Oma

 

Mutti's mother (my grandmother), in the photo Mutti showed me.

The last time Mutti visited me from Germany I made it my goal to talk to her about her childhood and about mine. Even now, after all these years, there are some things we cannot talk about. However, Mutti loves to talk about her childhood and youth.

This is a recreation of one of our conversations.

Mutti has been with us for a week now. We still have two more weeks before she has to fly back to Germany again.

One morning Mutti comes downstairs, an unfamiliar photo album under her arm. She smiles at me. “I brought some pictures.”

We sit on the sofa, and Mutti opens the album. She points to a yellowed black and white photo of a young woman walking down the street, wrapped in a fur coat. A large hat shadows her face, and her expression tells of self-confidence and an awareness of her own beauty.

“That’s my mother,” Mutti says. “She was still young, and she wanted to have some fun and be married again after my father’s death.”

“How old were you when your father died?”

“About five. After my Vati died, Mother used to go out a lot. Sometimes she’d come home with a new boyfriend, and then she told me to go out and play.”

Mutti smiles. “That was before Hitler rose to power. After Vati passed away, I became a real street urchin. My friend’s mother was a widow too and worked all day. So Mädi and I used to play in the streets after school. We knew that whole area of Berlin like our backyards. We never got lost or in trouble.”

I think of my own childhood, where I was in a different town every week or so. “It must have been nice to grow up in one place.”

“It was. I never grew tired of being outside. After my mother remarried, I still spent a lot of time outside, just to be out of her hair, especially when Max was home.”

Mutti flicks through the pictures. I had never met her mother, which is my grandmother, until I got married at 23, right before I left for the United States. I realize Mutti's childhood probably wasn’t what she remembers now. It must have been hard for her to have been on her own all the time. Even now, Mutti doesn’t realize how unloving her own mother had been.

Uncle Henrik

 Uncle Henrik (shown here as a young man working as a hired hand for the Nazi owner) was the lion tamer in the Circus Francesco. After the war in Poland, he became somewhat of a celebrity when he was the first person who successfully bred a lion with a tiger. The resulting cub is called a liger.

***

A year after I was supposed to go to Poland, our family received their second visit from a family member.

It was around Christmastime, and I had settled into going to the same school for the winter. One day I came home and found a stranger sitting at the kitchen table with Vati. In front of them stood a half-empty vodka bottle and two shot glasses. Vati was talking to the stranger in what I thought was Polish.

Mutti came from the livin groom and said, “Henrik, this is our second, Sonja.” She turned to me. “This is your uncle Henrik.”

I remembered that Vati had talked about his brother coming to visit from Poland, but had forgotten all about it.

I stretched out my hand and the stranger took it. “Hallo Sonja,” he said gravely.

Carmen and Josefa burst in after me, trailed by Franz. Mutti shooed me into the

living room and introduced my sisters to Uncle Henrik.

“And this is our son, Franz. He’s named after your father.”

Uncle Henrik rose and hugged Franz, who squirmed in the embrace of this stranger. When Henrik was about to sit down again, Mutti touched his arm. “Why don’t you and Colya go into the living room. I have to start supper now.”

Vati rose, and as he went through the open sliding doors into the living room, he stumbled against the edge of the door and mumbled something in polish. Uncle Henrik grabbed the bottle and the two glasses and followed him.

Mutti came after him. “Carmen, Sonja, Josefa, come here. You have homework to do. Eva, you come too.”

Uncle Henrik said something in Polish to Vati. “Franz, join us,” Vati called. “You’re the only man among all these women. You drink with us.”

Nine-year-old Franz stood in the doorway, not moving. Mutti took his arm and looked around him into the living room. “You will not give this child any vodka, Colya. You and Henrik can drink all you want, but Franz will stay here. He is a child, understand?”

Vati looked at Henrik who took another sip from his glass. “You women. Always meddling,” he mumbled and then slipped back into Polish. Soon he had forgotten all about it, and laughed and talked with Henrik while we sisters, and Franz, too, finished our homework, with Eva playing on the floor.

Mutti finished a large plate of open-faced sandwiched for us children and carried a smaller plate into the living room. We ate, listening to Vati and Uncle Henrik talk, hoping in vain to understand something.

After supper, Mutti got Eva ready for bed and shooed us off to sleep long before our usual bedtime. I heard Vati, Mutti and Uncle Henrik talk and laugh until I drifted off to sleep.

Uncle Henrik stayed a week. He was not talking much to us children, I assumed because he didn’t understand much German, but he was always friendly and sometimes a little too friendly, trying to hug and kiss us. Our parents never hugged or kissed us, so it seemed weird to me that a strange men, eve if he was an uncle, would do that. But somewhere deep inside I loved it!

 When Uncle Henry left, he gave Mutti several kielbasa hard sausages and other Polish food. I will never forget the wonderful taste of kielbasa in lentil soup, kielbasa sliced on a piece of bread, and kielbasa with sauerkraut.

I never saw Uncle Henry again after he left.

