In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

15 Home M Y FIRST FEW MONTHS in Wolfenbuttel told me that I was home, but that home was not the one I had remembered. People spoke the same language as before, but they did not understand me. They all had their own misery to relate and the injustices they had suffered. They paid no heed to my questions. I did not know whether home had remained the same and I had changed, or whether home had changed while I had remained in the past. How could I find my way back to the home I had longed for so desperately? Was there such a way, or was I condemned to remain a stranger in my own home? I, who had hoped to find here the answers to all my questions, only found more questions awaiting me, and nobody willing or able to answer mine. Now that I had reached the pole of all my longing it had vanished. Unbeknownst to me, even before my return, my mother had signed me up in the first available make-up course offered by the city's school system for veterans like me whose schooling had been terminated prematurely during the war. Many, though not all, of my old classmates— not Etzel, not Dieter—were back in the city now, and on November 16 we returnees, together with a motley assemblage of refugees from all parts of Germany, commenced our studies for thezyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYX Abitur, the final comprehensive high school examination that would give us the right to enroll in any German university. My assignments in English and German literature and Latin—the three fields I chose for the examination —diverted my attention from the questions that had haunted me the preceding months and for which I had not found any answers. Food was scarce in those days and of little nourishment, and was to remain so for the next two years. Our meals consisted of one or two slices of crumbling dark bread for breakfast with jam or syrup made zyxwvutsrqp 205 Home zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONM of turnips or beets and a cup of ersatz coffee; for lunch turnips and potatoes boiled in water with at most half a teaspoonful of margarine or some gristly meat scraped from a soup bone, and the same once more for supper. The few slices of sausage and the few grams of cheese we received on our ration cards every month we saved for Sundays, as we did also with the quarter-pound of oatmeal that we boiled in watered-down skim milk with our sugar rations sprinkled on top. An occasional package from abroad was a godsend that would brighten our spirits and fill our stomachs with luxuries. I still remember the heavenly taste of thick, sweet condensed milk spread over a hard roll or a cupful of uncooked oatmeal. I thought to myself that if I ever was to live through this misery and see better times again I would never be without a kitchen cabinet full of cans of sweet, condensed milk. Heavenly though these gifts of manna were, I also recall the bitter disappointment that overcame me when, early in December, before we ever had received our first package from abroad, I answered our doorbell and faced what I thought was a British officer. My immediate thought was that he had come to requisition our apartment and evict my mother and me, and as a result I was fearful and suspicious. But he introduced himself as Captain Holloway of the U.S. army and a friend of an American librarian who had been a colleague and correspondent of my father before the war. He brought us greetings and a small package that he carried under his arm. He asked whether he could talk to me for a while to learn about my father and what our lives had been like during the war. As my mother happened to be out I ushered him into our living room and we commenced our conversation. It lasted, it seemed to me, for an eternity. His curiosity appeared insatiable, while my eyes and thoughts were trained on that little package wrapped in brown paper, lying now on our living room table and making me dream of unimaginable delicacies. When Captain Hollaway finally rose and took his leave, I tore into the wrapping paper to see what I might find. As it came off it revealed a roll of corrugated cardboard tightly taped, and it was followed by tissue-paper...

Share