma was born and raised in very humble and poor surroundings in a small village in northern Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), formerly known as Bohemia and under Hitler’s regime, Sudentenland. I was very young when we once visited there, and even though my recollections are vague, I do remember the utter poverty. I cannot help but feel that Oma was fully aware of it, never forgot it and had made up her mind early in her life never to be poor. Later developments proved this assumption to be correct.

Contrary to Opa’s easy-going manner, it never took take much to get Oma into a huff, and her husband’s happy-go-lucky and let’s-not-get-too-exited attitude did not help matters either.

Opa insisted on having an animal in the house. One of the few privileges he was granted (ever so reluctantly, mind you).

We had two large day-rooms behind the business premises. Our actual apartment was on the second floor of the house. The understanding was that the animal was only allowed in the rooms behind the store. Under no circumstances in the apartment or in the store.

It began with a canary. Opa couldn’t quite see the poor thing cooped up in the cage all day, and sooner or he later left the cage door open, just a little,(accidentally, he claimed) to give his friend some freedom. I am afraid the little bird was not house-trained and left its marks all over the rooms. Oma was not impressed. It did not take long for the situation to reach crisis proportions; birdie had to go. Not to be short-changed, Opa brought a dog home-a big German shepherd, of all breeds. Oma was fuming. The animal was far too big for the two rooms behind the store, and to make Oma’s day, he left hair all over the place. When that situation began to develop into a serious family feud, even Opa had to admit that Fido had to go. The German shepherd was replaced by another dog, a little Dachshund, named Waldi. I can vaguely remember him. He was my friend, but when he began to develop a taste for leather and snuck into the store at nights to chew up shoes, he had definitely gone too far. I can well imagine my grandmother, fuming, with a chewed-up shoe in her hand, confronting Opa. What do you think this is? A zoo or an animal shelter? There is no more of this nonsense!

Poor Waldi’s fate was sealed. He had to go. He was given to a good friend of the family. He was also the last animal in the Bescherer household.

Opa had another habit which greatly upset Oma. Whenever she got into a real huff, Opa, with a sly smile on his face, would mumble to nobody in particular something like, "Naja, da hat die Kleineja wieder mal recht." (Well, the Little One is quite right again).Oma, being quite short and stout, knew exactly who the leine, he facetiously referred to, was. She was fuming.

In the early years of the twentieth century, the German Kaiser was rattling his saber to make the rest of the world aware of the might of his armies.

In 1912 Opa was drafted for his two year stint in the reserve services, just like every other able-bodied man in Germany. But the cards were stacked against the poor man. He had hardly finished his two year stint, when World War I broke out. Before he knew it, he was back in uniform, this time in the thick of things, mostly in France. He served the full four years as an infantry man and was lucky enough to return home alive and more or less in one piece. He was wounded once. From what I can remember, a piece of shrapnel was lodged close to his spine. Surgical procedures of the day were not quite advanced enough to remove it, and it was left there in the hope it would never bother him-and it never did.

With Opa securely out of the way fighting the war, it was time for Oma to give her ambitions free rein and declared her own war on the business establishment of Plauen. She closed her husband’s repair shop in the cellar and opened a shoe store on the outskirts of the city. As a woman! In 1914/15 nice ladies did not do such things! They stayed home, kept quiet, had lots of children, cleaned the house and did the cooking; they did not upset the totally male-dominated establishment by opening a business. But Oma being Oma, she was obviously not a ‘nice lady’ and didn’t really care what the highly respectable establishment thought or said. Oma just forged ahead like a steam roller and succeeded-in the middle of a grim war!

My mother, a teenager then, could well remember those times and told me about them many years later. There was obviously nothing that could hold my grandmother back. Within two decades, with stubborn determination, a single-tracked mind and shrewdness, Oma developed Opa’s little repair shop into one of the city’s leading shoe stores. I am sure that it was Oma’s strong and overwhelming personality that made my mother so totally dependent on my grandmother. Oma simply could do no wrong.

Prejudice against women in business at the beginning of the twentieth century was merely another hurdle and challenge for Oma. She had no problems overcoming it. With her venomous tongue, she put all opponents in place, and it did not take long before she was recognized as a shrewd and determined competitor. But she was never accepted as a member of the establishment.

Opa returned from the Great War in November 1918.

Disillusioned after fighting for four years in the trenches in France, he had to realize that, even though Germany may have won many famous battles, it had lost another war. If that was not enough, he soon found out that he had also lost a personal battle at home.

