Tag: Gestapo

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Igpay Atinlay, by Ricky

          In the summer of 1964, I turned
16.  My father and I drove north to visit
my uncle.  When we arrived, my aunt and
uncle were not home; dad went to visit with them while they were at a mutual
friend’s home elsewhere in the city. 
This left my two cousins (ages 14 and 12) and me, home alone for several
hours.
          Being mischievous and mean spirited, my
older cousin decided to lock his brother out of the house.  I actually helped him to do it, but he wanted
it to last for a while.  In any case, the
younger cousin left to ride his bike to a friend’s house, so my conscience was
mostly clear.
          At this point, my older cousin chose
to use the bathroom.  After what seemed
like 10-minutes, or at least plenty of time to finish his business, I knocked
on the door and asked how much longer he would be in there.  He said, “Not long.”  I then suspected that he might be doing more
than what is customary in a bathroom; not an unreasonable supposition
considering that we had sex play each time I had visited before.
          I found the “junk drawer” in the
kitchen and found a small screwdriver and I inserted it into the bathroom
doorknob to “pop” the lock into the unlock position.  It did so with a very loud “pop” sound.  My cousin immediately shouted, “Don’t come in!”  I rattled the knob, but did not go in.  About a minute later he said, “Okay, you can
come in now.”  Not knowing what to
expect, I entered.
          My cousin asked me if I wanted to play
as if we were the Gestapo torturing prisoners for information.  I said okay and asked, “What are the
rules?”  He explained that the prisoner
would stand in the bathtub with his hands holding the shower curtain rod and
could not let go; as if he were tied up. 
The other person would pretend to torture the prisoner any way he wanted
as long as it was pretend and not painful. 
He even volunteered to be the first prisoner.  How could I say no?  I began to play torture him, which did not
take too long evolving into sex play.  We
eventually traded places, so I had my turn also as the prisoner.
          As soon as we finished and exited the
bathroom, there was a knock on the door. 
We thought it was the younger cousin returning home.  It was not. 
Instead, it was a 12-year old friend of my younger cousin.  We let him in and introductions followed.  He and I were chatting away about nothing
important while sitting at the kitchen table. 
He asked me if I spoke Pig Latin.
          When I was in elementary school, some
of us kids did dabble in it for a week or so, but it was not very interesting
to us so we dropped it; so I told him, “No. 
I don’t speak it.”  He promptly
turned to my cousin and said, “Owhay igbay isway ishay ickday?”  My cousin held up his hands about 7-inches
apart.  I then said, “No it’s not.  It’s about this big,” holding up my hands to
indicate the size.  The friend of my
cousin then said, “I thought you said you didn’t speak Pig Latin.”  I told him that I don’t speak it, but I never
said I didn’t understand it.
          The boy wanted to see me naked right
then, but my cousin told him to wait until that night.  As it turned out, that night my two cousins,
the boy, his 16-year old brother, and I had a sleepover in the family’s steam
bath outbuilding.  There was a lot more
sex play, which started out by playing a game of Strip Go Fish.
          Oh what a day, the night was even
better.
© 24 Sep 2012  
About the Author  
I was born in June of
1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I was
sent to live with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for
two years during which time my parents divorced.  
When united with my
mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and
then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in
1966.  After three tours of duty with the
Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four
children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days
after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.
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Fond Memories, by Gillian

