Author: Christa Holder Ocker
ISBN: 978-1-62420-116-5
Genre: Historical Fiction
Excerpt Heat Level: 1
Book Heat Level: 1
Cities in ashes, endless bread lines, potato soup by
candlelight, people herded along with whips, soldiers in splendid boots and
swastikas everywhere, a little girl with chestnut pigtails reaching for her
first Hershey bar–these are a few of the images that come to life in my memoir.
EXCERPT
1
“But when will we come back?” My sister
asked, an edge of desperation in her
voice.
Mutti stopped in the open doorway,
turned around, and as if to avoid the
question, she pointed to the distant wall. “Look Kinder,” she whispered.
A shaft of sun had found its way
through the ice-laced window, spilling
its silvery light on the painting above the couch, illuminating the wake
on a river flowing still.
Sadness crept into my heart, as my eyes
returned to my mother – so tall, so
graceful, her ash-blond hair knotted in a bun at the nape of her neck. A tear
rolled down her high cheekbone. She wiped it away with her fingertips; then closed the door with a decisive click.
~ * ~
For as long as I could remember, this
had been our home, a happy home filled
with laughter and song. The apartment, gracious and inviting, furnished with unassuming elegance, was
located on the first floor of a new
apartment building on the outskirts of Görlitz, in the eastern part of Germany. The luscious aroma from Frau
Ömichen’s kitchen on the second floor
still lingered in the stairway, and her deep foghorn voice resounded off the granite walls, Komm rauf, Christa,
wir haben Kartoffel Plinse…Günter warted
auf Dich. Come upstairs, Christa, we’re having potato pancakes. Günter is waiting for you. Günter, at six, one year
younger than I, was her only son and my
friend and playmate.
A while back, wanting a baby brother,
Günter convinced me that, although I
already had an older sister, I should have a little brother too. And so we left cottage cheese sandwiches on
our windowsills. Everyone knew, of
course, that the stork brought a baby if you left him a cottage cheese sandwich on the windowsill, at least
in our part of Germany. One day, soon
after, Günter came skipping downstairs. “Guess what...” his voice danced ahead of him. “I’m going to get a
little baby brother.”
I looked at Mutti, anticipation rising
to explosion force, but she shook her
head from side to side.
“I knew it!” I stamped my foot, both
hands on my hips. “You didn’t put enough
cottage cheese on the bread.” I was upset. “Frau Ömichen put on a lot more.”
“Well, that’s because Günter’s Vati was
on furlough, you know, and they got
extra rations,” she sputtered through giggles. Both our fathers were off, fighting Hitler’s war.
Yes, it had been a happy home and I,
wrapped in a silken cocoon of a child’s
ignorance, was oblivious to the evil and destruction all around us. Still, there were scenes that penetrated the
walls of my cocoon and I could not deny
the dull ache of foreboding, as on one cold glacial day...
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