With his repair shop gone, Opa was facing a business establishment which was totally foreign, if not alien, to him. He was lost. On top of that, he was firmly told by his wife that this was HER accomplishment and HER store. Having known my grandfather, I don’t think he was in the mood to fight any more battles; he simply resigned himself to the inevitable. Somehow he salvaged a little workshop behind the new business premises, and I can well remember when he disappeared there to putter around or to make a few minor repairs.

Opa now had lots of time to visit his old friends and cronies and talk about the good old days. (When women minded their own business and didn’t interfere in men’s affairs).

Despite the economic turmoil during the post-war years, our business must have flourished because, by the time I was born, my grandparents were able to buy the building out of which they had rented the store. Oma now was not only the builder of a successful business, but she also was the owner of a four-story apartment building. Not too bad for a little woman from a poor village in Bohemia.

Time went on; my mother reached marriageable age. A new challenge for Oma!

A suitable husband had to be found for her only child. The emphasis was on suitable. Her daughter was not going to marry just anybody. It had to be somebody distinguished, or perhaps even titled. Oma had done everything possible, and sometimes the near impossible, to climb a few rungs on the economic ladder. Society, however, had not allowed her to climb the social ladder. There Oma was shunned and she was going to make sure that this was not going to happen to her cherished daughter.

Pre-arranged marriages, common in far Eastern countries, were, of course, not the case in Germany. But a guiding parental hand was not unheard of. And, with a mother like Oma, the guiding hand could be rather heavy, to be sure.

To understand the situation better, we have to take a closer look at Germany’s social structure at the time.

There were four distinct classes in Germany: the upper class, consisting of the wealthy, business tycoons, the nobility and the titled, the aristocracy and the land owners; the upper middle class, which included professional and business people; the lower middle class, known as the grey collar in today’s society, followed by the working or blue collar class.

The separation of these classes was quite distinct. Nearly everybody knew his or her niche where they seemed to be quite happy and satisfied. Not so with Oma Bescherer. She had already stepped outside the established structure and had no qualms about climbing another rung or two to search for that elusive suitable husband for her daughter. The hunt was on!

This was about 1920 or 1921, merely a few years after the Great War. Germany was in terrible shape economically, socially and politically. The Versailles treaty, with its demands for huge reparation payments and the delivery of industrial and transportation systems, mostly to France, put tremendous pressure on the country in every respect.

But it was not only that Germans had lost a way of life that they had become used to for generations. During the Kaiser’s time, and under the guiding and firm hand of Chancellor Bismarck, who had introduced retirement at age 65 and some other social benefits, the first in Europe, Germans had become used to economic and political stability. Despite the often firm hand of government, everybody was working and unemployment and inflation were nearly unknown. A feeling of well-being and general satisfaction prevailed.

The years from the turn of the century to the beginning of World War I were known as die goldenen Jahre-the golden years-when Germany had little paper currency. 20 Mark pieces had a high gold content. Coins were jingling in everybody’s pocket. Now, only a few years later, the world had turned topsy-turvy on them. Gone was the feeling of general well-being, full employment, satisfaction and political stability. Germans were now living in an economic and political vacuum where the winds of political direction changed every few months.

At the end of the Great War, Germany’s population was approximately sixty-four million people. Nearly eight and a half million of them were unemployed. Over 13%! A ratio never before heard of in Germany.

There was no social class unaffected by the total collapse of the country. Some less, but most more. Inflation was rampant and the Reichsmark devalued at an alarming rate. Because of the total lack of any useful skills, the upper class, which had enjoyed generations of comfortable living on their estates or in industry, suffered considerably more than the working class. Many of the upper class Germans had lost their worldly possessions and were thrown into a world they could neither understand nor cope with, but somehow they survived. Social standards, however, still prevailed, even if only in their minds. The idea of actually working, especially with their hands, was one they would not entertain. So, many of them became salesmen. (Not that there is anything wrong with salesmen; I was one for over forty years.) And they wouldn’t sell just selling anything. It had to be something special, with an element of class, like fine wines, champagne, jewellery and closer to the bottom of the list, shoes. And that played right into my grandmother’s hands.

One of the gentlemen who regularly visited our store to show his collection, fitted this category and must have impressed Oma sufficiently that she decided to zero in on him as a possible husband for her daughter. It was obvious that he represented old money, (now unfortunately disappeared money). His manners were impeccable. He kissed Oma’s hand and addressed her with gnaedige Frau (gracious lady.) The poor man! How little he knew Oma! And, to top it all off, he wore a monocle. She must have been purring with pleasure and satisfaction.

It was customary in those days that the salesman rewarded his customers by inviting them for dinner, provided the order was large enough. I am sure Oma made absolutely certain that her order was sufficient to qualify for an invitation to dinner. And it did.

