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11 The Choice zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXW D URING THE WEEKS FOLLOWING MY FATHER'S DEATH m y friend-| ship with Ulla deepened and ripened. She became my confidante and shared my anguish and my concern about my mother's declining health. She would wait for me at the streetcar stop when I returned from school in Braunschweig, and we would walk home together talking about our worries and plans. Not all of our talk was somber and serious because we both knew that soon I would have to leave, as Dieter and Etzel already had, and we hoped that before that happened we could attend dancing school together. We middleclass youngsters were to be instructed by a private dancing master in a Wolfenbuttel restaurant.zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDC Tanzstunde, as the lessons were called, was to teach us the art of the waltz, the fox-trot, and the tango, and the instructor was to train us in proper table manners and the social graces generally. We thought that would be fun and, provided no air raid would interfere, would give us a chance to meet and be together on a fairly regular schedule. It all began with me having to call on Ulla's mother to formally request her permission to invite her daughter as my partner. That ceremony was intended as the grand rehearsal for the one eventually to follow when the boy would have to go to his future wife's home and ask her father for his daughter's hand. I dreaded the occasion and was quite intimidated when, on a sunny afternoon, dressed in my Sunday suit, I set out on my errand. Ulla's parents lived in an apartment above a jewelry store they owned, no more than a ten-minute walk away from my home. As I marched through the streets, a bouquet of flowers wrapped in white tissue paper in my hand, I hoped nobody would see me, least of all the vocational school boys of the Krumme Strafie whose social status saved them from such bourgeois rituals as I was 162 The Choice zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSR engaged in. My heart beat high in my throat as I entered the store. To my dismay I was greeted with effusive mock-politeness by Ulla's little brother, who happened to be standing behind the counter. I can still see the big grin on his face and hear his sweetly ingratiating voice— "And what, dear Sir, may I show you of our latest acquisitions? Are you interested in these nice new wrist watches, or is it perhaps a ring for some lady's finger?"—he, of course, knowing full well what I was there for. Happily for me, Ulla's mother stepped into the store from the workshop in the rear and, before I could get myself to stammer my request, she graciously admired my flowers and asked me to come upstairs. She was sure, she said, I had come to see Ulla, but Ulla, unfortunately , was out on an errand, and would I not mind talking with her for a few minutes? When I assured her that the flowers were for her and when I stated my request, she only smiled and said, "Of course, Jurgen, Ulla has been talking of nobody but you lately." As it turned out, that was the beginning and also the end of my dancing lessons with Ulla. A few days later the government's declaration of total war closed down all schools and public amusements. No longer was there to be any private or public business that was not directly related to the war. The school in Braunschweig was closed, a development that I greeted with immense relief, but our dancing lessons in Wolfenbuttel also were canceled. The Braunschweig students were summoned to leave for the Dutch-German border to dig trenches and thereby help stem the advance of the Allied armies. Again I was exempted, this time not because I was too young but because I belonged to the Jungvolk in Wolfenbuttel, and the adult leadership there had different plans for me. I was now told that I was to hand over my Fahnlein to Ulrich, my adjutant, and report for duty as an instructor in a Hitler Youth Leadership Training School in the Harz Mountains. In the intervals between training courses I was to serve as a railroad courier, carrying confidential messages throughout northern Germany to various party and military offices. My parting with Ulla and my mother was bittersweet. While I had...

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