In the basement I have a
box labeled MEMORABILIA. In it are all kinds of bits and pieces from my
childhood; mainly things which once belonged to my parents. It is indeed a
motley collection. You will be glad I have brought only one to share.
My mother occasionally
wore a headscarf the like of which I have never seen on or off anyone’s head
since, though I understand many of them were produced. It is made of silk, and
rather than the usual flowers or paisley patterns or famous landmarks, it bears
a map. These ‘escape maps’ as they were called, first originated in Britain in
1940, and  over three million were
eventually produced throughout the war years by both Britain and then the
United States. The intent was to help airmen downed behind enemy lines to find
an escape route and evade capture, and I imagine a spy or two might have found
them useful. They were made of silk primarily because so much of it was
available from damaged parachutes. But silk is durable and light-weight but
also warm – a blessing in an unheated plane, and, I should guess, if you found
yourself trying to survive in Poland in January. This particular map is of part
of Eastern Europe and The Balkans. Sadly, I never had a photo of Mum wearing it
as headscarf, a purpose for which it was, of course, never intended, but at
least I still have it, and in fact I can probably see her in it in my memories
much more clearly than I would in an old faded photograph.
OK, an interesting little
bit of trivia, but my fond memories of the scarf stretch out beyond those of
Mum wearing it. To begin with, unlike most of the occupants of that memorabilia
box, I remember when and how this one entered our lives.
I think I was six or
seven, so it was somewhere in the late 1940’s, when a young German man came to
stay with us. I have absolutely no idea why, but my father brought him so maybe
it had something to do with my dad’s job. Dad had spent a little time in
Germany after the war; something to do with rebuilding German industry with
Allied help rather than with Communist assistance. The young man’s name was,
rather unremarkably, Hans, and I was completely captivated by him, as, though
with a little more subtlety, was my mother and, I think, even my father.
He was the archetypal Arian,
a Hitler poster-boy: tall, slim, piercing blue eyes and a shock of white-blond
hair. He was also charming, and, apparently, charmed by all things English –
including us. He bowed and clicked his heels, rising deferentially from his
chair every time my mother or even I rose from ours. He asked my father
interminable questions about anything and everything and clung to every word of
his reply. This was fine when the topics were manly things like machinery and
especially cars, but not so good when other responses were solicited.
‘Oh vat iss thiss,
please, in English?’ asked poor innocent Hans, delicately fingering a daffodil.
‘Oh, that’s a dandelion,’
replied my father, carelessly, as one to whom all yellow flowers are
dandelions.
‘Oh, ja, so this
iss the dandelion!’
Poor Hans seemed
enraptured. Luckily my mother was there to come to the rescue.
This was the first time
in my young life that anyone had ever stayed with us. I don’t remember how long
Hans visited, but the days he was there were magic. I became a beautiful,
charming adult. My mother became a vivacious teenager and my dad, at least by
his own standards, became positively verbose. It was as if we were suddenly
able to do everything a little better, but with less effort, than before. When
he left, our beautiful, light, colorful, bubble burst. We floated back to earth
and became ourselves once more. But none of us ever forgot that visit. It was
as if this magical stranger had shown us, for a little while, who and what we
could be.
Before he left, Hans gave
my mother a gift in appreciation of her hospitality. There was no such thing as
gift-wrap paper anywhere to be found either in Germany or Britain at that time,
so very apologetically he handed her this little package wrapped very neatly in
tattered old brown paper.
He further apologized for
the gift itself. Gifts of any kind were not thick on the ground in either of
our countries at that time, either, so he really did not need to apologize,
but, this was all he had, he said, looking completely downcast.
All three of us looked in
some confusion at this cloth map. The history of ‘escape maps’ only surfaced
many years later. If Hans had any idea of it’s true purpose, he said nothing.
He shrugged. ‘It iss … jou know,’ he gestured over his head, lightly skimming
his beautiful hair, ‘for the head covering ..’
British Silk Escape Map Fig 1
The light dawned. Mum
immediately popped it over her head, knotting it loosely at her neck and
striking a kind of would-be film star pose. It was, in fact, a strange kid of
headscarf, but my mother didn’t care – and anyway she loved maps – and I was
too young to judge. My dad smiled appreciatively. To him, I think my mother was
beautiful whatever she wore.
‘Ja. Iss goot!’ Hans
approved.
A few minutes later he
caught the local bus into town and we never, as far as I know, saw or heard
from him again.
For the rest of my life,
as my knowledge of World War Two progressed, I wondered endlessly about Hans
and his part in the war, and before. Had he been in the Hitler Youth? Almost
certainly, I would think. Was he in the Gestapo? The SS? Or a mere
foot-soldier? He had no visible scars or missing limbs or a tell-tale limp. He
looked too robust to have been in a concentration camp; neither did he have
numbers on his arm. Perhaps he hadn’t lived in Germany at all? But he did soon
after the war. And finally, most puzzling of all, why and how did he possess a
British escape map?
British Silk Escape Map Fig  2