Came evening, off they went for dinner at the Hotel Kronprinz, conveniently located next door to our house. The hotel was degraded to a shabby, run-down youth hostel during the communist years, but it is now a respectable hotel again where I had a fine lunch during one of the visits to my hometown.

Mr. and Mrs. Bescherer were decked out in their finest, and surprise, they brought their lovely daughter Elsa along. Their host was delighted and kissed her hand too. I am sure she blushed appropriately with eyelids fluttering.

Dinner commenced, wine was served, and their host proposed a toast to Opa, die gnaedige Frau and das gnaedige Fraeulein, thanking them for their generous order and the opportunity to meet their lovely daughter. He drained his glass with a flourish and then proceeded to bite into it and munched it down with obvious pleasure. (I found this story just as unbelievable as you, the reader, but I was assured by my mother and my grandfather that it was true. The post-war time had obviously brought some strange characters out of the closets.)

This was one of the rare occasions for which Oma was not prepared and, according to Opa, they hastily left the scene. The gentleman’s name was immediately taken off the list of suitors. One down, many to go.

This setback, however, did not deter Oma to vigorously continue her search for the right husband for her daughter. After all, my mother was already 20 or 21 years old. There was no time be wasted. Soon she would be an old maid or, God forbid, a spinster! After the rather shocking experience with ex-nobility, she must have decided to stick to her home turf. And the very fashionable Kaffee Troemelwas just the place to continue the search.

Kaffe Troemel was a landmark, not only in Plauen, but in all of the surrounding areas. It was an impressive 3-storey building in the centre of the city, built in the style of the previous century with many little balconies and turrets. It had a small shopping arcade with attractive and, needless to say, very expensive stores. In summertime one could enjoy Kaffee und Torte in a huge coffee garden to the muted tunes of a string quartet. Food, service and atmosphere were nothing but the best. It was class. Exactly what Oma was looking for.

I can well remember the place. In the summer of 1943, during my only regular leave from Russia, I directed my steps toward the good old Kaffee with amorous ideas in my head and a desperate desire for female companionship. I am happy to report that my visit was well rewarded.

I do not know how many visits it took before Oma cast her eyes upon my future father and decided that’s him. Neither do I know the exact sequence of events, but my father was eventually the chosen one and, like a fish, he was reeled in. Oma must have taken over immediately and completely and my parents were married in 1921. They were divorced in 1926 or ’27.

Unfortunately the Kaffee became a victim of the air raids during the last few weeks of World War II and was badly damaged. The communist-oriented city administration after the war, under the guiding hands of the Soviet Military Government, decided that the Kaffee was a reminder of the Kaiser and especially Hitler and a meeting place for the aristocracy and reactionaries. It was leveled to the ground.

MY EARLY YEARS

Even though my early years were carefree and appeared to be calm, that calmness was deceiving. It was only on the surface. There was a tremendous and mysterious undercurrent, caused by the absence of my father. Somehow I had the feeling that we were not a complete family. But I was too young to fully understand the situation, and when I began to ask questions, no meaningful answers were forthcoming. The subject of my father was simply not to be discussed in the Bescherer household. (On orders from Oma, I suspect.) It was not until I came home from the war that I first confronted my mother and later my father, demanding some forthright answers and explanations as to why our family had fallen into such disarray, thereby creating years of uncertainty and utter confusion for me.

The answers I was eventually able to extract from my not very cooperative parents pointed in one direction only: Oma. (More so from my father than from my mother.) My grandfather was more open with me, but chose his words carefully. I was left with the impression that he would rather let sleeping dogs lie. After all, Oma was his wife and already dead for ten years.

Putting all their answers together, it became clear that my parents’ marriage was doomed from the very beginning. Oma apparently had insisted that they should live, for practical reasons, (Oma’s interpretation of total control) in my grandparents’ apartment, where she began to interfere in their lives from the very beginning.

I do not know what my father did for a living when he married my mother. That was another subject not open for discussion. But Oma soon decided that he should be remodelled. She was solidly established in the shoe business and had no problem finding a suitable position for her new son-in-law. Suitable, of course, meant suitable for her.

At home Oma played the guardian angel and went as far as coming unannounced into their bedroom (according to my mother’s reluctant admission many years later) about ten o’clock at night to turn out the lights. (Curfew, children. And no hanky-panky.) To this day, I simply cannot imagine how my parents were able to bring me into this world.

My mother was so completely under the spell of her mother that she was unable to say a word of protest or to stand by her husband. It must have been utterly frustrating and humiliating for my father, and he soon set out in search for an apartment for them.

