The Barracks Children: [Not applicable], #320

By Marion Schinhofen

Although she grew up in a barracks settlement, the residents of which were insulted and marginalized as "anti-social pack", Regina's life was carefree. Freedom, games and fun determine her carefree childhood - up to her eighth birthday. Years of martyrdom began with her admission to a children's home. Ten years of abuse and rape that end in a forced marriage begin. Nevertheless Regina manages to escape the spiral of violence alive. And she takes revenge on her tormentors, becomes a respected VIP.

This novel is based on a true story and describes the path of a courageous and strong-willed woman who made it out of the barracks into the world of "better society". Although Regina, as she is called in this novel, took several years to free herself from her trauma, today she is a positive person who wants to achieve one thing with the report on which this book is based: The truth about them The conditions in children's homes at that time should finally come to light. It is a novel that has it all, but shows many ways to free yourself from violence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Franzius Verlag GmbH, Bad Zwischenahn
• Release date: Jan 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667448749

Book preview

# Chapter 1: Background

Hello ... Yes, speaking ... Oh, pardon me ...? Of course ... You're welcome to meet me ... So, when and where? ...

It's hard to believe, but that was the starting point for this book! I once again realized how small the world has become. I know that that's a hackneyed expression, but it just fits.

Of course, I was very happy when my book about the fateful story of Betty and Paul, who meet each other again after almost thirty years – in a place that was previously unimaginable for them – and ended up finding a happy life together, was published in February 2018.

Even though I didn't think it was possible because of the time span in the novel, and even though I used other names, one lady nevertheless saw herself in the description of the place and the childhood memories and contacted me. But without recalling who Betty or Paul might be. Many children back then were their own playmates. I would never tell her the right names and where they live now. People whose real experiences I can write down and publish are given cover names. Protecting them is my highest priority. No one else will ever know who these people really are if they don't want to go public themselves.

At the beginning of April 2018, the lady – I call her Regina here – called me one evening and asked for a meeting. This pleasant voice seemed familiar to me and when she gave me her name, I was quite surprised. Because I knew her from television and from the tabloid papers. Whether in waiting rooms or at the hairdresser, I pick up these tabloids to pass the time to amuse myself with the latest gossip stories. There are also photos and articles about Regina there from time to time.

Two days later, we met in a somewhat secluded but very cozy café. At first I didn't recognize her with her big sunglasses, wig and hat. But what elegant lady wears sunglasses in a café? When I went to her table, she took off her glasses and smiled at me rather nervously. Sitting in a quiet corner, we got to know each other better over coffee, cake and innocent chitchat. Over the course of our conversation, she became more relaxed and moved from small talk to more serious topics. Shortly before the café had to close, we agreed on another conversation, which was to be followed by many more.

Before our meetings, Regina called me every time to coordinate the time and place with me. Either we met in my home office or in the most varied and remote places where she could talk to me alone, undisturbed, without the risk of being heard, seen or recognized by anyone. When she was able to continue her story more calmly, we went for walks in the woods when the weather was nice, or else we went somewhere outside and among people. As a precaution, she always disguised herself in order to remain undetected. She looked different than she did on TV, especially when she came without makeup. She is a natural beauty and didn't that have TV paste on her face at all. The wrinkles around her eyes look good on her. My impression: ageless, charming and very agile, and not just in her mind. Something in her eyes was mysterious. She skillfully hid tragic events.

This unwillingness to attract attention worked well all the time, although we sometimes both had to laugh loudly at her act. If you don't want to be recognized, you can actually manage it. Despite today's intrusive paparazzi and our obsession with selfies, we went unnoticed in public.

I frequently noticed from time to time that Regina became more relaxed and was glad that I didn't make any comments or assessments of my own. I didn't make tape recordings, but only wrote down a few notes. There was no time limit. In the beginning, it was two or three hours during the day when her descriptions were hesitant, faltering and terse, and her pauses were very long and our meetings often extended well into the night. Bit by bit, she gained more confidence and told me her incomprehensible story of suffering with increasing freedom. It was hard work for her. The more she got involved with her past and brought her deeply buried terrible experiences to the surface, the more emotional her outbursts became. At first, Regina fought against it, but soon gave in and let it all come out. She no longer wanted to ignore her body's warnings, which made her clearly understand through pain that it was high time to finally throw the remaining ballast out of her life. As she told the story, she herself noticed how the armor of her inner knight was slowly beginning to dissolve. It was good for her and made it easier for her to be able to speak freely with a neutral person who cried with her and, above all, listened to her and believed her. Her friends know a lot, but not everything, about Regina's life.