A Visit to Poland

 

I was eleven that year. One evening in November, after we settled down in winter quarters, I overheard Mutti and Vati talking.

Josefa and I were sitting at the kitchen table, finishing some homework, when Vati’s deep voice resonated through the small caravan home. “My sister would be delighted to have her namesake come and visit her.”

Josefa looked up from her math book and frowned at me. “What do they mean?” she mouthed.

I shrugged, but a knot formed in my stomach. Did my parents want to send me away? Maybe forever? I didn’t know how to live anywhere else but here in my family. Maybe Vati would go with me. Then it wouldn’t be so scary.

The next morning Mutti handed me my sandwich for lunch break. “Come right home from school today. We have to get your visa pictures made.”

I took the sandwich bag and stuffed it into my satchel. “Are you really going to send me to Poland?”

“It will be a great opportunity for you.” She opened the door. “Now go on or you’ll be late for school.”

“Will Vati or you go with me?”

“Don’t worry about that. Off with you to school.” She pointed to the outside.

I decided now wasn’t the time to discuss this and left. But the thoughts whirled around in my head. The way Mutti had answered my question indicated that I would go alone. I didn’t want to go to Poland alone. I didn’t know anybody in Poland. Why couldn’t I stay here, in our caravan, with my brothers and sisters? But if I’d say anything Mutti wouldn’t listen to me. She’d just tell me to shut up.

That day, in school, I tried to imagine what Poland would be like. All I could think of was a cold, rainy and dark place with lots of cobblestones and no trees.

I made myself hurry home, even though I would rather have dawdled. Mutti was waiting with her coat on and purse in her hand. “There you are. Let’s go.”

I dropped my satchel onto the kitchen bench and hurried after her, wondering what it would be like to have a picture taken.

The photographer took me to a small, dark room. He had me sit on a hard stool and told me not to smile. A flash made me squint, and then it was all over.

The photographer escorted us out. “I’ll have the photos ready in two weeks. It’s been a pleasure.”

Nothing much happened the next few days. Vati and Mutti didn’t talk about Poland anymore. I was relieved. Maybe they had forgotten.

One day, when I came home, Mutti said. “The photos for your visa are here.” She showed me a set of four black and white pictures. They showed my face and my too short cropped hair. I thought I looked ugly. Maybe Aunt Sonja wouldn’t like me when I arrived in Poland and would send me back again.

Vati sat on the living room sofa, writing in some papers. “My sister will be so glad to have a young person around,” he said. “I’ll mail the papers as soon as I’m done here. Then all we have to do is wait.”

I hoped getting the visa would take a really long time. Maybe it would take the rest of the winter, and by spring we’d be traveling again. Those papers might never reach us, and I’d stay home.

One day in February I came home and heard my parent arguing before I opened the door to the caravan home. I stopped on the steps and listened.

“I tell you, if we send her, we’ll never see her again,” Mutti’s strident voice came through the door.

Vati’s voice, quieter and lower, answered, “I promised my sister we’d send her. She’ll make sure our child will come back.”

“What can she do when the government refuses to let Sonja return? A month ago I wouldn’t have worried, but now…” Mutti’s words trailed off.

“Maybe you’re right. We could wait and see what happens. If the laws lighten up again, we can always send her later.”

“That’s an idea. I’m sure your sister will understand.” Mutti sounded relieved. “Maybe we’ll send her next winter.”

My heart grew lighter. At least for now I was safe. I decided that now was the moment to interrupt and charged into the caravan home.

My parents never said another word to me about it, and they never sent me to Poland.

My Father's Circus

Right before WWII started, and after the Nazis vanquished Poland, a high-ranking Nazi appropriated the Polish Circus Francesco. My Vati, who was the eldest son of the Francesco family, never had the chance to take over the circus when his father died shortly after the Nazis took over. Since Müller, the Nazi, didn’t know much about circuses and also needed skilled circus acrobats, he conscripted the Francesco family to work for ‘his’ circus.

That’s how Vati, and with him Circus Francesco, came to Germany. My father’s family consisted of their mother, an older sister, Sonja, my Vati, Colya, his two years younger brother Henrik, and a much younger brother, Josef. I was named after my father’s sister.

Mutti joined Circus Francesco as a cashier and ticket taker two years before the war ended. When the war was finally over, Vati and his mother regained ownership of their circus, and their first desire was to leave Germany, where they suffered so much, and return to Poland.

By that time, Mutti and Vati were together, had married and had their first surviving daughter. Mutti refused to go to Poland with Vati, because she never again wanted to live under a totalitarian government. So Vati said good-bye to his family and stayed with her and the baby in Germany.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you how I almost ended up living in Poland instead of our traveling carnival in Germany.

Brigitte

Brigitte, Mutti’s sister was nine years younger than Mutti. When I was very small, right after the war, Brigitte once came to live with us in our tiny caravan. By then Mutti had Carmen, Josefa, and me, and my little brother was a newborn. Brigitte was supposed to help out with us children. But it didn’t last long before both sisters lost their patience with each other and Brigitte left again.

