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PART 2

It was now the year of 1944 with the American successes in the Far East. This prompted the Japanese to enact fire-fighting mock battles all over Kobe. Residents wearing protective clothing and carrying tin buckets were urged out of their houses by loud halers and ordered to assemble around the many water filled troughs in their streets. They were preparing themselves for the eventual bombing raids. A German battleship, badly damaged by torpedoes, came limping into harbour unloading its many injured sailors. The school organised small groups of children to visit these poor brave young men in the burns unit. We brought them fresh fruit, goodies, songs, laughter and hope. The signs of advancing war were all round us. We believe father was now interned in 'Dahradun' (British India). From the balcony of our beloved Japanese house we could admire wide-ranging views. Down there in the harbour, the East India Steamer, the Scharnhorst, lay berthed. Later it was purchased by the Japanese who turned it into a rescue aircraft carrier. Even though the three years in our charming house together with a couple of singing canaries were happy ones, we now grasped the lucky opportunity of evacuation to a safe haven. It was the small township of 'Karuizawa', which housed the summer retreat of the very rich, and was situated on a forested plateau some 1,000 metres above sea level with a smouldering volcano in the distance. These flimsy but delighted summer chalets with their shingled roofs now stood empty and seemed so ideally suited to our needs. Even the young Emperor 'Hirohito' had his summer residence in our neighbourhood. When would we — or would we ever — see Papa again!? As a German, he had been an internee of the Dutch on the island of Sumatra. Then as the war progressed, the men were 'sold' (exchanged) to the British and transported to British India because of the likelihood of his being freed by the advancing Japanese.

Jubilations! The day father's greatly censored letter arrived, containing a small black and white photo, with a magnifying glass we studied it hard and long remembering him and the lovely life we had led on the plantation on the island of Java. Now here, we had to survive on a day to day basis. The German consulate did not exist any more. It was 1945, the war ended between the Japanese and the allies. On the day the Emperor spoke to his people on the radio, nobody was allowed on the road — many wept.

. Soon we were to be rejoicing! Every single woman, mother and child received emergency rations, released from a secret hoard by the German ex-pat community. It could not have come at a better time. Life was great. It was over a year now since the war had ended. One day, American soldiers were seen walking about handing out chocolates to children.

While Mother gathered together our possessions, also tending to me in my sick bed, a Japanese person had crept in through the back door removing all the light bulbs. Times had become hard for everyone! Wrapped up warmly in an army blanket I shivered with a high fever. An extra burden for poor mother on this very early, dark morning as they came in a truck taking us to a new destination. Another chapter in a life so full of upheaval and uncertainties. With a last farewell look towards the volcano draped in its usual smoke cloud, now lit up by the rising sun, the extra long special train took us down towards the port of 'Urage' in Yokohama. The ex-pat families who had settled — or were born in Japan before the war — felt deep sadness at having to leave behind the life they had known and loved. Also, for us, it was now the second time we had to turn away from a beautiful land to face an unknown future. It was evening. The luggage searched and vaccinations behind us; we were taken in a fleet of small boats towards a troop transporter called 'Marine Jumper'. How apt a name given to this vessel so short in length and too high above the water line.

In Shanghai we watched in horror at the sad sight of prisoners of war under guard being led down into the hull of our ship. Each day they were allowed up on deck for their half hourly exercise in the fresh air. Partitioned off from the rest of us, they walked about, ashen faced and listless. I felt disturbed and saddened — remembering this episode clearly. Likewise the emotional, sombre and dignified burial at sea of the lady fellow passenger. A happier note for many, were the generous rations of American cigarettes. Mother, as a non-smoker hoarded them all, hoping to sell them at the earliest opportunity on terra firma — heading to a transit camp in Germany.

On an over-crowded train, with luggage stacked up all around us, we shunted past war damaged villages into the heart of devastated towns. Hollow eyed, burnt out high-rise tenement flats, factories and warehouses standing in stark ruins surrounded by rubble, twisted girders and bomb craters. With our faces pressed against the glass, we watched in silent awe at the devastation rushing past the windows of the train. Something so awful we had never seen during the years in the mountains of Japan. Here was the homeland of our parents, an alien world to us, and a sad sight for mother to take in — no doubt. Seated on the back of open-topped lorries, we arrived in convoy, tired out, weary and apprehensive, at a vast fenced-in complex, a transit camp for refugees. Most of the harassed mothers did not stop to fully take in — nor appreciate — the male voice choir in full song on the other side of the fence. Christine and I stepped nearer to see these bedraggled men at close quarters, to hear their glorious voices welcoming us all. They sang in harmony, loud and clear, praising the beauty of the 'Heimat' and God above. So very touching a gesture. It brings tears to my eyes even now. We slept in bunk beds on straw-filled mattresses that night. Here the previous owners would have slept under silk sheets in four posters in this once grand palace in 'Ludwigsburg' near Stuttgart. The breakfast next day consisted of nothing more than dry bread. The order to move on was greeted with great relief — on we travelled to a refugee camp some distance from Hamburg. On entering a large warehouse-type building every group was shown to a section strewn with bedding, albeit on a concrete floor. Once again, luggage stacked around for privacy, we hoped that this primitive arrangement would be of the shortest duration possible. The food rations left much to be desired. We hurried to the nearest barber who only too willingly bought some of the American cigarettes mother had hoarded for just this purpose. She now was able to send off several telegrams in search of father.