People would like to forget unpleasant experiences quickly. They use displacement mechanisms without considering that if there is a lack of processing, then it is not beneficial for their physical, mental and emotional health.

My handbag held a CD player, CD's and candles, among other things. It's part of a kind of ritual I use when necessary, the positive effects of which I know well. I also lit candles during Regina's outbreaks and let soft meditative music play in the background until she calmed down and was ready to continue talking. This type of relaxation was not unknown to her and worked after a few moments.

In retrospect, I think that when you relax, it must be similar to when a dentist pulls a chronically bad tooth that has tormented you for an unendingly long time without any anesthetic. In particular, Regina let off steam in the forest by screaming and crying loudly without becoming dangerous. No one stopped her or thought she was crazy. Nobody tied her up. There were no syringes or pills or other restraining devices, just bottled water and a hug from me. If we were in an interior space, soft music and the warm light of candles created a comfortable atmosphere.

Some therapist's hair is probably rising right now as he reads this. But she wasn't violent, but was completely surprised by her emotional reactions after such a long time. She hadn't been prepared for the fact that a definitive coming to terms with the past would carry her along like this. She had thought that, once she talked everything off her soul, the remnants of her self-accusation, fear, anger and rigid upbringing would disappear. She hadn't considered that the road to this goal could be painful, because unprocessed material came up involuntarily. I let her rage and scream until it was all over.

One hot day – we were sitting on the balcony of my place – she took off her jacket and I saw that her back was covered with thick scars. Regina only sneered at that: Nowadays, many people get tattooed and paint their bodies because it's the in thing to do. Maybe I should do the same and color my back or have a large tattoo done, so that I could then finally go swimming in a public pool.

Sometimes her words pushed me to my limits. I then had unpleasant memories from earlier years, when we children were punished with the switch at school and at home. How we enjoyed playing tricks on adults when we felt we were being treated unfairly, which was not infrequently the case. Or, we secretly eavesdropped on their conversations when they were sitting outside when the weather was nice. But as soon as the exchange of news was about something, however, there was whispering or shamed silence, which made us children even more curious. They quickly changed the subject, but we realized that it had to be something bad. Women and men then acted so oddly.

During our hours together, Regina and I were often on a kind of roller coaster of the scariest sensations.

She knows that I'm not a therapist. At the very beginning I asked her during a break: Have you ever had therapy?

Ever? She sounded sarcastic. "I tried a total of three times over quite a number of weeks. But not for at least eighteen years now, since I was in the public eye until about four years ago and had some reservations. I didn't want to parcel myself out or run the risk of being blackmailed. Whether therapeutic confidentiality exists or not. You can hardly trust people these days! Too often I have witnessed people who had been trusting being betrayed, deceived and lied to. It was too dangerous for me to completely trust someone with my story. What would have happened if they took advantage of my trust and disclosed their knowledge for a lot of money? People's dealings with others have become merciless, to say nothing about the media. There are people who will do anything to get into the newspaper or on TV. They don't care whether they lie or compromise others or act primitively or shamelessly with others. The main thing is that they attract public attention. These narcissistic contemporaries bustle about at all levels of society.

I don't regret what I did out of revenge back then. I was able to relieve a lot of anger with it. It didn't cure me, but it did provide satisfaction. And what cruelty I had to experience before is not easy to talk about! I never ever wanted this to be exploited as casual entertainment. That would, in any event, have been a feast for the tabloids. Their circulation would have risen enormously. If they could just get their hands on this book and find out who I am, they would go on a relentless hunt to find out more hideous details that are not given here.

I have thus so far lacked the confidence, the ultimate desire to let go, and the courage to let others, especially men, look deep inside me. Therapists couldn't help me, because I wasn't ready to open myself up to them. Coping with a bad childhood and adolescence is probably one of the most difficult challenges in life."

