More Than Yesterday and Less Than Tomorrow

By Giselle v. Klitzing

This is my story, true in every detail, a story of the love between a naive young girl and an older wise man during World War II.
Since then, a long time passed by; but in spite of my many following adventures, this love never died.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 8, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462813063

Giselle v. Klitzing

This is my story, true in every detail, a story of the love between a naive young girl and an older wise man during World War II. Since then, a long time passed by; but in spite of my many following adventures, this love never died.

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Copyright © 2009 by Giselle v. Klitzing.

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CONTENTS

JANUARY 1942

JULY 1942

DECEMBER 6, 1942

DECEMBER 31, 1942

JANUARY 1, 1943

JANUARY 18, 1943

BEGINNING OF MARCH 1943

END OF FEBRUARY

MIDDLE OF MARCH

THE NEXT DAY

TWO DAYS LATER

BEGINNING OF MAY 1943

BEGINNING OF SEPTEMBER 1943

BEGINNING OF APRIL

BEGINNING OF JULY 1944

JULY 15, 1944

AUGUST 26, 1944

AUGUST 28, 1944

AUGUST 30, 1944

FEBRUARY 14, 1945

Did I dream?

Maybe I died, and a long-gone episode of my life is mirrored to me during my transition. I pinch my arm. Yes, I still can feel. I must be alive.

I gaze into the darkness of my room.

Into my open window blows the cool air of Florida’s autumn wind. The moon is full. I am still in another world, a world where time stands still, and I feel that time cannot wipe out what destiny has imprinted.

JANUARY 1942

War! War not only at the front—war above us every night. We hear the shooting of the air defense artillery located one kilometer away from our house on a meadow, hear the monotone humming of hundreds of aircraft in the air. Terror paralyzes the whole body. Night after night.

The deafening warning of the siren again and again orders us into the bunker or, better, what serves as one: the cellar of the house, the windows sealed with big concrete boulders. Damp, bare stone wall making one shiver, even just by looking at it. A musty smell, a cold cement floor, and a concrete ceiling. Oh my God, it would be our early grave should it collapse.

The air seems to tremble from the noise. We gather in front of the little shabby radio, listening to the flight report of a man people call Valerian root. His sonorous voice is calming the nerves and takes away some of the fear of the unknown.

I have a surprise for you.

What is it, Dad?

A colleague gave me some chocolates, or that, what we understand of chocolate these days.

May we have some?

Two for each of you, the rest tomorrow, don’t lose a tooth.

They don’t taste too bad, Dad, but they look like dog sh—

Let’s say it a little more civilized: < bow-vow-shiteh >.

Waiting… a relief… Then deadened we hear an inferno over the city and harbor. The bombs are dropped, its goals reached.

On the way back, the noise of the artillery repeats, and repeating is the humming of the aircraft, repeating our fear.

Our area has not been bombed yet. Not yet. Tomorrow it can be different.

I am twenty years young, working as a typist in a company that sells metals. An old stone building with a view into a dirty courtyard, where the metals are loaded into trucks. The hollow noise is the background music of our workday.

The boss, a colossus of a man, would look down to his employees, even if he was short. When dictating, never a personal word, never even the slightest smile.

A big cage of a dozen offices, divided by walls of glass to give the boss the opportunity to keep an eye on everybody. No windows to the street. A busy street could distract. Everybody has this view into the ugly courtyard.

Finale of the day: the crowded subway. Thirty-five minutes, mostly standing, homeward. Tiredness. Supper that never satisfies the stomach. Talks with the parents. Crocheting a lace insertion for pillows that would imprint a mark on your face during sleep. Senseless but in fashion.

Evening with the usual disturbances: siren, fear, tiredness. An alarm clock reminds to go to work. Downstairs to the subway, upstairs to work, passing the vitreous office of the despot, who sits already at his desk, giving you an instant look without any human emotion. Feeling powerless because there is no chance to quit during the war.

My silent revenge: You jerk must look awful in your underwear!

Weekend?

Sunday. Saturday during the war is a full workday.

Overtime?

Yes, when it is needed.

Pay?

No, that is duty to your country.

The colossus’s name is Walter, named parvenu by us six girls sitting together in one office, ages between twenty and thirty-five—compulsory war service, different education.

My two favorites: next to me is Christel, twenty-five years old, looks like seventeen, face like a Botticelli angel, husband at the military.

Helga, a dark-haired beauty, twenty-one years old, and already married for two years.

We three like each other, and without our laughter, the work situation would be depressing. Who can feel comfortable in a company where a devoted employee has to keep track of every pencil, every shorthand block. Behind the locked door of his cupboard, every item is counted. With a patronizing air, as if he himself has paid for it, he finally gives us what is needed.

Further, the company has, beside parvenu, two spies, who watch with the eyes of an eagle so that we don’t add five more minutes to lunch break. This valued half an hour where we run down to the place in front of the Nicolai Church, buying a watery ice cream in summer, only available during the first three years of war. There we had our dreams of a future in peace.

We will have our own office. Helga, born in Brazil, and like me, educated as a correspondent, will run it. We will be free from any despots and Eneas and Andreas, which translates as the one asshole and the other asshole," the company spies.

I am sure I will be married by then. But… what about my longing to see other countries, meet other people, that longing that does not go away. Or is it a foreboding that it will happen one day? I have to push it away because I am in love with Hans-Juergen, my dancing lesson partner, now lieutenant in Rommel’s Afrikacorps. In my naive imagination, marriage is the only way to happiness.

Helga is my idol in the way she values her marriage. Two years married and still in love and sure it will never end.

