The early years
from Hans-Joachim Weiß
I was born in the war chaos as the first child of Franziska and Johannes Weiß in fall 1943 in Beverstedt (county Wesermünde) in the house of a midwife. Beverstedt is around 20 km south eastern away from Bremerhaven.
My younger brother was born 1946 there as well.
How did I experience this time? Because of my age I did not notice quite much about the war. My parents told me that there was enough nourishment, but the care of the population became more and more complicated. The military troops in and near Stalingrad capitulated already in February and at the conference of Teheran from 11/18/1943 till 12701/1943, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill decide the decisive foundations of a European postwar-order.
The first memories begin when I was 3 or 4 years old. I’d never forget a big fire in our neighborhood. It happened at night and I was very scared.
Lively memories are my daily walks to the „Plumpsklo“ (a seat with a hole inside. You went there to urinate and poop), which was located at our houseyard. The seat was so high that I always had to take a stool with me. It was pretty noisy when the „shi...“ fell down into a stinky pit. At a limy board-wall there was a rusty nail and on this nail hung old cutted newspapers. Those were used as toilet paper.
To get some material to burn down, my parents took me for peat-stabbing to the near by bog. My father afforded himself tobacco plants. The leaves were hung to dry on like on a clothesline in the store house.
After the war was over my father found work as a carpenter at the „Rickmers-shipyard“ in Bremerhaven. The way to get there with an old bus was complicated and exhausting, so my parents decided in 1948 to move to Wulsdorf (district of Bremerhaven). I grew up there for 2 years in a street with a village-like character. In a little garden I made acquaintance with chicken, rabbits and gooses, who likes to bite me in my bottom.
My first playmates were the kids from my neighborhood. We played between manure heaps and thatched roof houses. I also started school in Wulsdorf in April 1950 in the „Altwusldorfer“ school. My first writing trys I did on a slate with chalk. When I did my homework there were always some tears dropping on the slate and I had to start again. I hated it!!
Although I liked the rual area, I soon became a „town-child”. My family moved into a bigger apartment in the Goethe Street in the district Lehe of Bremerhaven. That did not mean to me to have now an own room indeed, no, I had to share a room with my brother and my grandmother. The apartment did have a little restroom (which was located at the yard) and granny did always have a chamber pot under her bed. Granny always did use it and it stank...yeah that‘s life...
Like many others in the postwar-time my parents were not very rich. My father had to work hard on the ship yard and he brought home around 50 DM. In this time ¼ of the wages we had to pay the apartment rent as well as it is used to be today, so there was not much left for food, clothes and I did not have to mention toys.
We ate bread, butter, potatoes, rolled-oat-mash, in summer fresh vegetables and in winter preserved pickled food (salt-beans, sauerkraut, cucumbers etc.). Me and my friends stole strawberries, cherries, apples and pears from allotments and lots. We never got caught, because we were clever...haha...! In Bremerhaven an exception: bananas and fish, prepared in all kind of variations were always available. I could not stand it after a while. I’d never forget the cod-liver-oil, which I had to eat every day. I always felt like throwing up afterwards. To make me feel better I got a candy. Blackmailing?
Sunday was a special day. We got meat! Pig- or cow-roast, enough for five people. I was always very upset about my father getting the biggest piece. In my family there was in the 50‘s and 60‘s some kind of social unfairness. Maybe the other day my motivation to become member of the trade-union and party was somehow unconsciousness.
In spite of all restrictions I never suffered of starvation. If I think back I had a good childhood. The years were longer, the summer was always sunny and warm, the „Weserdeich“ was not mowed very often, winter was cold.
Stop, there is something else to mention. The time between Christmas and the next Christmas was soooo long...and I always wanted to grow up!
