German Girl?

German Girl?

“So when was the last time you saw your father?” he asks.<br />I look down at my hands as they fidget with the hem of<br />my dress and say nothing.<br />He sits on Oma’s (grandmother’s) bed in front of me and,<br />reaching over, pinches my cheek with two fingers. In the<br />tone of voice that adults reserve for talking to six-year-olds,<br />he asks again, “Now, tell me Vivian, when did you last see<br />your Papa?”<br />I shake my head and say, “No, I haven’t seen him for a<br />long time. I don’t know where he is.”<br />The finger comes again, hooking my chin and forcing<br />my head up and toward him. I look into the pale, watery<br />eyes of the man in the gray Gestapo uniform. My heart<br />pulses so hard in my ears that I can barely hear his words.<br />“Have you seen Papa this week, Liebchen” (Sweetie), he<br />coos. “Who are his friends?” I shake my head “No,” knowing<br />that a few hours earlier Papa came to our street, near the<br />apartment. He stood in the shadow of the corner house,<br />watching me. I knew that he had come to see me, and<br />somehow, instinctively, I also knew that I should not go to<br />him and that he could not come to me. We looked at each<br />other, and then he turned and slipped away. It will be<br />almost ten years before I would see him again.<br />The Gestapo man stands and abruptly leaves the bedroom.<br />It isn’t until I see him in the living room, talking to Oma, that my tears come.<br /><br />In German Girl?, I reflect on my extraordinary childhood years, 1942 to 1953, growing up in Nazi Germany. As a "Mischling", a child with one Jewish parent and one Christian parent, my experiences during World War II, and its effect on the years that followed, provide a unique picture of wartime life as seen through the eyes of a child. <br /><br />My Lutheran grandparents hid and protected me while my mother was jailed and questioned tortuously on the whereabouts of my father. A Jewish man, my father lived “underground.” In "German Girl", I describe my father’s ingenuity and bravery, the enduring strength of my mother and the simple pleasures and comforting love of my grandparents stolen in a time of horror for so many. I have included copies of historical documents and photographs of the people discussed in the book.* <br /><br />In "German Girl", I have filled my book with memories, pictures, reproductions of forged documents and the incredible story of growing up alongside the appalling destruction of WWII in East Berlin.<br /><br />Copyright © 1998 Vivian Ert Bolten Herz.<br />All rights reserved.<br />The Library of Congress, catalog card number 2005351683<br />United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,Washington D.C.<br />Catalogue card number DS135.G5 H 4659 1998;<br />Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Germany<br />Yad Vashem Library, Jerusalem, Israel., catalog card number 105-0271<br />Yad Vashem - Bet Vahlin Library, Israel., catalog card number HER-09