Growing up in Bischoffingen

PART ONE

CLICK ON PICTURES TO SEE LARGER

There will always be a place in my heart, as long as I live, for the rural village of Bischoffingen. Bischoffingen is nestled in the hills of the picturesque Kaiserstuhl in south western Germany, and is surrounded by a panorama of vineyards as far as the eye can see. It is the place where I spent the first 23 years of my life, went to school, experienced the horrors of the Second World War, where I met and married my wife Karola, and where our eldest daughter Sonja was born. I was the eldest son of an old and well established fruit and wine-growing family. My brother, Horst, and sister, Helga, still live in Germany.

But first, a lesson in geography. Bischoffingen is on the western side of the Kaiserstuhl, about three kilometres (2 miles) from the upper Rhein, which is also the French/German border. The Kaiserstuhl is a fertile hilly outcrop between the Black Forest to the east and the Vosges Mountains of France to the west. It has about 800 inhabitants, predominantly engaged in agriculture and viticulture.

When I left there, farmers were totally self-reliant. They had their cows for milk, and made their own butter and cheese. They grew grain for flour and baked their own bread and killed their own pigs and calves for the year-round supply of meat and sausages. Money was not plentiful, but we had everything we needed, and we learned not to waste anything - not even water. Of course, people had to manage with the limited resources available, the need was different then from the need of today. For a start, we didn’t have TV, washing machines or fridges, to name a few, but life went on regardless, and when I look back, it was probably a case of: what you don’t know or have, you don’t miss.

Interestingly, I can vividly recall every moment in my life from when I was four and a half, but anything before that time is a total blank. It was the time when my mother came home from hospital with my brother, Horst, and I was taken to the hospital with appendicitis.

And it was there where I started to have an insatiable craving for bananas, which stayed with me for 25 years. This desire for this fruit was finally cured after working six months on a banana farm in Australia.

Life in Bischoffingen evolved mainly within its boundaries. Travelling, as we know it today, was non-existent and the means of travel were horse and buggy, wagon or train. Freiburg, the city where I was born, was visited when we needed something from a department store or had to go to the hospital. Although Freiburg was only about 25 kilometres (15 miles) away by road, a train trip to there took the best part of two hours and involved one stop and a change of train. It was only when I was 18 years and had a motorbike that I travelled for the first time beyond Freiburg. In those days, the doctor made house calls by horse and buggy, but only if it was something mothers couldn’t treat with one of their many home remedies. Interestingly, there weren’t as many sick people as we have today, that number only started to escalate after the 1939-1945 war.

This could most likely be ascribed to the introduction of the motorcar, the tractor and using poison sprays to kill pests. One being the Colorado beetle which became a pest all over Europe and Great Britain at this time. The beetle itself didn’t do any damage and was merely a prolific and remarkable egg-laying machine, capable of laying thousands of eggs per day on the underside of the potato leaves. The millions of larvae hatching from the eggs after a very short gestation period caused the destruction. With their ferocious appetite, they could denude and annihilate an entire potato crop within a couple of days. There is no doubt that they are the beetle-world’s counterparts to piranha fish.

When this particular pest was first discovered in our area, the schools set one day aside per week, and all the pupils had to walk carrying bottles through the potato fields to pick up the beetles, a bounty of ten cents being offered per beetle. At the start of this beetle picking campaign, I found only two beetles all day, and the others weren’t much better off, and any thought of getting rich quickly by picking Colorado beetles, quickly faded. However, all of a sudden, and within a very short time there were so many Colorado beetles around that, at first, the bounty was reduced to one cent, and then abandoned altogether, as manual picking couldn’t cope with the sheer numbers anymore. We had now to fight them with chemicals, and I can still recall how awful the potatoes tasted, the terrible smell of the chemicals penetrating right into them.  

Beside the doctor, the watchmaker also made house calls and used to come once a month to Bischoffingen and the other villages, and if one had problems with watches or clocks, he would collect them and take them to his shop and repair them, then bring them back. However, he would also repair big clocks on the spot, if it were at all possible. I recall vividly one particular house call. Of course, I had to be present, just in case I could learn something, or at least to see the innards of the clock. On this particular occasion, I learned something of practical value. The watchmaker undid a few screws and made a few adjustments, but then he had difficulties starting off a very short screw with his fingers, which had to reach into a difficult place inside the clock movement. After several failed attempts to start the screw, he took a match stick and shaped it with his pocket knife to a flat screwdriver shape and pushed it in the slot of the screw, and started the screw with ease. I have never forgotten this useful trick to this day, and have applied it many, many times throughout my life.