What Regina suffered is so abysmally hard and unbelievable that I thought about whether I should release my manuscript with her post-war experiences (and their parallels to our times today) for publication. However, Regina doesn't want to leave anything undone to shake people up, to stop looking away and staying silent. She also hopes that her story will be able to help other women and children whose lives have so far been characterized by violence, dependency and despair and who are afraid to break out of this martyrdom. She wants to convey that it is by no means our destiny to endure acts of violence as a woman or child. Regina had to experience it herself and is now convinced that violence is an exercise of pure power. These are cowards who only dare attack weaker people. Her motto therefore is: Show courage and strength, and don't put up with anything you don't want!

Cruel contemporaries are everywhere; they never die out. She is aware that it is not the vast majority of the population, but just a minority of brutes who should be cut off from the community.

Regina wants to inform us, and has no sensational story to tell. The time for revenge is long past. Therefore, she will not publish the names of her tormentors who are still alive and who may continue to go through life with impunity. Because, she will not gain any trace of justice, nor will she receive any kind of compensation, since the perpetrators may make excuses for themselves as usual and plead statute of limitations.

She thinks: Just as many former major Nazis returned to power and honor after the war, many war criminals were able to go into hiding (and some are still alive today), and only a small number of followers were punished, and so it has also been with countless violent offenders throughout the postwar period. It is not just this type of offender who enjoys special legal protection in our country.

After the manuscript of the book had been completed, Regina burned the box with her years of research, copies, addresses, evidence, lists and photos as a final act of liberation and casually scattered the ashes to all the winds. She finally let it all go. However, that doesn't mean that she has forgiven the perpetrators. No. It was only after months of mental garbage and inner struggles that she made peace with herself and let her painful past and perpetrators become ashes once and for all. She will never be a victim or feel guilty again.

When we first met in the café, Regina told me that she cried a lot while reading my book. The story of Betty and Paul touched her so much that reflection came naturally. She felt as if she were back in her own childhood and lots of pictures she thought she had forgotten welled up within her. Most of them were horrible. In the end, it was the last push she needed to get rid of her remaining legacy issues forever. She said to herself: If Betty and Paul managed to leave their past behind and be happy after such blows of fate, then I can do the remaining work!

She asked me to publish her story, which she herself neither can nor wants to do, while using other names. As a well-known personality, Regina doesn't want to face the risk of being dissected and vilified in any gossip columns in tabloid papers. She told me:

Everyone has three lives: a private one, a public one, and one that others concoct! The latter is based on the fact that we nowadays increasingly allow a tiny portion of the population to have more influence and power on our society than the majority of the people. Individuals determine the rise or fall of peoples, war or peace, justice or injustice, poverty or wealth, success or failure. They determine what we can eat, drink, read, know, buy, look at, and believe. Too often this is accomplished through lies, fraud, exploitation, threats or violence. It is a mystery to me why a large part of our society believes too much unfiltered material, accepts it and doesn't question anything.

Regina has my promise that I will destroy all my notes and documents she has submitted as soon as she has checked the manuscript after it's done.

I always thought my friends Betty and Paul had to overcome a lot of tragic events. But what I heard from Regina in this massive form, on the one hand, made me sick for days, but it also awakened the rebel in me, on the other.

Regina's lot is not, unfortunately, an isolated one, neither back then nor at the present time. The number of persons affected is very high, and it is difficult to estimate how many children, teenagers and women have had to endure and do continue to endure hundreds of thousands of such torments throughout Germany.

I will now let Regina tell her own story. I will not be back in touch with you until the end of her story.

Marion Schinhofen

* * *

# Chapter 2: I was a barracks child and a home child

I am Regina. It's Regina who's speaking. It was through the book Betty and Paul that I searched for, found, and became acquainted with Marion. I no longer remember who Betty or Paul might be. Marion will never, ever reveal their real names. But the description of the locations in Ratingen and the stories from her childhood seemed familiar to me immediately. I was also born and raised there. Not in one of the small wooden houses, but in a large barracks. But, first things first.