British Silk Escape Map Fig 3
British Silk Escape May Fig 4

I shall never know the
answers to any of my questions, and finally I have become at peace with the
handsome and charming Hans, whoever he was; whatever he once had been. Now, I
simply find it incredibly ironic that one of my most treasured objects, and all
the fond memories that go with it, was given with such sincere humility, by a
German. It took a German to cast, just for a few days, a cheerful light to brighten
my corner of the endless gray gloom that was Postwar Britain.
© October 2016 
About the Author  
I was born and
raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S.
and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder
area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised four
stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself
as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years.
We have been married since 2013.
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Terror, by Gillian

I don’t understand terrorism
or terrorists. I mean, intellectually of course I do. I understand what
psychiatrists say about the factors causing people to become terrorists; but I
can’t get inside their heads. I simply cannot feel what it is they are feeling.
With an estimated minimum of a thousand young people a month from different
parts of the globe currently rushing off to join forces with ISIS, however,
it’s clear that creating terror holds an attraction for a significant number of
people.
Not only am I completely
mystified by that desire, or compulsion, to bring terror to others, but I am
fortunate enough to be able to say that I have never felt true terror myself.
That is not because I am remarkably brave and tough. Neither am I in denial of
some unacknowledged terror. It is simply that I have lived my life in a place
and time that has been terror-free. For me, that is. Not, alas, for everyone.
I can only imagine the utter
terror I would feel, hiding in the bushes in Rwanda, waiting to be discovered
and hacked to pieces by my erstwhile friends and neighbors. Or hiding in a room
in Nazi Germany, waiting to be turned in to the Gestapo by my erstwhile friends
and neighbors. Sadly, the list is endless. I would know what real terror was in
Stalin’s U.S.S.R and Mao’s China: the Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge and on and on
to today’s North Korea and most places in the Middle East.
I say I can only imagine, but
in truth I’m sure I cannot. I have lived so far from the horror of so many
people’s lives that I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like. I
have lived in my own little warm and cosy cocoon, safe and secure. Oh sure,
I’ve been a bit afraid occasionally. For instance, long before the advent of
cellphones, on business in Florida, I got lost in Miami in the dark and pouring
rain and my rental car broke down in a part of town which looked seriously
uninviting. Walking home in Denver one night after dark someone followed me
step for step. When I slowed, the footsteps behind me slowed; they kept pace if
I walked faster. Nothing bad resulted from these minor incidents, and the most
they made me feel was a bit nervous: just a frisson of fear. I’ve had health
issues that made me feel much the same, but that’s nothing approaching terror.
They call it a cancer scare, after all, not a cancer terror, though I’m
equally sure that being diagnosed with some horrific Stage Four cancer would
certainly invoke terror.
The most frightened I have
ever been, I think, were two instances involving airplanes.
One was on a flight from New
York’s La Guardia to London Heathrow. It was at the height of the Falklands
“war,” so it must have been 1982. I was working God knows how many
hours a week at the time and as soon as I settled to watch the movie, which was
Tora Tora Tora, I fell into a deep sleep. Over the mid-Atlantic we hit
some really rough air, and even that didn’t wake me, but a combination of
things suddenly did. We were bouncing around so badly that one of the overhead
bins bust open – it must not have been securely latched – and a hard-sided case
fell out onto the woman directly in front of me. It must have been heavy as
blood started pouring from her head and she began to scream. At precisely the
same moment, a voice from the cockpit announced with regret that the H.M.S.
Sheffield had been sunk with heavy loss of life. Well, you know what it’s like
when you are rudely awakened from a very deep sleep. You lust can’t get your
bearings. I was awash in confusion. My last memories, from the movie, were of
air battles; planes crashing into the ocean. The name Sheffield bothered me
because that’s where I went to College. Were we at war? What was happening? Why
was that woman screaming and bleeding?
Why was the plane pitching and
reeling? Were we going down in the ocean? I’m sure this complete lack of any
grasp on reality was very short-lived, but it seemed like forever and I was
truly scared. But I think I was too confused to be really terrified, and I
realized well enough that I was confused. Had we really been going down, yes,
then I’m sure I would have felt undeniable terror, for real. I think, now, of
those doomed passengers on that flight that went down in Pennsylvania on 9/11,
and more recently the one that wandered off course around the skies for several
hours before, they think, ending up at the bottom of the Indian Ocean; some
terror involved there, I would guess.
The other time was when my
husband of the time was flying us back from California in our little
four-seater plane. There were the two of us and my two youngest step-children.
We had just cleared the Sierra Nevada summit, heading East back to Colorado at
about 8,000 feet in a clear blue sky. Suddenly an invisible hole in the sky
opened up and we fell through it like a rock. My stomach hit the roof. The
clipboard securing the navigation charts, which I always held on my lap, shot
up and the metal clip gouged a big gash under my chin. My step-daughter started
screaming. The hillside was coming up to meet us at a really frightening speed.
The plane stopped falling as suddenly as it had started, and we landed at the
first available spot to make sure there was no damage. There was a crack in one
wing and in the tail, but not enough to stop us flying on home. We later
calculated that we had dropped about 6,000 feet in very few seconds.
And it was scary, but it was
all over before I had time to work up to real terror. Maybe it’s just that my
reactions are too slow!
I had planned to end there,
but you know how these stories go. Sometimes they seem to take on a life of their
own and go off on a tangent you had not planned to take. So we’ll just follow.
Some of you may remember that
several months ago I wrote about my dad, who, lost in a daze of dementia,
created havoc by trying to liven up their electric heater, which was made to
look somewhat like a real fire, by jabbing at it with the old metal poker. 
I was writing this current
story, last week, on a very cold day, around zero outside. Somehow when it’s
that cold, it seems to seep into the house regardless of how you have set the
thermostat.
I was cold. I huddled closer
to the cozily-glowing gas insert fireplace and noticed that there was a
considerable gap between two of the “logs.” No wonder it’s cold in
here, I thought, and unbidden the next thoughts leapt into my head. I
need to get the poker and rearrange those logs a bit, that’ll warm things up.
Now that truly terrifies me.
© 24 Nov 2014 
About the Author 
I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25
years.
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Scars, by Will Stanton