I often think back with nostalgia to the colourful four seasons, the first blooms of the various fruit trees in spring. It was a sight to behold and life started to stir again after the long winter recess. Trees and grapevines had to be pruned and it was time to plant seed to grow crops to feed us, as well as our animals. Summer was the time when nature was wearing its best green dress.

Then came autumn, and everything changed to brown and yellow, the days became shorter and the hard work during summer came to an end with the grape harvest. Then came the long winter and a dress change to white and everybody took life easier and enjoyed the long nights, which were also an opportunity for the community to communicate and entertain each other. There was a brass band, a mixed choir which occasionally entertained the villagers in the big hall above one of the pubs, supplemented with plays performed by the locals.

Various festivals were held during the summer months. In my teenage years, I joined the male voice choir, which used to travel to other places in the immediate area to take part in singing competitions, and I have often told people in Australia the fib, that when the conductor found out that it was me who constantly sang out of tune, I was sent to Australia.

I have to admit to being a very inquisitive kid. Some of this curiosity fell on the learning side and some on the nosy side of human nature. This inquisitive trait has stayed with me throughout my life. I’m always eager to learn, to find out why and how. Needless to say, this characteristic brought me much trouble as a child, precisely because I was so determined about finding out why and how things worked. I was already wise enough to know how to avoid a negative answer. I just went ahead and did things without first asking whether I could.

I attended the Kindergarten in Bischoffingen, along with all the local kids between the ages of four to seven. This gave my parents who, especially in the summertime were busy on the farm, some respite from their youngsters. I have pleasant memories from my time in the kindergarten, with one exception - and this left a bad taste in my mouth, both metaphorically and literally - cod-liver oil. Once a month, I was subjected to the dreadful procedure of being administered with a dose of this vile source of vitamin A and D for my own good. “Open your mouth!” I was told - and a merciless Sister shoved in a spoonful of this horrible, smelly and supposedly good-for-you stuff, which stayed in my mouth only because of the sharp and watchful eye of the Sister. I still cringe when I think of it.

I endured this infringement and abuse of human rights only once or twice, and then I decided to find out when this liquid goodness was prepared for dispensing, and swore never again to swallow one single drop of this repulsive oily medicine. On the chosen morning, my mother bade me good bye and kept me in her sight as I walked in the direction of the kindergarten until I went around the corner of the first block. Children in those days were in no danger walking in the road. There were no motor vehicles, only horse and buggy transport. Out of sight of my mother, I found somewhere to hide. As soon as I could see the sister leaving the kindergarten carrying the good oil, I went in to join the other kids, armed with a totally credible excuse for my tardiness, which was proffered to the kindergarten supervisor.

I recall a particular sunny summer’s day. It was a cod liver oil day. My parents had gone for the day to make hay in a field about eight kilometres away from home. Not being in the right frame of mind for oil, I set off walking to my parents. After walking a short distance, a neighbour pulled up beside me with his horse and wagon and wanted to know where the heck I was going, then offered me a lift to our field. My unexpected surprise visit left mum and dad speechless, but not for long. However, my honesty in admitting the real reason for giving the kindergarten a wide berth probably saved me from severe admonishment - and I got away with a caution.

I remember clearly my first day at school in 1937. A young girl, Alma Klaus, sat on the front bench with two other girls. The teacher asked her what she thought about going to school. She didn’t give an answer, but expressed her feelings in her own distinctive and expressive way. She burst out crying, followed by a long stream of water making its way towards the teacher - which should have indicated to him quite distinctly what Alma Klaus thought about school.

Corporal punishment was part of the curriculum and the punishable body parts were the ears, posterior and the open hand. School hours were from 8 o’clock in the morning to 1 o’clock in the afternoon, Monday to Saturday and, after that, rural youngsters were often required to help on the farm. In summer, the days were very long: from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Young people used the street or the market-place in the village as a meeting place, were they played all sorts of games, discussed the latest news about the war and, of course, debated the favourite subject of boys - girls.

My life in Bischoffingen was in a non-permissive society. We had all the urges and passions of the human race since the dawn of man, but those were sacrosanct and not for display. It was the time when my grandmother’s undergarments were bloomers. My mother was already a bit more progressive in that department and her knickers had been shortened considerably to well above the knee. How did I know? I spied. Even my father was very reluctant to remove his shirt in summertime and walk around topless. I recall one hot August day just after the war when we were harvesting wheat and a neighbour’s daughter, then about 18, who was helping with harvesting in the nearby field, was wearing a full-length swimsuit. Oma Schmidlin was so disgusted with this openly scandalous display of human flesh that she wanted her arrested for indecent exposure. Yes, those were different times. Sex was a taboo subject, and was never discussed openly.

