should never see. I don’t know if Oma thought we would make it there, because the soldiers circled and taunted us like wolves seeking prey. It was horrifying. When we reached the school, we found it surrounded by barbed wire. To get in, we had to find a way around it.
In the school half the children and teachers were missing. We never saw them again. Some had been from the east, but many of the missing had been from West Berlin. We feared they had been kidnapped by the Russians. That day all the classes were amalgamated. I felt confused and bewildered and was grateful that Oma stayed at school with me.
We were to be under the protection of the United States and the Allied nations, but John Kennedy, the president of the United States, was on holidays, and the other countries weren’t in any rush to protect us. After all, we were Germans—the nationality associated with Hitler, who everyone said had started the war. The nations didn’t like us. As a result, with no protest from anyone, the Russians had freedom to do what they wanted, and we never knew when they might invade the school to beat us up, attack us or violate and haul away our teachers. They kidnapped people to rebuild their decimated labour force and make up for those who had fled from East to West Berlin. Many disappeared.
After that I always felt anxious to have to go to school. For safety and lack of teaching staff, school hours were only from 8 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. It wasn’t long before Oma stopped taking me and taught me at home.
One thing remained constant with my schooling. Whether I studied at home or at school, I always enjoyed Oma’s loving care. She was there for me. She sat with me every day and helped me with homework. She had an open heart, and I felt safe with her. I could talk to her about everything. To Oma I was “mein kleines Schätzchen” (my little precious one). She esteemed me, and it made me feel like a valued human being.
WAR ZONE
I felt safe in our little home, but outside on the street Berlin was a war zone. We weren’t allowed to talk about the terrible things that happened. Everything had to be a secret because we didn’t know whom we could trust. I remember hearing of a time when Russian soldiers burst into the home of a family we knew and forced the children to watch as they shot and killed their father. They left him bleeding and dead. The family, horror-stricken and grieving, had to dispose of their loved one’s body.
On another occasion, I inadvertently got myself in trouble. There was a peephole in the plywood that boarded up our store window. I liked to look through it to see what was happening outside. My grandparents told me repeatedly not to go near it, and I learned a very hard lesson.
One day I snuck into the front part of the store and peered out when Oma wasn’t watching. At that moment, a monstrous thing happened. The apartment building across the street disintegrated in all directions with a blast that deafened my eardrums. Bodies flew and fell amidst screams of the injured and dying.
I was undone, frantic, hysterical! The Russians had planted a bomb in the apartment building where my little girlfriend lived. My mind screamed in horror, What happened to my friend? Is she hurt?
I ran into the kitchen howling and wailing, and when my grandparents, frightened themselves by the sound of the explosion, realized what I had done, they were very upset. In fact, it was the only time I got a spanking. I promised I would never disobey again, and I meant it. I was so ashamed.
That day affected me deeply. I never saw my friend again.
In retrospect, I don’t think it was coincidence that at this very young age I happened to be in Berlin to see the atrocities that took place as the wall went up. God was shaping and mapping my life long before I was five years old. Had I not been there, I doubt I would be here to share my story. Let me start from the beginning.
Chapter 2
Beginnings
If the Lord had not been my help,
my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
PSALM 94:17, ESV
Ihadn’t always lived with my grandparents in Germany. Their daughter Ingeborg, a stunningly beautiful photographer sought by major publications in Europe, had moved to Canada in the early 1950s. That’s where I was born and lived for the first 26 months of my life.
When I was young, I didn’t know much about my mother—only snatches of what I had heard from my grandparents. But when I was older, I found out more about her from my dad. As a result, I have partially come to understand her enigmatic personality and have been able to reconstruct events in her life with some insight. Here is Ingeborg’s story the way I see it.
Just like me, Ingeborg enjoyed an idyllic childhood with my grandparents. But also, like many young women who suffered the effects of the war years in Europe, Ingeborg became a troubled soul. I adored my grandparents, and it was hard for me to understand how someone raised in their home could be so different from them. I experienced the warmth, stability and love of their home for six and a half years, and I knew what her childhood had been like. It was wonderful.
Oma would have prayed to Jesus with her daughter every night just like she did with me. Ingeborg would have known the serenity of playing in the garden with her dolls while her parents pulled weeds and grew delicious fresh fruit and veggies. She would have smelled the aromas of my Oma’s kitchen and known the security of sitting at their table. It was a post-Victorian environment—very proper and exceedingly happy. Unfortunately, she wasn’t raised entirely in their home.
EFFECTS OF WAR
Fearing for her safety in Germany’s political climate of the early 40s, my grandparents had sent 11-year-old Ingeborg to northern Germany to live with friends of her great-aunt. Their desire was to protect her from the harm that could come to young girls during the war. Their efforts backfired.
Before they sent Ingeborg away, she was a sweet, kind, lovely, talkative little girl who enjoyed life with parents who loved her very much. Oma and Opa used to say she was like me when I was with them. But something devastating must have happened to her in the eight years she was away. The war destroyed her.
At 18 Ingeborg returned transformed: sullen, angry, withdrawn, depressed, lacking trust, and quick to lie. She had shut down emotionally and found it difficult to love and be happy. It’s anyone’s guess what might have happened. She refused to speak of it and was never healed from the psychological and emotional wounds she had experienced. Oma lost her daughter, and it broke her heart.
What happened?
As I now reflect on the circumstances, it seems she had become hardened to life like one who has experienced deep trauma or abuse. Perhaps she tried to protect herself from men or soldiers through lies. I can only imagine. Even if she hadn’t been abused, she would likely have felt abandoned, rejected and unloved by her parents. She was young and wouldn’t have understood their motives for sending her away.
DISILLUSIONED
When she was 22 years of age the pain of her past had receded just enough to allow Ingeborg to fall in love and become engaged, but the relationship dissolved three years later, and she was devastated. It was more than she could bear.
In an effort to escape the memories, she left Germany and immigrated to Canada, only to discover that pain can’t be healed by distance. Heartbreak and trauma kept her bound in chains of suffering. Her effort to distance herself from them was futile, but in her attempt to escape she turned her back not only on painful things but also on the good things of her past—the solid foundation her parents had laid and
