Helga Schneider - The Bonfire of Berlin - A Lost Childhood in Wartime Germany

I endured various unpleasant medical examinations, including one by a gynaecologist. I was given pills which dulled my senses.

The rules were severe, and we were punished for the slightest misdemeanour by having our food withdrawn, being beaten or being left in a dark room. But most ludicrous of all was the so-called ‘socialisation hour’ to which we had to submit every day. On these occasions, children with the most diverse pathologies were crammed together in a tiny space where they inevitably came into conflict with one another. When scuffles broke out, the one supervisor pretended not to see anything and failed to intervene. Survival of the fittest was the rule. One day a blind boy, panicking in the insane hubbub, attached himself to my ear, biting it so furiously that I was afraid he was going to pull it off. The supervisor didn’t bat an eyelid. During socialisation hour I witnessed the most appalling scenes, and I gradually convinced myself that someone was spying on us through two-way mirrors. It was a horrible sensation.

On other occasions they would call us one by one into a chilly underground room to subject us to such intimate and embarrassing examinations that we almost felt we’d been raped. Our families were allowed to visit us once a month, but the rumour was that hardly anyone ever turned up. The worst time was when the sirens went. Indescribable chaos usually broke out. The building echoed with orders and confused shouts, everyone dashed towards the only staircase, shrieking, pushing and kicking until panic was inevitable. On these occasions I found myself covered with bruises.

The more time passed, the worse I felt. I had entered the institution in reasonably good health, but now I suffered illness after illness◦– fits of vomiting, apathy, weeping, asthma. On one occasion I was unable to breathe for almost a minute; the nurses helped me by hitting me hard on the back, slapping me and applying pressure to my thorax. Finally one of them gave me an injection with a blunt needle. I got my breath back, but blood came pouring out of my mouth. The following day I was tested for tuberculosis, but the rest was negative.

One morning I discovered that I had wet the bed, and my torments began in earnest. I had hoped this was a unique event, but it soon happened again. I attracted the dislike of the orderlies, who always took a mischievous delight in reporting the misdeed to their superiors. I tried to conquer my weakness, but it only got worse. If at first I was wetting the bed two or three times a week, in the end it happened every night.

At first I was punished by having my meals suspended. When that proved useless, it was followed by a series of beatings. I was given a black eye and limped for a few days, but I still peed in my sleep. The orderlies called me ‘piss-the-bed’, a nickname that stuck like a stain. They decided to punish me with the ‘dark room’.

This was an isolation cell in the basement. It was cold and bare, there was nothing but a camp bed and a chamber pot, and the walls were so thick that neither the barks of the dogs nor the screams of the sirens could penetrate them. The minimum stay was twelve hours, and in the most serious cases punishment could continue for as many as three or four days. And of course one was hardly given any food. But not even the dark room could make me stop; I had entered a vicious circle. I wet the bed, I was sent to the dark room, and when they took me out I was so terrified that I wet it again.

I started to fear for my life and considered the possibility of escaping, but that proved to be impossible. The courtyard was full of ferocious dogs, and I wouldn’t have escaped alive. What was I to do? Write to my grandmother? I doubted whether the letter would ever be sent. Call in my stepmother? That was out of the question; she was glad to be rid of me! So I resorted to the only weapon at my disposal: I stopped eating.

At first they tried to force-feed me, ramming food down my throat until my oesophagus was damaged. In the end they just left me in bed because I couldn’t even stand. I passed my days in a torpor, in my few lucid moments thinking of my father and grandmother. One morning, however, I saw my stepmother standing by my bed.

Her eyes hard, she said, ‘They called me in to bring you home, they’ve decided you’re a hopeless case!’ I didn’t say a word, not least because I was so weak. ‘Going on hunger strike,’ my stepmother said contemptuously. ‘What a wicked idea! It’s clearer than it ever was that you’re your mother’s daughter!’ The prospect of going home cleared my head.

My stepmother paced back and forth in the empty dormitory, finally stopping by the window. For a moment she looked out at the courtyard, where the dogs were barking. They barked, day and night, at the slightest disturbance.

I looked at Ursula’s back: it was narrow, with protruding shoulder-blades. Her hair was covered with a headscarf, and she looked small because she wasn’t wearing her high heels. She looked older, too, and more exhausted. All of a sudden she turned round and said sharply, ‘If you want to come with me, you’re going to have to get off that bed.’

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to. For a number of days I had only got out of bed to use the chamber pot, and now the thought of having to get dressed and actually leave the building seemed beyond me. Nonetheless I forced myself. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I waited for my head to stop spinning. Thinking of my grandmother, I silently invoked her help. Finally I found the strength to get to my feet, while my stepmother looked on impassively. I wondered why I deserved such harsh treatment. Then an orderly brought my things and dumped them on the bed, exchanging a glance with my stepmother. Ursula threw my few belongings into my little suitcase with impatient gestures. Perhaps I had spoiled her plans. I got dressed on my own, struggling against my weakness. Perhaps she hoped I wouldn’t be able to do it, perhaps she hoped she would be forced to leave me in the institution, but the thought of escaping spurred me on and filled me with energy. Once the formalities were complete, we left the building. I realised that Ursula was ashamed of my shaven head. People were giving me curious stares on the S-Bahn . When we got home, Peter welcomed me with a little shriek of horror, hiding behind the legs of his beloved Mutti.

I had been so traumatised by the institution that life with my stepmother seemed a paradise in comparison. I did everything I could to be accepted: I was polite and humble, I forced myself to obey without thinking, without talking back, but as before it was all to no avail; she didn’t want me. Winter passed, but in the spring I had to go away again. This time it was to a reeducation school for children with personality disorders. When Ursula told me about it, I fell into a state of despair. I wept and thought more than once of running away from home, but she never took her eye off the door, and she had trained Peter to act as my guard.

One day I saw my little suitcase packed once more and realised the time had come. We left very early in the morning. Through the loudspeakers in the S-Bahn station, Goebbels ranted about victory and liberation, while people standing in little groups listened in silence. Their faces were tense, weary and sceptical.

The school was in Oranienburg-Eden, on the far outskirts of Berlin. We boarded an already crowded train. In Oranienburg we were told that the bus that should have taken us to Eden was no longer running due to the petrol shortage, so we had to continue on foot. Walking along a dung-scattered main road lined with old trees, we met some horse-drawn carts. As I followed my stepmother, my heart was anxious. What would the school be like? I watched her shoulders, her hair held back with hairpins, and I hated her. Did my father know what she was doing to me?