Even explicit pictures of the male or female anatomy, then only found in the so-called doctor books, were hidden from the prying eyes of the children and we were warned that looking at such pictures would render us blind. My parents possessed such a doctor book, and hid it deep inside the linen cupboard, buried under stacks of bed linen and blankets. When my parents were in the vineyards or fields my inquisitive nature sent me exploring and one day I discovered a wonderful book with its detailed, full colour pictures of every part of the human anatomy, male and female. Despite the risk of blindness, I went back to the cupboard many times to peruse and study. My parents never knew that I secretly educated myself in their absence, and after every learning session I put the book back exactly as it was in its safe hiding place. In due course, I started to give lectures to my friends, sharing with them my newly acquired knowledge and soon they, too, wanted to know more about this interesting and fascinating subject and insisted that I lead them to the source of my knowledge. Unlike school, learning suddenly wasn’t drudgery any longer. Why, we asked ourselves, didn’t they teach subjects at school like the one found in the linen cupboard?

After the grape harvest in October, the first frosts usually started to greet us in the morning. Winter was at our door. A very quiet three to four months of very low farm activity was before us. A time which everybody eagerly anticipated the whole year. In normal times, this used to be the period in which to relax and rejoice, but the war put a damper on things. During those long winter nights, visiting friends or relatives was always on the agenda. This was on a reciprocal basis and the time just slipped away by talking and playing board- and card-games.

Already, as a youngster, I had developed a love for making things from wood, and a fretsaw was on my wish list. I had to promise to be a good boy and behave myself and to do certain chores, and eventually I was rewarded, with a tool kit. It was my most treasured possession. I used to make all sorts of things, lampshades, wall hangers depicting animals copied from a large selection of intricate patterns, which were often exchanged amongst us boys. I often reminisce with nostalgia about those times when people had more time to communicate with each other, and the love of talking with people is a trait I have retained to this day.

Christmas had a completely different meaning, it wasn’t commercialised, as it is today, but it was, however, then as today, a gift-giving and -taking time. We didn’t have Santa Claus though. We had the Christkind as the gift deliverer. The Christkind was an imaginary angel. A kind of a cherub. And the Christkind was used by parents as a blackmailing tool. “If you are a good boy or girl, help with chores, behave, do your homework and so on, Christkind will bring you a present!”

Christmas gifts were opened on Christmas Eve, and it was the night when we were allowed to stay up longer to enjoy the gifts. If you read about some of my adventures in Anecdotes from a German Childhood, you might wonder why I ever got any Christmas presents at all.

Another pastime in the long cold winter nights was making warm and comfortable house shoes. I became the in-house shoemaker, a skill I learnt from my grandfather. When we removed the protective sheaths from the dry corncobs, we saved a certain quantity and plaited them into a long length of rope, approximately 15 mm (½”) in diameter. I spent hours and hours doing this. Then, when I had a good supply, one of the many sizes of wood in the exact form of a foot was selected. A sock was put on this and the start of the plait was attached to the sole of the wooden foot with two nails. With a special long needle and special string, the plait was sewn around and around, with the string going through the sock, and finishing off with the tongue of the shoe, then the process was repeated for the second shoe. A piece of used bicycle tyre was sewn on to become the rubber sole, and the finished shoes, which made an ideal gift for any occasion, kept the feet warm and were always appreciated.

One of my favourite spare-time occupations was, and still is, reading, but way back then it was mostly adventure novels about the German colonies in Africa, or other exotic far-away places. As I formed pictures in my mind of what I was reading, further mental pictures were produced, conjuring up all sorts of hypothetical situations, followed by an inevitable yearning to go to those far-away places one day. Australia never came into consideration as I had only come across it in geography lessons. Apart from observing that it was a far, far-away island continent, I knew nothing else about it, and what’s more, it looked desolate and unattractive.

For young people, Sunday afternoon was a time when we boys might decide on the spur of the moment to do something to kill time. We might decide to go on an excursion around the countryside, go to the forest and play cop and robbers. Sport as we know it today was unheard of. Soccer was the main sport practiced then and that only in big towns and larger rural communities. But I cannot think of any time when I was bored. I was always occupied with something or other. One day, we discovered a couple of trees on the edge of a steep slope with vines dangling from them. At first, it was a challenge to test everyone’s courage to imitate Tarzan and swing out over the precipice.