Like each of us, I have
suffered, throughout my years, scars, some physical and some emotional.  I have accumulated scars resulting from
incidents of injury, cancer, unwarranted personal attacks, emotional abuse, dishonesty,
greed, and lack of common human decency. 
Frankly, I’d rather not dwell upon them. 
Dredging up those memories is very uncomfortable for me.
There is something else
about me that people should come to understand.   There is something about me that has made
me, throughout my life, particularly sensitive to the misfortune of
others.  I understand their hurt; I
empathize with their plight; I can imagine walking in their shoes.  I am prone to feeling regret and sorrow; and
I tend not to forget.  I wish more people
were like that.  In addition, the
traumatic incident need not be a recent one. 
I know something about history; and, unfortunately, history is replete
with sorrow.  Yes, those incidents
happened a long time ago; and, no, they did not happen to me.  However, I still wish that those so many sad
incidents never had happened, especially when they have happened to the young,
those who had too short a time to experience the world, to grow, to live.
     
Let me relate one such
incident that, when I heard it told to me and my family, surprised and saddened
me.  It is a remarkable experience of
mine when I was ten years old.  For those
of you who were in this group two years ago, you may recall that I briefly
mentioned this episode in my story about my time in Europe.  This time, I would like to go into greater
detail to clarify the impact this incident had upon me.  The two persons suffering deep scars were two
former soldiers, one Canadian, one German. 
The very end of this story is the main point, a coincidence that is most
amazing.  I never have forgotten that
moment.
In 1954 through ’55, my dad
was an exchange-teacher doing research in Germany.  Our family went with him, living and
traveling throughout Europe during that time. 
I recall one sunny afternoon when we sat at an outdoor café while my dad
talked with several young men who now were exchange-students.  One man in particular (I’ll call him “Tom,”
for I do not remember his name) stated that he originally was from Canada and
had fought, along with the Canadian and British troops, on the beaches of
Normandy and onward, trying to capture Caen. 
He began to relate at length his experiences, unforeseen experiences
that had left a deep, emotional scar; for he just could not forget what
happened.  He had been prepared to fight
German soldiers, but he was not psychologically prepared to fight children.
I never forgot Tom’s
poignant tale.  I became perplexed about
Germany’s immoral use and waste of young people, throwing them into battle
during Germany’s inevitable collapse and defeat.  Recently, I wished to understand more about
Tom’s having to battle boy-soldiers.
Under Nazi rule, joining the
Hitlerjugend became compulsory.  From an
early age, obedience and fanaticism were drilled into them.  The children’s mothers were inundated with
propaganda to assure that this indoctrination continued at home.  Boys as young as nine received paramilitary
training.  This was the only world-view
these youngsters had.  Consequently, most
did not perceive the insanity of sending children to war.
Not all parents or children
wished to have anything to do with the Hitler Youth.  Punishment for noncooperation was swift and
harsh.  The Gestapo could arrest parents
and send them to concentration camps. 
There even were reports of some SS officers using compulsion to force
boys to sign up as so-called volunteers. 
Boys would be held in locked rooms without contact with their parents,
and denied food, water and toilet facilities until they signed.  Others, some members of the regular army complained,
had been physically beaten into submission.
Some parents and boys, of
