DOCUMENT RESUME ED 477 288 SO 033 728 Oliver, Paula Popow AUTHOR Marianne Wahnschaff Ballester's Personal Experiences: United TITLE States, World War Two, Soviet Zone. 1999-00-00 PUB DATE 81p.; Color photographs may not reproduce well. NOTE Historical Materials (060) Opinion Papers (120) PUB TYPE EDRS Price MF01/PC04 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE European History; *Family History; *Family Mobility; Foreign DESCRIPTORS Countries; *Personal Narratives; Secondary Education; Social Studies; *World War II East Germany; New York (New York) IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT This family history recounts the life and personal experiences of Marianne Wahnschaff Ballester who was born in the United States in 1929 to German parents. Marianne and her mother spent the World War II years in Stassfurt, Germany, and returned to the United States in 1.946. The overview of her life includes a reunion with her father, attendance at Julia Richmond High School (New York City), marriage to Claudio Ballester in 1949 and subsequent motherhood, a degree in education from William Paterson University (Wayne, New Jersey), and 22 years as an elementary school teacher. The history relates Marianne's personal experiences, provides a map of her journey from the United States to Germany and her return to the United States, presents a glossary, a family genealogy, and an afterword. Contains numerous photographs. (BT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Marianne Wahnschaff Ballester's Personal Experiences: United States, World War. Two, Soviet Zone Written by Paula Popow Oliver O' PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION BEEN GRANTED BY Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) atveg, 1 This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization BEST COPY AVAILABLE originating it. Minor changes have been made to TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES improve reproduction quality. INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent ....... r ... . : .... . .... . , : . . . 2 Marianne Wahnschaff Ballester's Personal Experiences: United States, World War Two, Soviet Zone S Written by Paula Popow Oliver S S oN ndramatic Literary Work Copyright 1999, TXu 909-275 I Introduction shared many personal experiences During 1997 and 1998 Marianne Wahnschaff Ballester living in Stassfurt, Germany, during World with me that includes her United States birth in 1929, living in the United States. War Two, the Soviet Zone, and post war experiences between the years 1932-1946, Marianne discusses her journey to Stassfurt, experiences acquainted with uncles and loving memories of living with her grandparents, and becoming the aftermath of KristallnachtNight of cousins. However, Marianne recalls the rise of Hitler; nursing her terminally ill grandmother; the Broken Glassin 1938; Nazism; World War Two; instruction; Allied bombings; East Workers-- food scarcity; Lutheran catechism as well as school of World War Two and Stassfurt's O laborers; Allied occupations. Further, she recalls the end States she is a United States citizen and Eastern Zone inclusion. Due to her birth in the United America. therefore able to leave Soviet Occupied Germany in 1946 and return to reunion with her father and An overview of her life in the United States includes a York City. Also, she discusses the attending Julia Richmond, a girl's high school in New her family and community in personal revelation she experienced when she learned that in the Eastern Zone--Soviet Stassfurt helped to protect her from the war and from living well. In 1948, she marries Claudio Occupied Germany--and protected her from the Holocaust as and Lisa. They have been married Ballester, and they have three children Claud-Peter, Heidi, adult and earning a degree in fifty years. Also, Marianne recalls attending night school as an teaches elementary school twenty- education from William Paterson University. Afterwards, she visiting her mother in 1959 in East Germany, her two years. In addition, Marianne describes suicidal death in 1969. Last, mother's visit to the United States, and her mother's tragic Marianne discusses surviving cancer. who never gives up, persevering In conclusion Marianne describes herself as a person She is thankful that she was during wartime and through many other difficult life experiences. her home since 1946. Also, born in the United States of America and has made the country Rose for introducing us. Marianne and I are both grateful to my neighbors Lisa and George the United States to Germany, Please review her personal experiences, map of her journey from and Afterword. and her return, Glossary, Photographs, Family Genealogy, 4 "I, Marianne Wahnschaff Ballester, was born November 21, 1929, in Hoboken, New Jersey. Wahnschaff, was My mother, Ida Tempelhoff, was born in Stassfurt, Germany. My father, Paul born in Loderburg, Germany. My parents were married May 21, 1921. Afterwards, they lived in an apartment in Madgeburg, Germany. "My father came to America in the early part of the depression. He wrote to my mother: `Breakup the apartment in Germany, come to America, and you'll find everything better here.' Originally, he had an occupation as a saddle maker, but he was selling Singer sewing machines because making saddles was becoming archaic. Even though my mother was six-months