Children to a Degree - Growing Up Under the Third Reich (8 page)

He strained once more to see his mother among the throng of people on the shore but gave up when he realized that there were just too many hands waving, which made it impossible to recognize an individual face. He thought about his task on hand and was glad that he had one. It kept his mind occupied. He went from row to row and noticed that the seats on the windows were ruled by the physically strongest children while the seats in the center of the boat were occupied by the more orderly ones.

As he came near the front of the boat he saw a boy quietly crying to himself. Karl could clearly see that all the other children had stopped crying and were busy talking to their friends but this little guy apparently had no one to talk to.

“Where are your friends?” Karl looked at the name tag dangling from the neck of the boy. “Where are your friends, Helmut?” He repeated. Helmut looked up at Karl.

“Home,” came the answer.

“Do you know anyone on this boat?” Karl wanted to know. The boy shook his head. Karl looked at the identification tag once more and noted that the boy was nine years old and from a different school than the other kids.
This is odd
he thought to himself. “Helmut, you come with me,” Karl decided to take this up with Frau Niehaus.

Karl took Helmut by the hand and led him to his reserved window seat. “Look out of the window, Helmut. Have you ever been on a ship before?” Helmut shook his head. “Good, that makes two of us. If you see something interesting come and tell me about it.”

Helmut kneeled on Karl’s seat and eagerly scanned the countryside.  Karl patted the boy’s back and went to find Frau Niehaus. He found her in conversation with another woman teacher near the staircase to the upper deck and told her about Helmut. The other teacher, Frau Seeger, seemed to be younger than Karl’s mother and listened to Karl’s report.

“Good work, Karl. I will pick up Helmut and take him upstairs with me. I have a nice seat up front and will share it with him,” Frau Seeger said. Karl was impressed by the two women teachers. He could not imagine that a male teacher would have been more friendly or helpful.

Frau Niehaus told him that they had to go further to the rear of the boat to pick up sandwiches for the boys. The sandwiches had been prepared by a kitchen staff.  They turned out to be simple grey rye-bread margarine sandwiches without any toppings or fillings. The treat was more than welcome and the boys wolfed them down. There were no complaints. None of the children were spoiled. Karl inquired if there were more sandwiches in case someone was still hungry and wanted a second one. He was assured that there were plenty more. 

The ship was nearing the first of the three locks they had to pass on their trip to the Ostsee (Baltic sea) and everyone was crowding the windows. Karl marveled at the structure of the lock which was explained to the boys by a crewman.

After they had passed the lock, Karl noted again that the stronger boys controlled the access to the windows. It bothered him that the younger ones did not even have a chance to look out. He counted 12 rows of seat benches and had an idea. Frau Niehaus had emphasized to him that he was in charge of maintaining order and Karl dared to test his authority. It was kind of a rush for him because he had no experience in handling unruly children. 

“Here goes nothing
,” he thought to himself as he climbed on top of a seat bench to make himself heard. He was right. Nobody listened to him. He climbed down again and decided not to go to Frau Niehaus for help. Instead he went to find the crewman who had given the information about the lock. He found him in the engine room and explained to him what he had in mind.

“You want to rotate the access to the windows?” laughed the crewman. “Will never happen, my boy. As long as I have been here the weak and polite ones sit in the middle. Don’t even try. You will have all the bullies against you.”

“Never mind that,” said Karl. “Can you blow a whistle so that the children will listen to me?”

The crewman laughed again. “Yes, I will do that. Give me five minutes and I’ll be there. But, I tell you right now, you can talk all you want. It will not happen.”

Karl was not discouraged. He went back and walked the length of the seat benches. When he came to the windows he copied the names and birth dates of the most unruly ones. The boys glared for a brief moment at him and his uniform but respectfully made room for him when he pretended to catch a look out of the window.

“Now?” asked the crewman when he showed up next to Karl.

“No,” answered Karl, “change in plans. May I please borrow your whistle?”