course, were “true-believers,” and boys eagerly joined.  Those whom the authorities judged to possess
special qualities were invited to enter into the élite NAPOLA schools (Nationalpolitische
Lehranstalt, National Political
Institution of Teaching). 
Those boys likely felt proud of their handsome uniforms and their own
Solingen-steel daggers.  Along with a
steady dose of political propaganda, they received regular military training,
all under the guise of “playing games.” 
They had no idea of what lay before them.
Since Germany’s defeat at
Stalingrad in 1943, Germany faced defeat after defeat with tens of thousands of
soldiers killed or captured.  In
desperation, the authorities began to rely upon underage boys to fill the
gap.  One such division, sent to the
front just before the Normandy invasion, was the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Division,
made up boys mostly fifteen to eightteen, although many were younger.  For example, when captured, Willy Eischenberg
was just fourteen and Hubert Heinrichs only ten years old. 
Willy Etschenberg 14, Hubert Heinrichs 10 Oct 1944
In place of the traditional
tobacco ration, these boy-soldiers received candy, and in place of the beer
ration, they received milk, if and when it was available. Otherwise, they
trained hard to fight like adult SS men. 
I consider war and violence in all forms to be evil, let alone warping
young minds toward fighting wars. 
The Allies, with their
overwhelmingly superior air power, attacked repeatedly to take the area around
Caen and eventually the city itself. 
26,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the old city, crushing it to
rubble.  The remnants of two German
armies were trapped around Falaise and attempted to break out, but they needed
a rear guard.  Sixty of the 12th
Hitlerjugend Division were given that suicidal task and took positions in the
École Superieure.  Firepower from
attacking soldiers and artillery constantly bombarded the young defenders.  The boys, however, refused to retreat.  Of the sixty, only two, chosen as messengers,
survived.
Once the Allied soldiers
discovered that they were fighting just kids, they were surprised and
shocked.  Yet, the ferocity of the boys
astounded the allied forces.  One British
tank commander recalled how Hitler Youth soldiers had sprung at Allied tanks
“- – – like young wolves, until we were forced to kill them against our
will.”  Their fearlessness and
determination reportedly was explained by their training in the NAPOLA schools,
along with their bitterness regarding the massive Allied bombing of civilians
in their homes and cities.
From June 7th through July 9th,
the combined 12th Hitlerjugend Division lost more than 4,000 dead
and 8,000 wounded or missing.  Even the
replacement division commander, Kurt Meyer, wrote down his feelings of dismay
and sorrow.  “That, which l now
experienced, was not war any more, but naked murder.  I knew every one of these boys. – – These
boys had not yet learned how to live; but, God knows, they knew how to
die!  The crushing chains of the tanks
ended their young lives.  Tears rolled
over my face.”  A few days later,
Field Marshal von Rundstedt lamented, “It is a shame that these faithful youth
were being sacrificed in a hopeless cause.” Erwin Rommel made similar remarks
shortly before he was forced to commit suicide.
Later, an Allied soldier
found an undelivered letter on the body of a youth, killed in the battle.  The boy had expressed the feelings of many of
the division’s boys: “I write during one of the momentous hours before we attack,
full of excitement and expectation of what the next days will bring. – – – Some
believe in living, but life is not everything! 
It is enough to know that we attack and will throw the enemy from our
homeland.  It is a holy task.  Above me is the terrific noise of rockets and
artillery, the voice of war.”

