My Dear Susanne,
So now I’m going to give it a shot. Write my diary.
Because you want me to.
From my father’s side nobody is alive anymore other than my mother, Gertrud.
And also from her side – she had 7 siblings – she is the last survivor. At this time she is 92 years and 3 months. Nearly a biblical age.
Of my mother’s siblings, I only know three.
First, my aunt Hedwig, my godmother. Seamstress with an unstoppable humor. She used to laugh so hard tears were running down her face. Her husband, sickly and often unemployed, had his customary place at the kitchen table. She called him her “Portrait in Oil”.
Their daughter Erna you named “The Jingle Horse”. (Klingel Pferd). She died 4 years ago.
Aunt Hedwig always gifted me fabric for all birthdays and other holidays. Mother then made dresses for me when needed. The rest was saved. And since we did not get bombed out, we had a nice stash after 1945. Mother used it to make dresses for the Russian officer wives and housecoats for a farmer’s wife and her daughter. That brought us milk, condensed milk (with sugar!), bread, butter, syrup, and potatoes. Important survival food. Especially since Mother had to get back on her feet (she was down to 90 pounds in 1945), and Klaus was still growing and needed to learn. And I applied for a teaching job. and had been accepted. I taught in the morning and studied in the afternoon. But all three of us made it.
I also know Uncle Franz. My favorite uncle from Merseburg. I did not see him often but always liked him. I’m still in steady contact via letters with his daughter Erika and husband Rolf. I send her coffee and other Western goods, and she sends me good books. She has a remarkable source. Klaus says you can’t buy these kinds of books in a regular store.
One of Mother’s sisters used to live in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Aunt Erna. I liked her too. She did not have an easy life but still was willing to laugh. In the cemetery at Ruhleben there is a family plot for the Hegermanns with this aunt, her husband, and a brother-in-law. When I am in West Berlin and I have the time, I go visit that grave. I have an inner need to go there. I never once have been to the cemetery at Heerstrasse where Kurt and Erna are buried. No desire.
So, this was the beginning. And I wrote this spontaneously all at once.
Now I have to take a break and think about how I will pull the whole thing off.
Everything nicely in sequence, starting from the beginning, or like a kaleidoscope, colors from life.
We will see how it comes to me.