pregnant, 'The streets were paved at this time, she followed my father to America. He also wrote my mother, with gold.' It was believed in Europe at that time that streets in America were paved in gold. Whether this was true or not--today, we know better, 0.K? American women and men worked very hard to have economic freedom. "As soon as my mother arrived in America, my father got a job on a steamer to South America, and my mother found work as a housemaid for a wealthy family with me in residence. In other words, she needed to take me as an infant to work. I am pretty sure that she arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey. She did not like it because the apartment was full of bedbugs and cockroaches. She was not used to that, so she did not like that at all. I guess she had to return to the Hoboken apartment at night with me. This is one reason she eventually ended back in Germany with her parents. "Eventually, my mother left America and brought me back up with her to Germany. There, I lived with my mother's parents in my grandfather's house in Stassfurt. I was too young to remember anything about the trip. The year was 1931 or 1932. I was about two-and-a-half years old. My mother returned to America and worked for the same family in Hoboken, then returned to Germany for good in 1933. She did not like it in America at all. She missed me. All I remember of that time is that I called my mother Tante Lotte -- meaning Aunt Charlotte--and Mutti--my mother She did not like that at all. was devastated. She was hurt that I had forgotten her. "I believe that my mother wasn't happy. My father worked on his trips to South America, Germany. My father was so my mother felt that she needed to be with her parents and me in absolutely one-hundred-percent German. He was from the village next to the small town my mother lived in. Both of my parents were from Germany and of German origin. Well, I guess that my father enjoyed traveling. I don't know. He really did bring a lot of unhappiness to my mother. My mother just found herself in such bad circumstances in the United States during the 1920s and early 1930s. My father was thirteen years older than she. I think that was the reason that they did not hit it off very well. "My father came to see us in 1937 or 1938. I remember my father was a dashing figure- - tall, blonde, and handsomevery good looking. He was dressed all in a white suit and a white hat, who by then were quite very unlike the father that I met later. You know, he hated the Nazi pigs, powerful. He had to return to America because he saw what happened as far as the armament was concerned, and his possible conscription into the German Army. He returned to the United States, and we didn't hear from him anymore until the war was over in 1945. "As I previously stated, my mother opted to go back to her parents and work in Germany. My mother worked to support herself and me. She worked in some kind of a warehouse, taking inventory because she needed money. She could not depend on my father to mail us any kind of postcards that she mailed to money for me. I once kept a few things that were hers. I do have some me from Germany's Eastern Zone in the 1960's. 5 into the war in 1941. "The war in Germany was from 1939 to 1945. America only came school. Kristallnacht occurred in 1938. I "I remember Kristallnacht. I was on my way to grandfather's address was 65 Wachtel Strasse, Stassfurt, Germany. was eight, maybe nine. My showroom windows were broken. There was a store named Salilevy not far from his house where In English, it 'Jude ab ab nach On the broken windowpanes someone had written considered the Jewish Holy Land for would be "Jew, Jew go back to Palestine." Palestine has been other children. I don't even centuries. I was on my way to school, and I walked there with these windows. I was remember what they said. It was a small town, and we were shocked at happen in our town. Windows were shocked; I was just so shocked that anything like that would happened. I did not see broken: I mean that was violence. In those days nothing like that had ever devastation was horrendous. In the violence. It happened at night when I was asleep. The Jewish, and his wife was German. My addition, I also learned from my mother that her jeweler was that he was Jewish because mother mother told me the jeweler that she used to go to--and I knew believe that he jumped soon after said that he killed himself, and jumped out of the window. I and he jumped out of the Kristallnacht. I guess he lived up on the third floor on top of Salilevy, window. they went from K- "The Jewish people only had one classroom in the entire school. I guess grade. My brother went to 8, whatever it was. I remember attending school in the first he was in middle Kindergarten because he was a boy. Only boys attended Kindergarten. Later, teacher that he did. Her school, which was a form of higher education. Anyway, I had the same for first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grades. You know name was Miss Schultz, and I had her be exposed to many teachers. that is not always good. Later, I learned in America that it's better to been arrested. Jewish students The teachers said nothing about the broken glass. They would have know what they said about it. They were not mixed in with were in their own classroom. I don't have had integrated classrooms. I don't