That
is what I learned about the young soldiers whom Tom faced around Caen and
Falaise.  When he discovered whom he was
fighting, when he saw the slaughter, he was shocked.  Yet, the memory which most disturbed Tom, the
memory that left such a long-term emotional scar, was the scene of backing some
of the tattered remains of the Hitlerjugend into the river.  He and his fellow soldiers stood on the bank,
picking off every fighter they could see.
The whole point of this
story, the one that I could not forget, is what happened next as Tom finished
his sad tale. He ended by saying, “We didn’t stop firing until we saw no more
figures in the water.  I don’t think any
of them survived.”  At that point, a young
man, sitting alone at a nearby table, quietly turned to our group and stated
simply, “I did.”
 All of us at our table sat in stunned
silence.  After we recovered from our
initial shock, my father spoke to the person and discovered that, as a young teen,
he had been a member of the 12th Hitlerjugend Division and had
barely reached the other side of the river as all his friends perished in a
hail of bullets.  Tom’s scar, or that
other young man’s scar, were not my scar; yet I was deeply moved by what I had
just heard.  Not a scar, but the sad
memory of that day, shall remain with me forever.                                                       © 27 May 2015
Scars:
Postscript, Battle of the Bulge
(as told by Joseph
Robertson at age 86)

Those
remaining boys who survived the fighting around Caen regrouped to fight in the
Battle of the Bulge.  American
infantryman Joseph Robertson fought against them.  One incident in particular left him with a
deep, life-long scar.  He was interviewed
at age 86, when he told his story in his own words.

“I was hid behind the big
tree that was knocked down or fallen, and I could see these Germans in the
woods across this big field.  And, I saw
this young kid crawling up a ditch straight towards my tree.  So I let him crawl.  I didn’t fire at him.  But, when he got up within three or four foot
of me, I screamed at him to surrender. 
And instead of surrendering, he started to pull his gun towards me,
which was instant death for him.  But,
this young man, he was blond, blue eyes, fair skin, so handsome.  He was like a little angel.  But, I still had to shoot him.  And, it didn’t bother me the first night
because I went to sleep, and I was so tired. 
But, the second night, I woke up crying because that kid was there.  And to this day, I wake up many nights crying
over this kid.  I still see him in my
dreams and I don’t know how to get him off my mind.”
Those dreams, that scar,
haunted Joseph Robertson for sixty-five years until his death at age ninety in
2009.

© 27 May 2015 

About the Author  

I have had a life-long fascination with people
and their life stories.  I also realize
that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too
have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have
derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my
stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.