The crewman laughed again. “Good Luck.” He handed Karl his whistle. Karl climbed once more on top of the bench and blew the whistle so hard that he almost scared himself. He had to blow it once more but then he had the attention of the boys.

“My name is Karl. I am the one to see when you are hungry. Did you enjoy your sandwich?” he asked.

There was some cheering from the boys and he blew the whistle again.

“Please hear me out. When we get to Heringsdorf we will have plenty to eat. Some of you will turn ten and will join the Jungvolk. I will call out the names of the few of you who are now eligible to assist me.”

There was not even a murmur anymore. Everyone wanted to hear the names.

“Gert Wiesegang.”

“Here,” answered one of the intimidators.” It was exactly the answer Karl had hoped for.

“‘Here’ is no answer for a German boy!” He thundered at the top of his lungs. The correct answer is PRESENT. If I hear anyone answering with ‘here’ he will be placed on probation.” He faced the bully who was almost his size. “Once more, Gert Wiesegang!”

“Present!” The answer was loud and clear.

“Step forward into the center walkway.”

Karl continued to call out the names. When he came to the end of the list he had ten bullies lined up in front of him.

“Listen up,” he addressed them. “You are now my deputies. You will keep this position unless you fail to carry out my instructions.”

He studied the boys in front of him. “You are a sorry bunch. Stand at attention when I speak to you” He stepped down from the bench and showed the boys how to stand at attention.

“You will start your duty right now. I want you to make sure that every one of the boys on this boat has equal time to sit at the window. You will rotate the boys every ten minutes. Not more, not less. Use the ship’s clock to correctly time the intervals. If I catch you playing favoritism you will be dismissed and ineligible for leadership during the next six months. Get started.”

The selected boys tried to salute, but Karl waved them off. “Later,” he said, “we will have time for proper instructions. Right now carry out your assignment.”

To the crewman’s amazement the former disorderly boys marched now down the aisle, each one of them was pulling one of the shy kids along and allowing them to sit by the window.

“If I did not see it I would not believe it. Keep the whistle,” he told Karl. “I have another one.”

Karl went back to Frau Niehaus who had followed Karl’s actions. “This was incredible. We were never able to control the window seats. Whoever appointed you as a sub leader must have known what he was doing. Very well done, Karl.” She patted the seat next to her. “Sit down, Karl. Tell me, what did you mean by placing the boys on probation?”

Karl wrinkled his forehead. He was trying to remember what he had said. He gave up. “I don’t know. I heard the word once and thought it sounded threatening. It worked, didn’t it?” Frau Niehaus laughed, but stopped when she saw some hurt in Karl’s eyes.

Karl got up again and repeated his maneuver on the upper deck with the same results, except that the third teacher, also a woman who looked ancient to Karl, took him to the side and called him a Nazi boy.

Karl took it in stride. “You instill order your way and I do it my way. However, I did not notice that your way ensured the smaller boys a seat by the windows.”

“They are not sitting in the center forever. It is only a two day trip,” asserted the teacher.

“Right,” said Karl, “this is another reason why everyone should have an equal chance to enjoy the once in a lifetime trip.”

“Dumb kid,” the teacher had to get the last word in.  “What do you know about once in a lifetime trips?”

Karl just turned away.

Seven

To Karl’s satisfaction there was not even the slightest difficulty during the remainder of the day. His “deputies” not only assured an orderly exchange of the window seats, they also followed Karl’s instructions and assigned rotating “clean up” squads to keep the aisles spotless.

Karl was unyielding in his demand that his deputies assigned the oldest and the strongest children to the cleanup detail.

“We need the older boys to act as a role model for the younger ones.” Karl explained.  

By 3:00 PM they had passed the last lock and at 5:00 PM  the ship tied up to a landing on the Oder River. The boys disembarked and marched to a school in the small river village. Karl’s simple idea of putting several boys in charge produced a small marvel of discipline. He had told his deputies to march the boys in proper formation and when he saw that the small local school had arranged for a field kitchen with a huge kettle of soup, he lined up the boys in two single-file lines to receive their rations.

