Nazi’s, Communists, and Fear Of Getting “Hauled Off”

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We were used to keeping our mouths shut.. and knew from experience that if we spoke our minds or said what we were really really thinking.. the SS or their “compadres” would come and pick us up to take us, only God knows where. Either torture or death, but probably both.. would have been our fate. So.. as young as I was, I knew to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t dare say anything about this Nazi Regime.. oh no, I knew better. Dad being hauled off Three times, branded it into my brain. At a very young age I learned that you had to do and say as it was expected from the Regime you were currently under. My most important reason for mentioning this.. is that there’s absolutely no difference between the Nazis and the Communists.. none, except the Nazi’s color was brown.. the Commies, red.

Much Later..after the Americans had traded our part of Germany for Berlin.. we ended up under Commie Regime.. and the Americans got what they wanted, a part of Berlin.

All those things that I already knew about started again.

When the Americans were occupying us.. we got a huge breather.. they gave us the freedom to talk about whatever was on our minds with no ” consequences” The soldiers did feed the children and overall, they were human beings.. the whole atmosphere was different than what we were use to… it was as if we suddenly could breathe. Then.. horror all over.. The Russians moved in, occupying us and the old horrors started up anew. I was so very confused, because now everything felt as if we were under Nazi power again.

German military court trial of French resistance members
Watch what you say… no food.. hide from those soldiers.. FEAR.. same horrid fear. By the time the Russians occupied us.. I had four languages in school, and this of course included Russian. Yes, the Russians made us learn their language.. if we wanted to learn it or not.. they made us learn it.

Cpacibo ! It’s not a Roman language, so their alphabet was different and it was so very hard. My head already was wrapped around English, French and Latin, some Italian later on. And German isen’t exactly an easy language, I had to still learn german grammar.. so overall my head was bursting. Funny thing that I should fail in Math, Physics, Chemistry and all the sciences. I failed miserably. The things I was good at were : English, PE and music. Yeah.. for some reason, English seemed to come to me in my sleep, even the pronounciation. But English was frowned upon by the Russians.. so, I was out of luck again. The former Nazis in Brachwitz now were Commies and I was smart enough to stear clear of them. Even as young as I was I figured out that this was creepy. “Manteltraeger” yes, I learned what this was.

By now, though, I was in the Halle Conservatory for music, and rented a little room in Halle. I now was 17. Behind me were the terrors of Gnadau, the Nazis and the hunger had lessened, we had a bit more food.

the-jelloI invited Thea to my little room one day, to feed her some of my home cooking. I could not cook at all, no one ever taught me. Mom could not have, because there hardly ever was anything that could be fixed. So I decided to fix: “Jello” for my guest. When I presented it to her it was green soup running off the plate. We both had a big laugh, and Thea assured me, she wasn’t mad at me.. in fact.. she was thrilled that I had put the effort into fixing her something.

She was such a sweet sister, but to tell the truth.. we didn’t really know each other too well. “Family” was not something that was a priority during our childhood. Survival was. Each of us went our own ways.. and that Helmut was sent away.. and me being sent to Gnadau did not exactly help. So, in many ways, we all four were strangers to one another. Schnippe and I were the closest I think.

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I was scared to death of being “hauled off”, but I had a tough time keeping my mouth shut and not saying anything “politically incorrect.” It went against my grain being told what to say and what not to say. It still does today. But I was so angry from all these horrible things.  I remember many times when a friend would hush me, saying” Adelheid.. hush up!”

Later on, though, this was exactly the reason I had to flee the Commies and my beloved home.. yes much later on, I escaped, because I had to.. So I would not be ” hauled off”.

Comments

  1. @carold501 says

    Am enjoying your writings. Have started from the beginning & it gets more interesting as I go on.

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