Part 15: Bread And Butter Despite all the shortages, father always took one or two extra slices with him when he went to the factory for his shift. When my mother asked him why he needed so much bread, he did not answer at first.
Part 14: A Cozy Luxury Apartment Of course, the relatives were curious about the new apartment. Aunt Emmie came, looked at everything and said to my mother with admiration in her voice: ‘Lotte, you live like a princess.’
Part 13: Musical Instruments No One Played Anymore The stepsiblings did not stay twelve for too long. The girls left home at 14 and worked as house cleaners for rich people in the city.
Part 12: A New Chapter In Life Long before the big move, a new phase of my life had also begun. I started school. In my school bag was a slate board, an arithmetic book, and a reading primer. A damp sponge and a cloth to dry the board dangled from two strings in the satchel.
Part 11: A Life For The Factory Our father had taken a courageous step and broken the eternal cycle of ‘once a miner, always a miner.’ He was now working in a distant plant as a chemical worker.
Part 10: I Want To Become A Train Driver Everything that was harvested, grandma had to boil down: Beans, strawberries, salsify, currants, gooseberries, everything. Potatoes, carrots, and cabbage were stored in the cellar.
Part 9: Cinema In The Village There were three bars in the village. In one of them, the dance hall had been converted into a cinema. The first silent films were shown here, and a little later the first UFA sound films, of course everything was still black and white.
Part 8: A Little Shopping Trip Friday was a special day. If my father had an early shift, he was already home in the afternoon with the week’s wages. My mother put on a pretty dress, Hannchen and the baby carriage were cleaned up, and I had to put on shoes and a clean shirt.
Part 7: Dogs Are Only Human Too It was a beautiful, warm Sunday. As always, we children had to put on our good Sunday clothes. For me, these were shoes, white knee socks with colorful pompons and the hated sailor suit made of a blue wool, with the big sailor collar that scratched so terribly, and I hated it.
Part 6: My Friend The Hairdresser Apart from a few septic tanks and cesspools, the sanitary and hygienic conditions in the village were catastrophic. There was no sewerage system, and no sewage treatment plants. Most of the village’s sewage ran down the streets and gutters into the creek. This post has been moved. Please follow us on Medium to read and/or …