This resulted in a letter from him — oh joy! "Hold on in there", he told us, "I have been allocated a room in a villa near the Elbe and will try my best to find some accommodation for you all. Give me time!" During those dreadful post war years when Germany was overrun with displaced people from far afield and given the great shortage of housing in the cities bombed to the ground it became law therefore that every house owner was to make available a room or rooms for the homeless! With much ado, mother bought rail tickets and sent a short telegram telling father to expect our arrival at a certain station platform and the time. Off we went, now independently, laden down with all our belongings, onto a platform with a heaving mass of frantic travellers, all trying to push their way with luggage onto the few over-crowded trains running. It was a horrendous situation. We were pushed, shoved, pulled, lifted and squeezed through windows-losing sight of mother-shouting, whimpering and crying out aloud. We found her in hysterics screaming in desperation. Our poor brave Mama, who had sustained us through the war so far, now at the eleventh hour was going to pieces. The thought of soon running into father's arms gave us renewed strength and comfort. Our fast over-crowded train came to a screeching halt ten minutes overdue and for us a renewed struggle to get out through the windows. Clutching bags and bundles, looking around for mother; I suddenly saw her flinging her arms around father! We hurried on to catch a slow commuter train. Papa found himself a seat across the gangway facing his changed family. Last time Papa saw little Karin she was sat in a playpen, now a child of seven with long legs! I looked up at him to meet his eyes, blushing crimson, lowering my head to hide behind my fringe. Father, in excellent health, young, smart, handsome with charming immaculate manners, had in a very short time found accommodation for the sudden arrival of his family in a very smart suburb of Hamburg, a brisk twenty minute walk from his lodgings. He was now having to share it with one of his daughters while the rest of us were to sleep and live in the once beautiful dining room of a very grand house. It was decided that Christine was to spend her nights under the same roof as father. This housing arrangement was only to last until the government found an alternative, more permanent place, out in the country as far away as possible from the overcrowded city. Hamburg, down on its knees, packed with refugees, with many poor souls poking in dustbins looking for scraps of food. Endless queues outside grocer stores (including us) often being shown the 'sold out' sign just before it came to our turn. Then trundling home in hope of having more luck tomorrow. Some people even fainted with standing for so long, all for just a heavy yellow loaf of maize bread. The daily tram ride to a soup kitchen far away filled the rest of the morning. At least this meagre ration never ran out. A tin can of watery cabbage and potato soup lavishly laced with caraway seeds, which we called 'flea bodies', neatly arranged on the wide rim of the soup dish. Ugh!! This Red Cross hand out filled us up nicely at the time, but hunger returned an hour later. So off we went once more, in search for food, climbing over walls, crawling under fences, through hedges, up trees — anything and everywhere to steal food. Here it was somewhat different from the freedom of our wild roaming ways we so enjoyed in the forest of Japan during the war. Now we lived in a smart suburb amongst most refined people who looked on in horror, as we preferred to climb out of the dining room window, instead of using the ornate front door. Then we would shin up trees, making as much noise as a troupe of monkeys. Mother in despair, arms in the air, shouting, "You girls are worse than a sack full of fleas"! Far worse than the hunger pangs we experienced, was the deep sorrow we were feeling on realising that our father did not particularly care for us. It seemed he might have been happier, and certainly freer, had we remained in the refugee camp where typhoid had broken out soon after our departure. This naturally made us take mother's side, which made him feel even more an outsider. After years of internment during his prime, he was now savouring his new-found freedom to the full, considering also that the role of fatherhood as such had eluded him while we all lived on the plantation in Java, with nanny for each of his children, keeping us away from under his feet. Now in our early teens he seriously misjudged our astuteness as he casually asked to pass on his letter to our so-called friend. 'Marlies' was a young buxom blue-eyed blonde with bobbing curls of the kind that we straight-haired dark girls envied. Christine and I, already vastly suspicious about his relationship with her, promptly opened and read father's letter, then passed it on to our harassed old mother! I saw her standing by the window weeping quietly. These were indeed very sad times for our hearts, on top of all we had gone through in the past. I cried bitterly into my pillow that night while in the next room the daughter of the house played on her grand piano, adding to my gloom. As a diversion, going to school and continually misbehaving filled our days and dispelled some of the grief we felt. It was to be only a few weeks before mother died at the age of 89 that they ever shared the same room to sleep in. A sad legacy of lives shattered by the destruction of war.

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