My habit of doing things without first asking if I could, brought me into trouble more times than I like to remember. Owning a pocket knife was the in thing for boys, so one day when I had sharpened mine, I decided to test its efficiency on a nearby tree that belonged to an old lady. We had our own trees, but my better judgement told me that was not advisable. I cut neat long strips of bark off the lady’s tree. Then, with the task completed, and assured that the knife was sharp, I went home, convinced that nobody had seen me. A few days later, to my dismay, my teacher demonstrated that he knew about it. I was pulled in front of the class and asked if I was the culprit. There was no use denying it as two boys testified against me. After a good verbal chastisement, I received the verdict and sentence. I was ordered to go and put wax on the tree and bandage it up. And then I had to go and see the old lady and tell her that I was very sorry for mutilating her tree. If this were not done within six days, the teacher would report my crime to my parents. In one fell swoop, I was placed between a rock and a cement wall. I agonized over which was the better option, and I decided to do as I was told. To make a long story short, it took several failed attempts before I had the courage to knock on the lady’s door.

As soon as I lifted my hand for the first knock I lost my nerve and went away for another think, but eventually I did it. The lady did not reprimand me and was friendly, and I felt a big weight lift from my shoulders.

However, this episode taught me a valuable lesson for life. From that day on, every time I wanted to do or say something, I would first consider whether it would require an apology from me. Unfortunately, the teacher who taught me this valuable lesson was later killed on the Russian front, but I will certainly never forget him. It is a great pity that teachers today cannot exert such valuable influence on young people.

Most of my formative years were spent under a totalitarian form of government, the Nazis, but we kids, were oblivious to politics. However, there is no doubt that the Nazis were good forward planners and thinkers. One of their first actions after gaining power was to set in motion the establishment of youth organizations, The Jungvolk (young folk) and the Hitler youth. The former was for youngsters from eight to fourteen, the latter from fourteen to eighteen. The sexes were segregated - in all, there were four different groups. There was a national leader and regional leaders, down to the local level of group leaders. To the outside world, it probably appeared to be nothing more than a boy-scouts or girl-scouts movement - which it was to some extent - but here the similarity ended. The main objective was to instill Nazi doctrine into young people’s minds. Young people loved to join this movement - there was no coercion to join, nor was it compulsory. Non-involvement was an option not even considered - after all, what kid would want to be an outsider and miss out on the fun? This was a new activity for us. The indoctrination of Nazi values and dogmas was done in a subtle way and, besides, the youngsters also had fun playing games.

Sunday was always a special day in our lives. A day of worship, rest and recreation and there was always that special hot Sunday dinner at midday. Bischoffingen was a protestant community. We had only two officially recognised religions in Germany, Roman Catholic and Protestant. The latter was called the Evangelical Church. To be a priest or minister of religion, one had to have studied theology at the university and, after graduation, become a public servant who was paid a salary by the Government. Of course, being a member of one of those two religions, meant one had to pay church tax, which was used to maintain churches and pay the salary of priests and ministers. One could easily avoid those taxes by leaving the church, but that was not done lightly, if at all, as it put a sort of a stigma on people, which they tried to avoid at all cost. During the Nazi period, practising religion was not encouraged, but it was allowed with a kind of grudging tolerance.

The real Sunday for us began at 10 a.m. when most people went to church. Whether or not you were religious was of no importance, it was just the custom and the right thing to do, a formality most villagers adhered to.

Our church tower housed five bells, the largest weighing over half a ton (500 kg). The big bell required two boys to start the swing, one to maintain it, and three to stop it by hanging on to the rope and having fun by going up and down like budding Tarzans.

The bells started to ring 15 minutes before the church service commenced and stopped when the priest, after making his entrance through the back door, walked along the aisles and arrived at the altar in the front section of the church. The bells, high up in the belfry, were affixed to a long rope and were activated by five bell ringers known as the bellboys. The sixth boy gave the signal when to stop and start. When a boy reached the last class at school, he was automatically entered on the rope puller roster and with this task came a certain prestige and importance.