It was not difficult to find one, and when my father came home from work one day and told his wife that he had found the ideal apartment for them, he was not prepared for the vehement opposition to his idea. My mother broke out in tears and could not understand how her husband could have come up with such an outrageous idea, an idea that would separate her from her mother and their comfortable arrangement. As far as Oma was concerned, she considered my father’s idea so ridiculous and farfetched that she was not even prepared to discuss it. Under no circumstances was she going to give up control of her flock and give in to her son-in-law.

My father must have realized that he was fighting a losing battle with his unreasonable wife and dictatorial mother-in-law.

Image10166.JPG

With My Father, 1925

In those days it was customary that the bride brought the bedroom and kitchen furniture into the marriage and the husband-to-be provided the living and dining room. In my parents’ situation, none of this was necessary. The furniture was already there, courtesy of the Bescherer family, and I have no doubt that Oma was playing her game with this in mind. And she had her daughter sufficiently convinced that the spare bedroom, now my parents bedroom, was indeed part of her dowry with the understanding, however, that it could not be removed from the Bescherer household. (Now you see it, now you don’t.) And my mother swallowed it all.

Under these circumstances it did not take long before my father must have said, enough is enough; I want out. I must assume that these developments took place while my mother was expecting me, and my father was considerate enough to wait until I was born, and perhaps he hoped that his wife, then a mother, might look at his ideas more favourably. But it was not to be.

At the same time Oma must have decided she had had enough of that unruly son-in-law of her’s, and that this fake marriage had to be brought to an end. Her daughter, now pregnant and soon to produce a child, no longer needed a husband. She must have gradually planted the idea of separation or divorce into her daughter’s mind, and my mother, blindly devoted to her and pregnant, did not object or protest.

As time progressed, Oma brought a lawyer into the picture. She insisted that the separation and consequent divorce had to be done properly and legally. Even more importantly, my father had to be severely punished for his unruly behaviour. So, toward the end of the divorce procedures she had not only one, but three lawyers engaged. This sordid affair was dragged out over a period of not quite three years. My mother suffered a nervous break-down during that time, and my father wisely removed himself from the scene to Munich as soon and as speedily as possible, with the understanding that he would not even engage a lawyer on his behalf. He was willing to agree with whatever the divorce degree stipulated.

He lived in Munich until his untimely death in 1953.

My parents were divorced in 1926 or ’27. Oma had won; everybody else had lost.

Meanwhile, the German people struggled with run-away inflation, unemployment and political turmoil. Between 1919 and 1933, Germany had some twelve or thirteen different governments, with an equal number of political orientations. (In 2004/05, when we had two elections in our country, one of them during the Christmas season, for no other reason than political grand-standing, I was reminded of those turbulent times in my former homeland.) Some of theses governments only lasted a few months. The political uncertainty accompanied by rampant inflation made life a difficult obstacle course.

I was told by my mother that my father, then still in Plauen, was paid twice a day; at noon and at the end of the day. The amounts of money he was paid were mind-numbing. He received millions, even billions of Marks for half a day’s work during the last few dac of the Reichs Mark (RM).

To haul this loot home, my mother brought a large shopping bag along. Some people even came with wheel barrows! The trick then was to convert this money into useful consumer goods, if there were any, in a speedy manner.

Apparently, my mother used to stop at the grocer’s, baker’s or butcher shop to order what she thought she might need, with the promise that she would pick it up and pay for it after she had collected her husband’s half-day pay. Then she would hurry away, not wasting any time because time was of extreme essence. Her husband’s pay, literally devaluing by the hour, might not be sufficient to pay for the goods she had ordered an hour earlier! Bartering, bribing and persuading became the order of the day.

The exchange rate of the Reichs Mark against the US Dollar was announced every hour and later every half hour. In July 1923 it took 160,000 RM to buy one US Dollar. Just three weeks after my birthday, on November 20, 1923 it took the unbelievable amount of 4,200,000,000 RM to buy one US Dollar. Talk about runaway inflation!

To keep up with the money supply, printing presses were running overtime day and night. The bills were huge, larger than half of a regular letterhead. It appeared that the government wanted to make up for the constant loss of value of the currency by increasing the size of the bills. And to speed up the printing process even more, the bills were printed on one side only; the other was left blank. There was no hard currency left, and the lowest denomination was 1,000 RM. Utter chaos reigned! Late November 1923 saw the total collapse of the Reichs Mark, and a period of political and economical roller-coaster began.

These tumultuous times were the perfect breeding ground for all stripes of political parties and orientations. They grew and then disappeared like mushrooms.

It was