The night was spent in the auditorium of the school. The boys slept under blankets on top of grain bags filled with straw. Karl had no clue were the teachers slept.

When sunrise came some local farmers showed up with sandwiches. By 8:00 AM the riverboat continued its journey to Stettin. They arrived in the early afternoon and everyone transferred to a larger steamboat to cross the bay to Swinemuende. It was a short trip of about two hours. After a march of another hour and a half, the boys arrived in the small village of Ahlbeck where they stayed overnight in a very comfortable boarding house. The suitcases of the children had been picked up from the ship by a few horse-drawn ranch wagons.

Early in the next morning they marched another two hours and arrived in Heringsdorf, their final destination. The seaside resort was originally a small fishing village but since about 1850 it was slowly developing into a luxury resort. Karl was somewhat familiar with its history and remembered that two Emperors of Germany had spent their summer holidays in this village. One of the Emperors was Kaiser Wilhelm II, but he could not remember the name of the second one. This part of history was not taught since Hitler had been in power. He had informed the German school authorities that all that “old stuff,” as he called it, was not necessary to remember.  He declared that history was being made now, by him, Adolf Hitler.

He had instructed the schools to dismiss the old history books and replaced them with up to date military reports describing every instant of the current war. The children had to learn and recite the time tables of the different battles, the commanding officers and other pertinent details.

It was only because Karl liked to learn about history that he had studied some discarded history books and therefore knew something about the island of Usedom and the Imperial bath houses in Heringsdorf.

Karl had been instructed by Rudy to report to the local HJ office. While Karl took these instructions seriously he also took them with a grain of salt. He figured that his first obligation was to his parents and not to the HJ. His first stop was to the local post office where he sent a letter to his parents and another one to his grandparents. They were not long letters. He had penned them while sitting in a center seat on the ship while he gave his window seat to one of the younger children. The letters were already sealed and stamped and he merely wrote a
rrived safely
on the back of the envelope when he posted them.

The local HJ office, which doubled as the Jungvolk, informed him that due to his position as a subleader of a KLV camp he had been promoted to Jungschaftsfuehrer, the leader for the smallest and lowest unit in the Junkvolk. He was also told that if he performed as required he would receive another promotion after his six-month stint.

The leader of the local office wanted to know if Karl desired to attend classes in the village school. At first he did not understand but then it made sense to him. He was now almost 12 years old and the teachers in the camp would be conducting classes for the 8- and 9-year-old children. On first impulse he wanted to reject the local school because he believed that he knew already the course material due to his studies for the Napola but then he remembered his grandfather’s lesson. While he
believed
that the village school could not teach him anything new, he realized that he did not
know
it.

Before he left the office, Karl asked the HJ leader for the directions to the school and presented himself to the principal. He was a nice white-haired gentleman. Karl guessed that he was at least 60 years old. The principal studied the copies of Karl’s report card and scratched his head.

“It seems that you are somewhat advanced for our school. If you come back next Monday morning, I will arrange a test equal to our graduation test.” He turned around on his Drehstuhl (swivel chair) and took some books from a shelf, which he handed to Karl. Here is something to read up on. They will help you to prepare.”

Karl reached enthusiastically for the books. He had never encountered a book in which he had not learned something new or of value. Sometimes it was a subject he knew little about, sometimes it was a single sentence. But every time he read a book he was rewarded with a new or better understanding.

“Thank you Herr…” There was no name shield on the desk.

“My name is Groneberg,” said the principal.

“Thank you, Herr Groneberg.” Karl pressed the book under his arm. He was happy that he had decided to visit the school. If nothing else he had now some new books to digest.

The boys who had been on the ship were sheltered in two boarding houses. Karl was assigned with 95 children to a home bordering the dunes. He shared his bedroom with seven other boys. The Baltic Sea was about 200 feet from his bedroom window and the boys enjoyed listening to the gentle slapping of the waves at night. The instruction manuals he had received from Rudy called for the implementation of an activity plan. They gave no examples and Karl deduced that the reason for the missing activity plan or examples was probably due to the fact that the HJ had none.