The trigger for my making my story public was the book Betty and Paul, which has a simple enough title but has a depth that touched me and clearly showed me this: improve the quality of my life if I am ready to finally eliminate the dark spots from my childhood and the years after.

No one else knows that I am expanding on my previous life story here. I don't want anyone else to know who I am, either. Personally, when I tell the whole thing, I believe that it is finally out of my head and that I can finish with my terrible past forever.

In addition, I an allowing you, my dear readers, to share in my story and hope to use this book to sensitize people so that they will stop looking away and remaining silent. If you hear people screaming or witness things or know of acts of violence, especially against children and women, please report this or at least give a hint to the police or child protective services. Please help. Any one of us can get into a situation where we would be grateful for help from others.

Careful as I am, I used my sources and gathered information about Marion before I was ready to go and publish a book with her. Of course, I've tried one thing and another before in order to completely free myself from the past. I went through several therapists over many years and have certainly pushed some of them to their limits. I ended those sessions more than eighteen years ago. Another therapist would certainly have a lot of fun with me for quite some time, most particularly for the good income. Listening to a patient lying on the couch for just under an hour once or twice a week, and then get right to the point. See you Wednesday, same time, same place, ... has been my experience. That didn't bring me anything but great expense. Honestly, I have to confess: I wasn't entirely without blame, because I couldn't open myself up. Fear and distrust sealed my lips, even after decades.

# Chapter 3: Born into ... Peace, joy, and freedom

The Nazi state surrendered in May 1945. Twelve years of National Socialist dictatorship had brought Europe to the brink of the abyss, unleashed racist madness and the most horrible crimes, and caused millions of deaths in World War II and the extermination camps.

We children sensed the aftermath of the war for years to come. Most of us were born between 1946 and 1954. All around us, we saw mountains of rubble, destroyed and burned out houses. The clean-up work in outlying areas was slow.

We lived – no, we subsisted – in a huge wooden barracks, which was divided into small residential units, in Ratingen in Northwestern Germany. A little further away, there were little wooden houses with allotment gardens where families also lived. Sealed off by high fences, wild bushes and old chestnut trees, there was a sports field with a large club house as well as a hockey field and several tennis courts. Directly in front of us, there was an extensive factory site with large halls. In front of it ran an elongated earth wall with entrances to underground bunkers: remnants from the war, and our favorite playground. There were around a hundred children and adults in our small, isolated settlement outside the city center.

We (my two brothers Hansi and Walter, our mother and I) lived in a small haphazardly furnished two-room apartment of some thirty square meters, each room having a tiny window, with no washroom and toilet but with loud neighbors. If we poked through the thin wooden wall with a stick, we could look into the neighboring dwelling. Until the people on the other side sealed up the hole with chewing gum. One room was the kitchen, which also served as a living room, which had a corner bench, two wooden chairs, a table, a worn kitchen cupboard, an old coal stove over which clothes hung on a line to dry in winter, and a small ceramic washbasin with a cold water connection. The wooden walls were decorated with scraps of wallpaper, while the wooden floor was covered with cheap, patched linoleum. At night, rats rampaged under the rotten wooden floorboards. One night, a rat bit my brother Hansi, who spoke with a stammer until his premature death. We immediately nailed up the rat hole with wooden slats and declared the rats to be our enemies, which they often seemed to be.

There was no door to the bedroom, but a curtain made from coarse burlap was hung in front of it, as there was on the small windows. My brothers slept in a bunk bed, I slept on a narrow couch, and my mother slept in an old wide bed made with an iron frame. There was still space for a small wardrobe, but there was no more furniture in the bedroom.

There was a latrine for all residents at the beginning and one at the end of the barracks, each one being in a closet. It was hot in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter.

Upon stepping out the door to the apartment, we came through a narrow hallway with entrance doors to other apartments and into a large courtyard. This was a meeting point for the residents, especially when the weather was fine, as well as for us children, it served as an all-weather playground with a secret passage to the tennis courts that was hidden behind some bushes.

We were a rowdy bunch of kids, who grew up with cats, dogs, birds, and other small animals. For many months, my favorite animal was my kitten, 'Baby Carrot.' She came to me every morning to lick her bowl of diluted milk and claim her fair share of petting. After that, she roamed through forest and meadows