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ALONG THE RHINE - 1957

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BROTHERS NEAR RUDESHEIM - 1957



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ROHN IN THE HAYLOFT - 1957



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TWINS

My Story
#6

I was confused when I woke up. Where was I? No scratchy 78 rpm record player blasting reveille outside my window. No sounds of guys walking or rushing to the john down the hall. No guys in the lavatory bumping elbows brushing teeth, slippery tile floors, urinals, smelly excretions from guys falling asleep on the toilet, bad beer breath from the night before, no moaning and bitching about hangovers. No guys asking if they could borrow your razor, guys shouting back and forth about “the gal I saw you with” and “did you ding her.?”. No rushing to Roll Call out in the quadrangle to get there in time to get a few brownie points from the assembly Captain. I forget his name.
Today it felt like Sunday. No rush. I could turn over and get back to sleep. But I didn’t.

I rubbed my eyes and looked around at this guy’s bedroom. A university student.

A cross hung on the wall above the bed. It wasn’t a Maltese Cross it was a Christian cross. Another was across the room by the dresser. They must be Catholic or Lutheran. Probably Catholic in this part of Germany.
It’s funny, at my unit in Wuerzburg, guys didn’t really know anything about the Germans. They didn’t even know the language except “Wo ist der Bahnhof?” or something like that. Most of them were hostile to Germans. The Staff Sergeant, who was a “lifer” in the Army now 20 years told me once. “I didn’t see them as people, I was just shooting at uniforms.”

Back at Wuerzburg, the guys probably would have ostracized me if they learned I spent the night in a German guy’s bed.

I looked around some more. A picture of his girl friend on the bureau, or was it a cousin, or his mother before the war? Pretty girl. A picture of a guy in uniform. His brother, maybe? They didn’t mention him. I didn’t want to ask. And I won’t.

Back in Wuerzburg in the taverns and park benches, I had my fill of conversations about killed and gone friends and relatives. I had a habit of digging down into people’s lives, asking questions. I’m sure that’s why I was eager to learn the German language when the Army sent me to Oberammergau to learn it.

I wanted to talk to the people. I’m sure I would’ve failed German if I ‘d taken German in high school, just like I failed Spanish. I admire people who can learn things for no other reason that just to learn them. Like Latin or Greek.
I don’t know if the Germans resented me always asking questions. I couldn’t help it. It just came out. My curiosity, I mean. I guess that’s why I didn’t mind my Army job. I had a license to ask questions. As far as the answers, I don’t know how much of it was true. I guess they told me what they figured I wanted to hear.

The conversations were always the same. They never defended their involvement in the war, they didn’t know anything about Jews in concentration camps, and the High Command only broadcast the good stuff like their victories in Poland and Russia. And how the people cheered and welcomed the German Army into Austria. This idea of radio and movies telling people what they wanted to hear must've been exciting. Going to the movies back them, I mean like in the early 40's and they would have The News before the movie started. No one was late for that. Everyone was hushed and seated. and they would see resulted of when German submarines were blasting boats out of the water, and sailors were floating in the oily fires. Or a shell wolud blast a Russian tank. That was better than the movie itself.
When you walked out of the movie in broad daylight itself and saw a German soldier in uniform, you'd probably want to go up to him and hug him, or be eager to send your own son, when he was 16 or 17, to the recruitment station to sign up. It must've all been so exciting.

When the tide turned, the people were in the dark except for propaganda. That must’ve been tough. The radio played music instead of showing the losses in Russia or North Africa or other places depending on when you were listening.

How would you like spending ten to fifteen months listening to stuff on the radio like, "Good morning folks, Heil Hitler! We are losing this war. The British and American air raids are breaking our morale.”

Your reaction to the radio reports would be “My family and me might be killed tomorrow.”

But then the commentator would say something like, “But there’s still hope. Our German ingenuity will overcome. We are in the final stages of developing what’s called a jet engine airplane that will easily destroy those English and American bombers and fighter planes, plus we are developing a bomb that could wipe out London in one minute.”

I guess the people were so war-weary that they would’ve believed anything, -even the idea that one bomb could destroy a whole city. But the funny thing about it was the Nazi broadcaster would have been telling the truth because the German scientists were working on an atom bomb and they just about had it completed before the war ended. Now that would have been something. Let's not think about that,

We can get used to just about anything, it seems, doesn't it? And if we can’t, then we resort to denial, which saves us from an unpleasant existence.

During my two years in Wuerzburg, from the Germans, I never saw or heard spoken the mention of Adolph Hitler, Joseph Goebbles, Heinrich Himmler, or Herman Goering. Except Hans, in his darkroom when I would be in there working with him and Maria wasn't there. He would use the darkroom to tell me deep down what his feeling were. He couldn't express them during the war and he couldn't express them after the war, so the darkroom was the only place to express them, and to an American, me.

As I lay there in my early morning wake-up trance, I dismissed the whole subject. I transitioned into how nice it was for these people to invite me into their home and to spend the night in their son's bedroom. What a beautiful day outside! I let my mind switch into the road ahead for me that day.

The aroma of frying eggs, sauerkraut and pork and potatoes came whafting up the stairwell. Herr Werner was just coming out of the bathroom. “Gruess Gott” he shouted. “Hast du gut geshlafen?” “Sehr gut,” I smiled as we shook hands.
“Where are you off to this morning?”, Frau Werner asked as she gave me another helping of sauerkraut. This was not a breakfast, this was a send-off supper.

