The Willow Wren by Philipp Schott (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📕

The Soviet ration system was almost identical to the Nazi one we were familiar with from the war. There is no irony in this, as there really are not that many different ways to organize such a thing. The difference was that these ration cards were much more meagre than those handed out during even the worst days of the war. This stood to reason as the occupiers, powerful though they might be, could not just make food magically appear, especially as their own people back home were also struggling. At least it cut down somewhat on the hoarding and profiteering that had been occurring. They made a big deal of publicly executing a couple of the more notorious profiteers, but I am sure the black market for the controlled and rationed foodstuffs still flourished quietly somewhere. We just did not have the connections we had back in Leipzig to know much about it.

We had a separate little punch card for Paul’s milk, which allowed exactly one-quarter litre of milk five days a week. The rest of us did not get milk. The family’s main ration card permitted a varying amount of semolina wheat and, curiously, quite generous rations of sugar — usually a half kilo per person per month. There were various other notional items listed on our ration cards, such as the generic “fat” — it could be butter or pork fat or a kind of margarine — or bread or meat. But they were notional because they were rarely available and when available often only in laughably small quantities. One of my jobs was to keep an eye on the notices that were posted on the front door of city hall. These would update the citizenry on what they could actually claim from their ration card that week. For example, such a notice might read:

Week of February 10–16 Ration Distribution

Colditz District

Fat – 50 gm per household

Bread – one loaf per household

Meat – 0 gm per household

Eggs – 0

The official rations were supplemented by potatoes and apples we had stored from the fall. Vegetables and fruits were never part of the ration system, so each household continued to trade with farmers for these items or, as in our case, forage for them. Garden plots were very common too. Nobody grew flowers or anything pretty anymore. Every arable square metre in town was turned over to the cultivation of potatoes especially, but also turnips, cabbages and other vegetables that would keep through the winter. Our apartment, being in the centre of town, unfortunately did not have any garden associated with it. We did, however, have the advantage of being able to keep stored food items cool, as the stove only properly heated one room. This is, I suppose, what one might call a silver lining to a dark grey cloud.

Mama’s spirits rose dramatically after learning that Papa was alive, but soon after began to quickly erode again like a sandcastle in the waves. The strain of caring for six children and making sure that they had enough to eat under these circumstances is unimaginable. It was literally unimaginable as I did not imagine it, at least not at the time. Theodor and I helped quite a bit, but we did not carry the burden of responsibility that she did. This only became clear to me later. At the time I found myself occasionally getting irritated at her black moods, reasoning that we were all in the same boat and the rest of us managed to keep our chins up, so why couldn’t she? But the rest of us were merely passengers who helped at the oars. Mama had also lost a lot of weight and was visibly too thin now.

I tried to help by going into the forest. I do not know what I was hoping to find in the middle of winter. There would be no fruit or mushrooms. Any acorns not covered by snow would be frozen and likely even less edible than they already were. It’s amusing now to think that I actually entertained the notion of hunting, like my heroes Winnetou and Shatterhand, but of course there were a number of barriers. First of all, for obvious reasons, guns were strictly prohibited for Germans on the pain of immediate summary execution. Also I was still pretty small to be lugging a hunting rifle into the forest, though I had some training with the Hitler Youth and it is worth noting that Peter in Peter and the Wolf was not any bigger than I was, but as stated a gun was out of the question. This then led me to imagine tying a knife to a sturdy stick to make a spear, which was in any case probably more in keeping with the spirit of Winnetou. Somehow I allowed myself to reason that I would be pretty good at stalking an animal such as a rabbit or deer and sneaking up on it, and that, moreover, I knew the forest very well, so I knew where these animals were likely to be. But inevitably this mental image led me to the most significant barrier: I did not want to kill anything. Killing had always repelled me, even in fun when we were playing toy soldiers as little boys — my soldiers would just “fall asleep” or “be stunned” when hit — and the war definitely served to embed this feeling. Logically this barrier should have been the first one in my mind and thus have prevented the train of thought getting even that far, but that train does not run its scheduled route when one is as hungry as I was.

Once in the forest I encountered a fourth barrier. There were no animals. No potentially edible mammals anyway. It had snowed lightly overnight, so there should have been tracks, but there were none. The small birds still flitted about, including, when I got to