Page 37 - My Story

probably were totally unaware of large communities disappearing from the towns. We did go to one
dentist who started telling me that Hitler was a good guy at which I said very coldly, “We are English,
Jewish and I was in London during the war”, then I took my daughter’s hand saying, “Don’t bother sending
a bill” and stalked out.

Winter was fun with lots of snow. We bought the girls sledges and we all enjoyed them. Hilary
was not yet two, so a parent had to sled with her, usually me!

And at the end of the winter was Karneval or Fasching, held just before Lent. The children all had
to have costumes. I remember that first Fasching Helen was a Scots girl in her kilt with a sash thrown over
one shoulder and an amazing hat, a sort of forage cap, which I made. We later had a mermaid, an oranges
and lemons costume and a clown costume for Toby which was passed down to the Seniors. We stood
watching endless Karneval processions, usually in freezing weather. The small-town processions were not
very inspiring – usually a lot of inebriated clowns tossing candies for the children – but my children loved
them, and we didn’t miss one as long as we were in Germany.

Actually, my children loved costumes. I had kept the blue lace and organza bridesmaid dress and
the green moiré skirt and various other garments that were no longer in fashion, as well as some high
heeled shoes and they loved getting into that box and would spend hours playing at dressing up and get
all their friends involved, too.

They also discovered religious fervour. One day I could hear a terrific row ensuing from the
children’s bedroom. I went in there. “Come on now girls, what’s going on?” A tearful Helen explained,
“We’re playing I’m God and they’re the angels and they won’t do what I tell them to do.”

Summer came, and we discovered Wissel, a disused gravel pit which formed a lake and the town
had made a sandy beach around it. About three afternoons a week Inge Werner and I would pack the
girls into my little car, take bagsful of fruit and cake and drinks and set off for a few hours of sand and
water and fun. The roof would be open on the car and the girls would stand and wave and sing and shout
for the half hour’s trip – no car seats or belts in those days.

Meanwhile Helen and Susan were having swimming lessons at the local indoor swimming pool.
The Germans had a system (they always had a system) of swimming stages. The first was Freischwimmer
where you had to jump into the pool from a low board and be able to swim, anyway you wanted, for
fifteen minutes. Next came Fahrtenschwimmer where you had to jump from the three-meter board and
swim for half an hour. After that were all kinds of advanced strokes and life saving techniques. The two
girls got their Freischwimmer very quickly and Helen went on to take her Fahrtenschwimmer. Poor Susan
never liked heights and at five stood frozen on the three-meter board. The instructor encouraged her to
climb down and do the swim first which she did comfortably but then the poor little thing climbed up and
up and up and stood looking so miserable, quite unable to jump. I had decided to haul her down and say
it doesn’t matter when suddenly she did it, a beautiful jump and she bobbed up in the water with a great
big smile of achievement on her face.

At the end of the summer Peter and I decided that although we were by now fairly proficient in
German and certainly understood whatever we heard, it was time to take some lessons and learn to speak
grammatically. We hired Herr Kürver a teacher of English from the local high school. After a few lessons
he suggested we start an English Conversation Group. He knew a few people who would be interested in
coming and so did we, so we started it, in our living room one evening a week and it was interesting and
fun and we made new friends through it. I usually had a theme, a paragraph to discuss from a book or
news magazine and we would introduce English idioms or slang terms.

Around this time Hank and Annelisa Ballin were moved to Rotterdam, Holland and Hank had
started a pamphlet called “Improve Your English” which was distributed in the Hunter Douglas offices and
later around many international corporations. It was clever and witty with nice little illustrations, drawn
by Hank. He later published it as a book and it was translated into many languages – I have the Japanese
version. We cribbed from this for our group, with Hank’s permission of course.

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