“I don’t know,” I volunteered, “I’ll just take the road out of town that goes west..”
They looked at each other. Even with ten years after the war, Germans weren’t’ interested in travel. Not as a tourist. Most had no car. Most had no interest in seeing the remains of the devastation of the war that still remained in many parts of the country.

In the small back yard I began packing my scooter. “Here, “ Frau Werner said, coming down the back steps, “Here’s the address of my sister in Frankfurt. If you pass through Frankfurt, give this note to her. She would be glad to welcome you.”

I thanked her. Then Herr Werner came tramping down the back steps waving an ancient motorcycle helmet, “Here take this, youngster. I think you can use it on your trip!” It was covered with souvenir stickers and scratches. He dusted it off.

“But I can’t take this, “Herr Werner,” I pleaded.
He shoved it on my head for size.

“It fits perfectly. Now you take it!” He belted me on the head to show me it was in good shape. There was nothing more to be said. I had a crash helmet. I took it off and thanked Herr Werner.
I stared at it sitting there on the bench. A helmet. Whose helmet was it? I couldn’t wear someone’s stinky helmet. Just think of the history of this helmet. I don’t know how old the helmet was. It looked old enough to have been in the war. Maybe the person that owned it shot someone. Maybe they shot an American or English soldier. Or maybe the guy was shot by a Gestapo member for trying to escape or for haboring a downed aviator, something heroic like that. You never know the history of something when someone gives you something. All these things flashed in my mind as I stood there staring at it. I'll never know how long those flashes lasted.

Anyway, I heard the tinkle of the bell on the front door of the store. “I’ve got a customer,“ Frau Werner shouted. She turned, waved aufwiedersehen, gave an affectionate smile, blew me a kiss and disappeared into the store front.

“Drive careful,” Herr Werner smiled as he helped me roll the scooter onto the main street as neighbors looked on. I can only imagine what they must’ve been thinking. A decade earlier they would’ve thought he was harboring a collaborator or a spy and would’ve reported him to the Gestapo.

Herr Werner grabbed my wrist. ”Aufwiedersehen und hals und beinbroch.!” The German way of wishing the best to you is to wish you the worst. It means “break your neck.”

He watched as I disappeared around the bend in the narrow village road. I thought I saw Frau Werner on the side walk also waving farewell.

I traveled slowly through Germany the next two weeks, sometimes camping out along the highway in my tent , sometimes inviting my way to sleep in the hayloft of a farmer's barn, sometimes staying in the German Youth Hostel dormitories, the Jungendherberge.

Once, on the outskirts of Kolblenz, (Colonge) I was invited to stay on a farm for the whole weekend. My invitation was extended to almost a week when they learned I could play German folk songs on my guitar.

It’s funny about music. It’s a universal language. It melts people down. There’s nothing better to carry than a musical instrument if you want to travel to foreign places. It doesn’t matter if you’re really any good at it. I certainly wasn’t. Sorta like Jack Benny and his violin. But it was like a key to get into a door you were generally not allowed to enter.

At the Strauser’s farm it was almost a communal farm where you had an extended family of all ages. I never did learn everyone’s name and at mealtime there was always someone new at the table that wasn’t there the last time. It was like they had this custom left over from the war where there was often an empty chair at the long farmhouse kitchen table because no one was sure just who would be there for supper.

I seemed to fit into that empty chair without anyone noticing anything much different.

We would all work in the fields in the daytime. And at night we would all sit around the kitchen talking and sometimes singing a folksong that I knew. One of the little Strauser boys had a charming voice and would sing when his mother requested. There was no senior Mr. Strauser. I didn’t ask.

I was getting itchy to move on and see what was ahead of me to the north up the Rhine river. I said goodbye Sunday morning early. I passed through the village of Rudesheim.
On Sundays in Germany is promenade day. Especially in the little towns and villages. It was nice to see the villagers on a Sunday afternoon, all out in the fresh air. You wonder if anyone is left inside those tiny stone houses. It was like a big bell in Valhalla had begun ringing and a deep bellowing voice sounding like a pastor on a pulpit had said , “O.K. my children, get out of your houses and get some fresh air.”

And they all poured out onto the streets and sidewalks and began enjoying walking through the parks or paths through the forest. The voice was saying, "take your children and the "baby carriage, your family dog, or your boyfriend and stroll the town square, parks, the river walkways, the glens, the valleys, the picnic grounds, the playing fields everywhere!

Romping, laughing little children, vinegar-faced old men and women, young couples, proud young mothers pushing their baby carriage. It was though they were reenacting Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretle. Shiny, smiling faces. Neighbors greeting each other and their dogs snapping and yipping and yapping and chasing each other through the bushes. And the giggling children trying to catch them.
Oh, to be part of it!

The Rhine river flows along here on its way to the North Sea, glistening in the high afternoon sun. I drove through Rudesheim past active little outdoor cafes filled with customers as red-cheeked waitresses scurried about in their Bavarian dirndls holding trays topped with white wine glasses, coffee, and tarts. Throngs of people filled the sidewalks and me and my Vespa tried to dodge some of the strollers when the overflow sent them into the narrow streets. There were no banners, no confetti, no concert band playing, no particular day to celebrate, -just a Sunday feeling of festivity in the village air.

I felt sorry I could not be part of it.

NEXT: On to Rotterdam, Holland