One single bell was tolled during the church service, while the pastor was reciting the Lords’ prayer. The bells always tolled on special occasions, such as funerals and weddings and, during the war, every time word was received that a villager had been killed in action. How appropriate, was Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls. When not on the bell ringing roster, there was another job we were rostered to in the church. The church boasted a huge pipe organ which was electrically blown, and as a backup for electricity failures, bellows in the attic had to be pumped. Consequently, when I was on standby roster, I had to make sure that I was at the church gallery sitting next to the loft door. It was quite possible to be a bell ringer one week and a bellows pumper the next. It was a sad day in 1943 when the government requisitioned our church bells because the metal was required for the war effort.

Many young men didn’t return to Bischoffingen at the war’s end, leaving a big hole in the small village. They sacrificed their lives and it begs the question - for what?

I was nine and a half years old when World War Two started. The special proclamation was broadcast on the school radio. The announcement caused jubilation amongst the kids, a fact which we demonstrated in the street on the way home from school by shouting, “War, war,” and jumping up and down for joy, not realizing the seriousness of the situation or anticipating what was in store for us.

Raw-material-starved Germany was starting to feel the pinch, and true to the proverb, Necessity is the mother of all inventions, the Government had to think of ways and means to help remedy those deficiencies. They had to produce petrol from shale, an expensive and difficult process, but it is amazing what governments can do in time of war. Nobody escaped being involved in some way or other in the war effort, which brings me to my next subject - silkworms. Schools also became involved in the war effort, particularly those in rural areas. The government asked them to put silkworm farming on their curriculum during the summer. The food source of the silkworm is, of course, leaves from the mulberry bush and these were plentiful around the village as every backyard had one or two. The Government supplied additional plants to be planted in school and churchyards and wherever else there was a spare spot. The bushes produced a profusion of leaves whilst the silkworms were prolific eaters.

The silkworms were housed in boxes and munched continually. Collecting leaves and feeding them gave us kids a welcome break from the tedious learning regimentation at school. However, this project, besides being fun, also proved to be, an edifying experience. We learned that the silkworm, in addition to eating mulberry leaves, also likes lettuce, but that silkworms fed on mulberry leaves produce the finest silk. It was interesting to observe how the cocoons grew larger and larger. Silkworms spin their cocoons from a single thread which, unwound, can measure about 800 metres (2,600’). An interesting little creature indeed, green material was fed into the front and white material was churned out of the back.

We had had a few walnut trees, and we also cultivated a yearly crop of poppies, solely for home consumption. After the walnuts and poppy pods were harvested, they were stored, and in the long winter nights the whole family, and often neighbours or relatives, came and cracked the nuts or opened the seedpods of the poppy. It was an excellent occasion to tell yarns. Poppies, besides producing delicate, attractive flowers, also provided us with cooking oil, while the tiny round seeds were used to adorn our bread and cakes. One acre (0.4 ha) produced enough seeds for our yearly oil and seed requirements. There are about 200 species of poppy around the world, their flowers ranging in colour from pure white to a bright scarlet. The species we cultivated had white flowers with small purple flecks, and a field of poppies in full bloom was a sight to behold. With the dominance of white, it had the appearance of a snowfield in summer. The plant contains many alkaloids, including morphine and codeine, though we never produced them for that purpose. During the war, the Government required us to save the dry empty seedpods, so that the alkaloids could be extracted. We harvested the pods when they started to change colour from green to brown and when you could hear the seeds rattle when they were shaken. When the pods were cut off the plant, the short stem that remained resembled a baby’s rattle. The pods were stored in the barn or attic until they had totally dried out then, during long winter nights, we cut them open to retrieve the seed, often with the help of neighbours and friends. It was always an excellent yarn-spinning occasion.

The first of May always had a special significance in our village, and for that matter everywhere in Germany. It marked the beginning of summer and, very often, the cherry and peach trees were in bloom and people came from everywhere to enjoy this blossom extravaganza. On the night before the festival, young people used to cut a birch tree and place it in a purpose-dug hole in the marketplace. Everybody then worked feverishly until the early hours to have it adorned with all sorts of colourful decorations so that it was ready for morning of the first day of May. Our May Day had no labor significance in our village. In the afternoon, the whole village population was present, either to take an active part, or just to enjoy the carnival atmosphere and listen to the village brass band.

One of the most important features of the festivities was the tree-climbing contest that allowed young men to show off their vigour and climbing skill. The tree branches had small keepsakes attached to them, and young people were challenged to get one of them down, for their girl, their mother or whoever. However, in order to make the climb especially difficult and challenging, the tree trunk was de-barked so that it was smooth. Every village or town in Germany had its central Dorf (village) or Stadtplatz (town marketplace) and was perhaps the forerunner of today’s mall. It was used for entertainment, meetings, play and markets.