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

other copies than we could replace Paul with another tousle haired three-and-a-half-year-old boy. Similar but not identical. But we had to be practical. As a concession I did not have to go to Leipzig to watch Mama haggle over the value of these “family members.” This would be too sad and now that I no longer lived in a big city, I decided that I did not like them, even to visit. Too many people. Too much noise. My job was to organize the books in advance as Mama would be taking only the valuable ones to Leipzig. The more ordinary ones were sold in box lots through Herr Peschel again. Organizing is one of my strengths, so I enjoyed this, despite the loss it was contributing to.

There were enough in the valuable category that Mama had to make two trips. She had an amusing story when she returned from the first one. The streetcars were running again, so she took one from the train station to the antiquarian bookseller. A Russian officer was sitting across from her on this streetcar. She did not know what rank he was, but he had a magnificent uniform, festooned with all manner of gold braids and impressive shiny medals. He smiled pleasantly at Mama, who had put on lipstick and her best dress for the first time in years. She wanted to make a good impression when negotiating with the book dealer and not look like a desperate refugee who could be taken advantage of. When the streetcar got to her stop at Augustusplatz she struggled a little with the large bags bulging with heavy books, so the Russian officer leapt to his feet, took the bags and accompanied her to the bookshop, where he held the door for her and bowed crisply as she entered. Mama laughed about this when she told us because she found it so funny that this Russian officer had inadvertently helped us get ready to escape!

And then finally there were the clothing and the linens. Mama decided that we had raised enough money from the furniture, stove and books that we would not have to sell any clothing or linens, which would not bring us much money anyway. Instead she decided to try to have them smuggled to the West. This was really interesting. Again the redoubtable Herr Peschel knew the trick. The first step was to sew everything into cloth parcels, each no more than seven kilograms. So, Mama used old blankets and sheets to act as the parcel wrap, filled them with our tablecloths, pillows, bedding, towels, clothing and such and then sewed them shut. Unfortunately thread was one of those everyday items that simply was not available in the East. Mama was consequently forced with a heavy heart to obtain thread by undoing the fine needlework on many of the pillows done by her mother, my beloved Oma Flintzer. Ultimately we ended up with forty of these seven-kilogram parcels. This seems like an astonishing number, but with eight of us (if you counted Papa, as we still had a lot of his things) it can add up to quite a lot.

This is not the interesting part yet. The interesting part is that Herr Peschel then put us in touch with an unnamed gentleman who operated out of a small yard off a back lane in the Leipzig suburb of Moeckern. We were instructed to destroy the written directions to this place once we had been there. This gentleman arranged for the transport of the parcels to East Berlin, where a large number of couriers were employed by this secret network. These couriers took advantage of the curious fact that the pre-war subway system was still in operation in Berlin and that several lines crossed back and forth between East and West. Residents of East Berlin, such as the couriers, could pass through West Berlin subway stations and thus be able to deliver the parcels to the West! In theory East Berliners could illegally stay in West Berlin, but as they had to cross East German territory to reach the rest of the West, they were trapped. This freedom of movement within Berlin ended with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, although even then the subways rattled through heavily guarded ghost stations in the East on their way from one part of West Berlin to another. Every one of our forty parcels arrived intact in Worpswede after the Berlin blockade was lifted in September 1949.

Once the books and linens started going, Mama had to tell Clara and my brothers what was planned, but we decided not to write Papa or Theodor as we feared the VoPos were monitoring our mail. Theodor had gotten away with writing Papa, but we had not been under Official Police Supervision then.

On March 31, Mama picked up our seven ration cards for April and handed them to Herr Peschel as a final gift. They would be worth something on the black market. That night she sewed the 4,000 Deutschmark she had traded all our Ostmark for into the lining of Paul’s baby bag. He was not a baby anymore, but he was exceptionally small for his age, so a baby bag would not attract interest or suspicion. We each packed one backpack. My siblings used their school bags and Mama sewed a larger one for me from a blanket. The next day we were leaving Colditz for good. Every bridge had been burned.

Chapter Fifty-Two

March 31 & April 1, 1949

To reduce suspicion we decided to leave Colditz in two separate groups. I went ahead with Clara and Johann. As the train left the station, I was so nervous and excited that I forgot to take one last look at the town and at the castle, but once we were into the country I saw the spiky dark green fringe of the Colditzer Forst off to the south. I felt a pang from an unexpected feeling of