remember discussions us. Today, I believe that we should father was in America. I with any classmates about Kristallnacht. My mother was at work, and my people in the community don't remember my grandparents saying anything. I do remember that were shocked. ab nach Palastina.' I guess "I never forgot those words on that broken window, 'Jude ab it was only yesterday. My people were very afraid. I just remember seeing the broken glass, like and take in this world, mother was very upset about it. She always said that there has to be a give and you can't just make rules for other people. She was very open that way. German by any "Hitler came into power in 1933. He was an Austrian. He wasn't even a birthday in school--the year standards. He was a house painter in Austria. We had to memorize his would you believe that he was born. I can still tell you when his birthday was, April 20, 1889; and dictator. we had to memorize that? He was quite a she listened to the "My Mother was so anti-Hitler. In fact, I may be jumping the gun, but radio would come across, and western radio when we could get the stations in. The West German Kropisch, and he threatened there was a man living in my grandfather's house. His name was Mr. caught her listening to the West German broadcast, he would my mother. He told her that if he ever United States of America that Konzentration put her in a Konzentration Lager. I learned later in the whom I met on the Lagers were known as Jewish death camps. Mr. KrOpisch is the same man 'Don't you learn stairs a short time before that, and I said to him, 'Good morning.' He said to me, hand when you anything in school? Don't you know that you have to say, Heil Hitler and raise your after the war? He ran to West Germany. He never came see me?' Do you know what happened 6 his wife and went over the border before back. That is how nice they--the Nazis- -were. He left there was any boundary set. The only time that I heard the words "I honestly did not know about the concentration camps. that I didn't know how to greet a `concentration camp' was from this Mr. Kropisch when he told me this anything at school. He said to my mother, 'If I catch you listening to person, and that I didn't learn mother with Konzentration Lager. I radio, I will put you in a Konzentration Lager.' He threatened my only learned about Jewish concentration camps after 1946. made in Versailles in "We learned in school after World War One that there was a treaty As a result of the France. Hitler called it the Schand Vertrag von Versadles--shameful treaty. by saying, 'I will Versailles Treaty, the Rhineland was occupied by Allies. Hitler came to power there at the right time. give you water, and bread, and jobs.' Germany was so very poor. He was Hitler came to visit the U-boat. We have a friend that was on a German U-boat. He told us that in height. Hitler was not a big Our friend explained that he could not believe bow tiny Hitler was banging his fists and talking, in reality he was small--I assume man. When the media showed Hitler had a chip on his shoulder. like Napoleon. He had that whole country under his thumb. I know he mother sent me to a girl's "As for my childhood, I was nine in 1938. I remember that my anemic.. I did not eat. I was never a big eater. I remember camp in the summer time because I was tried to make it very nice, being in this summer camp, and people who worked at the summer camp food. I was so homesick to see but I did not like the food. I would shove the food under some other and I was just devastated. It made it easier for her because my mother. I was there for six weeks, work. she figured that I would come back with red cheeks, and she had to go to stockings that "Also, when I was a young girl, my mother used to make me wear long wool would wait until I could get around the corner, and I would were handknitted. They itched me, so I the stockings. The take the stockings off. We used to have these garter belts, and I unhooked wool stockings were terrible because they were thick and scratchy, and itchy. I still cannot wear could put together. I around my body, but as a child I wore dresses and skirts -- whatever my mother inside out and had a do remember that my mother even took my grandfather's coat and had it turned of us. I remember getting ice skates seamstress make a coat for her. She did similar things for all that I had to tie onto my shoes. I grew out of ice skating shoes too fast. dark blue, and "When I came to America in 1946, I came in my confirmation dress. It was That is how I came to it had lace areas. I had leather sneakers on, because I had no other shoes. America! in Germany until I was "My religious background is Lutheran. I attended church regularly could do whatever I fourteen. I had confirmation. Then, my mother and grandparents told me that I only one felt was necessary - -or it was my choice not to choose religion. I think that there was attend church. Lutheran church in my town. I went to Konig's Platz, meaning King's Place to the area is mostly There was one Catholic Church, and there was one Jewish Temple, but see Germany, where I Lutheran. It is not like West Germany. West Germany is mostly Catholic. East come from, is mostly Lutheran. long as I can "I lived with my grandparents during the war. My grandfather was retired as had seven remember from an iron foundry in our town. My grandmother did