Did you see the two handsome navy officers? she asks me. They flew in from Norway to order metals from our company.

Oh yes, Helga, life seems to become more interesting here. And it did! I was chosen for their correspondence. What a change, to sit in a separate office with two good-looking men, especially the dark haired with the hazelnut eyes.

My colleagues feel happy for me as the only single one but remind me to remain truthful to my boyfriend.

No chance, girls. That is a matter of course.

The view from this room is the same, but the courtyard seems cleaner to me. If only I could get rid of my tiredness, clinging to me like an annoying person.

My favorite sees that often for minutes I stare without seeing something, and he suggests, Come to us to Norway.

I would like to, but I can’t quit.

Oh yes, you can. If you join the military, the boss has to let you go. You have to apply in Kiel.

And he paints a picture of a life without a siren, without tiredness, without fear. A life without hunger upon me. And no dirty courtyard anymore. Maybe a view to a fjord with beautiful mountains in the background. The adventuress in me awake. He did not have to say that twice! I take the train to Kiel to apply for Norway.

My revenge, parvenu! What did you say once? You have to give a stenotypist more than she can handle to make her efficient.

It rains, and under my opened umbrella, full of drops, I try to convince my subconscious mind, They want me, they will hire me, yes, they will give me a job. They did!

But to my big disappointment, they did not send me to Norway. I find myself in the barrack for female employees under twenty-one years. Room with three other girls. Not my taste, but I sure will be gone soon.

And again I have to experience bomb attacks. The city of Kiel is under artificial fog at night, and we have to run into a bunker, a wet cloth in front of our mouths, some hundred meters away. The defense artillery is shooting before we are secure. Damn, that is even worse than Hamburg. I applied for Norway and don’t want to be killed by an English bomb. I make weekly representations at the employment office, and again and again an inspector asks me, Why do you want to go to Norway? smiling impertinently.

On my next visit, I learn the reason: They believe that I am the girlfriend of a married officer who is known for his preference of young girls. The position was filled by a lady aged fifty-seven.

Fifty-seven! Oh my god, such an ancient one!

The man is right! Why on earth did I want to go to Norway? That was only the idea of those two men. Much more I want to go to Italy. Sun, blue sky, beaches! Or France, Montmartre, Parisian chic. Or Greece, the land of the antique, would be enticing, and I let the smiling guy know that.

There is an opening in Athens, but I need the signature of your father because you are under twenty-one.

Oh, thank you, my father will give it for sure.

But my father says no.

Acropolis, good-bye?

JULY 1942

Weekend visit in Hamburg.

Incendiary bombs fell through the roof of our house. My father and my sister extinguished the fire with sand while my otherwise courageous mother was so shocked that she was only able to fill sand in bags down in the cellar. One room totally burned out. The piano a skeleton.

But it still plays, says my sister with grim humor.

The house smells corrosive from smoke and burned wood. The smell hangs in the curtains, the upholstery, and the clothes of my loved ones.

Here you see how fast disaster can strike, and I have to go back to Kiel where I already hang around for month because my beloved father doesn’t give his permission. And I have to run into a bunker with a wet cloth that almost makes me suffocate. Who knows what can happen to me? More and more aircraft are flying in; a heavy bomb can hit the bunker, and then good-bye, beautiful world. They offered me a position in Bucharest, where no attacks exist, where there still is peace.

Would you give your OK, Dad?

My father looks at me, skeptical, but due to the situation, he says yes. Hurrah!

What I did not say was within a short time I would be transferred to Russia.

And before I go, I want to become engaged!

My mother is shocked. Child, you are so young, go to Romania first, maybe there you find your great love. No, my great love is Hans-Juergen.

My father shakes his head. You are still a child who can’t wait to mature, a child who talks to much. Wherever you go, never ever mention to anyone what I said on this sunny day on June 22, 1941, that today, attacking Russia, we lost the war. I don’t want to end up in a concentration camp. Wait with your engagement, you are both too young.

I didn’t wait. A golden ring on my finger, building castles in the air, dreaming of eternal love, I left. And I left with no clue what real love is all about.

Finally.

The day has come. My parents accompany me to the station. I look down to them from my train window, radiating with adventure. My mother is bewildered. You act as if you just travel to the next suburb. And as the train starts moving, she weeps, and my father turns around.

I make myself comfortable as much as one can on a wooden bench. I was told that is the only way to travel to foreign countries. Bugs have their nests in the upholstery. Thank God, my mother gave me a pillow!

Three days and three nights sitting on wood is strenuous even for the back of a twenty-year-old. I have to get up again and again, looking out of an open window. Trains with soldiers going frontward, or, the lucky ones, going homeward for a short holiday, are passing. I wave and enjoy my adventure.

Finally, Bucharest. My back is hurting, and I have to carry my heavy suitcase, pillow under the other arm, to the office written in my movement order. Oh, I hope I have a single room and can sleep in tomorrow!

To my dismay, I find only a soldier. "Miss, I am sorry, the headquarters Black Sea are already in Nikolajev. You have to wait for a train frontwards. I will let you know and bring you to a hotel now."

Wonderful, my hotel room has a bath. My enthusiasm awakes again. I relax in the warm water in the bathtub and rub my body with the towel until it is red.

Suitcase, give me my long flannel trousers. It was made by a tailor in Hamburg, a treasure during the war.

Over my head the white turtleneck sweater, knitted by me from the unraveled wool of my grandmother’s petticoat. Out to the streets of Bucharest! My tiredness is gone!

I can’t believe the decoration in a shoe shop! Nothing here reminds of war, while in Germany, only dummies disfigure the windows.