She rarely wrote after that and never visited again until I was a teenager and we had left the carnival circuit. Mutti had separated from Vati and lived with us girls and baby Michael in an apartment.

One day, a knock came at the door. Eva, my little sister, opened the door and a strange woman with light brown hair and blue eyes, and obviously pregnant, asked for our Mutti. Mutti called her Brigitte and pulled her into the apartment.

Brigitte had nowhere to go, so she lived in my older sister’s room for a few weeks, while Mutti and she tried to find her a job and a place of her own. Eventually Brigitte found work at the hospital in Wetzlar, a few miles away, and moved out. She never contacted my mother again, and we still don’t know what happened to her. Mutti is 91 now. When I visited her last, I asked about her sister. Mutti didn’t know whether she was still alive or where she lived. I don’t think either sister cared too much for the other.

A few years earlier, when I was twelve, we had another family member visiting. I’ll talk about that soon. Now I’m getting ready to take out my own little surprise visitor, Liesel, and her sisters!

The Visitor

When my husband and I came home after spending the afternoon on New Year’s with a married daughter and her family in the area, we saw a strange car in the car park.

“Whose car is that? It doesn’t look familiar,” Ken said. “Maybe it’s Marit.”

Our daughter Marit had moved here from California two months ago. I shook my head. “These are not California license plates. And it doesn’t look like her car.” The plates looked very familiar, but I couldn’t place them, so I said. “They are Colorado plates.” Marit had just returned from a month’s long stay in Colorado with her grandmother, and Colorado was on my mind.

Ken parked behind the strange car, and as he got out he said. “They’re not. It can’t be anyone but Marit.”

But Ken was right. Colorado plates didn’t have a picture of a pine tree in their center. But I knew those plates. Where had I seen them before? As I exited the car, the door to our home opened. In the dark, all I could see was a fluffy blonde head of short hair. Did Marit cut and color her hair since I saw her last a few day’s ago?

Ken, several steps in front of me, spread his arms wide. “Is that really you?” Delight rang in his voice as he enveloped the woman who had come from our home in a bear hug.

At that moment I knew who it was! I squealed in delight and joined them. We had a group hug on the porch before getting into our home.

We still have two daughters and a son living in Oregon, where we had raised them for eight years before packing up and moving to Germany for two years, and then back to Utah.

The little girl who gave us our best Christmas surprise was Liesel, on of our daughters from Oregon. We had no idea she would come, and her arrival made the best surprise. Liesel will be with us until her birthday on Sunday, before leaving back to Oregon.

***

When I was a girl growing up in the carnival in Germany, we only had our parents and us children. We heard about grandparents and aunts and uncles, but they were far away. However, we had relatives visiting too, once or twice in all those years. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

Happy New Years!

Last night, to ring in the new year of 2012, we spent a lovely evening with one of our daughters and her family. What I liked most about last night were the card games we played.

When I was little, we also played games while waiting for the new year, but our parents never played with us. We were banned into the kitchen, sitting around the kitchen table, while Mutti and Vati sat on the sofa in the living room. While our parents played chess, drank wine, and listened to the radio, we played cards around the kitchen table.

As time passed and only one hour was left, Mutti pulled the funnest game from a drawer: a set of tiny lead figures, a tin spoon and a small tin cup. I grabbed the cup and poured it half full of water, and Carmen found a candle in another drawer and lit it. Each of us picked one of the lead figures and we took turns melting them in the spoon over the candle. After the lead was melted, we poured it into the tin cup where it solidified almost instantly. Each of us spooned out our glob of tin and then we had lots of fun interpreting the shapes and what they might mean for the new year. Mutti and Vati stayed in the living room, listening and talking.

By the time we lost interest in our lead figures, the new year was almost upon us. For us children, Mutti opened the bottle of apple juice on the living room table, and for herself and Vati she opened the champagne and poured some for all of us. We children drank from old, chipped coffee cups, and Mutti und Vati had real glass glasses in which their champagne glittered in the light from the electric bulb overhead.

At the stroke of midnight we toasted to each other, hurriedly swallowed a few sips from our drink, and then hurried outside.

When we were younger, Vati only bought one or two pieces of fireworks for him and Mutti to set off, but as we grew and had a little more money, each child also received one small piece, like a sparkler or a firecracker.

Outside, we almost forgot to light our fireworks, because the sky was ablaze with fireworks all around us. Yellow, red, and green lights shot up into the sky and exploded above us in glittering glory. To top it off, the trains from the nearby train station blew their whistles. Through the popping noise of the fireworks and the whistling of the trains, the clear loud bells of surrounding churches and cathedrals joined into the celebration.

We stood in front of our caravan, hugging ourselves and hardly noticing the cold because of the glory surrounding us. Eventually Mutti returned to the caravan home and called us to come in too. As the firework noise diminished and the bells rang out their last tones, we undressed and fell into our cold beds, too tired and happy to shiver.