no work. She It was a tough job children, so she didn't work. I think my grandfather received retirement money. because of the noises, so to work in those iron foundries. He had lost his hearing to a great extent Wilhelm he may have been on compensation. I don't know. My grandfather's name was originally from Tempelhoff. My grandmother's name was Anna Weckner-Tempelhoff. She was 7 attended. probably listed in the Lutheran church we Stassfurt. Our family names are from a Stassfurt. It made ammunition because I came "There was an ammunition firm in firm up there, and this is what the salt mines. They put this munitions town that had a lot of bombers flew overall over town. bombers went after. Of course the would listen to the radio, and the radio announcers "During the bombings we would Allied planes would be flying heading for Hannover and Madgeburg. announce that bombers were would mean we would they would fly towards our town. That in that direction; that would mean shades so that the forced by law to have black paper pull all the black shades down. We were not would go into the basement. The basement was bombers could not see any light, and we night running like basements are here today. I remember one pleasant. It was damp and cool, just and one was younger believe that one cousin was four years older, in the attic with my cousins. I coming down, and they attic window. We watched the bombs than I was. We watched through the bombings, child. I was very serious even before the exploded in air. Truly, I was not a typical of liver cancer. because I watched my grandmother die these bombs come down. We had heard about "Anyway, we watched the phosphorous would be permanently hurtthe phosphorous bombs because if they splattered you, you Every time these lot of time in that basement at night. phosphorous keeps burning. We spent a basement. Schools pack up our belongings and go into the bombers would come over, we would hours in the basement, our teachers did not expect would have a later opening. If we spent so many when the bombers were coming learn the next day. We heard a warning us to go to school and when we could go upstairs. We siren in a different tone to let us know over, and the Mayor had a All the children, but we spent hours there night after night. stayed in the cellar only hours at night, seeing Mr. during the bombings. I do not remember adults, and cousins went into the basement down him with Heil Hitler. Maybe he did not come Kropisch, the man who scolded me to greet because he was above the law. father was not with the problem all during the war. My "We had no food either. This was who might have been able to go to a and we had no food. It was the men us. He was in America, little town food for us. On the outskirts of the farm and get some food to eat for us. There was no there to do some bargaining. feudal systems. I think the men went we had farms similar to their own. food; he was too old. Neighbors were on My grandfather was not well enough to get neighbors put them the cakes baking in the house because Each was for his own. You could smell baked at the usually everyone brought the cakes to be in their baking ovens. Prior to the war, from other people who didn't need them. bakery. We knew neighbors had bought stamps government issued only way anyone bought food was with Everything was gotten with stamps. The for food could only buy so much food. We had to pay stamps. So, if you had food stamps, you shipments through receiving shipments. We would learn of stamps. Stores were dependent on anything into the stores, told us._ If the stores did get any sugar, or newspapers or when someone how these other for hours in line to get food. I don't see people stood in line. You had to stand less of anything else. baking. We had none of that--and much people could get this wonderful cake I food to eat. Gut means voucher, or coupon. Men were allowed to go to a farm and get some tauter, which means land or an connections with land barons who lived on old guess the men had feudalism is not referring to a lord or lady of the manor. To me estate that is owned by a proprietor, fair--it is like slavery. if you cook We used to call it Blue Henry, because "My mother would make barley soup. the big barley. I barley was not the little, tiny barley, it was barley with just water it turns blue. The 8 grandfather raised domesticated rabbits. Once a just couldn't eat that. It was terrible. Then my the stall where he kept the rabbits as he week, on Sundays, we would have rabbit. Once, I ran out to skin off the rabbit. Well, that was the end of any rabbit that I was in the process of pulling the I would just eat the gravy and a could eat. It was awful. He pulled the skin over the eyes. dumplings and some gravy. We dumpling--potato country was nearby. That's what I ate, potato had no candy, no milk, and no fish. the war we had no food. We "It was bad during the war. It got worse after the war. During The boys and old men were sent to had no men in our town. They drafted everybody--all the men. able to walk was sent. We only had very young boys meet the foreign soldiers. Anybody that was Workers. East Workers were forced to and very old men in our town, so they needed some East If they were professors or whatever, they had to work in the come into Germany to do the work. hours a day to work in the fields for the fields. In addition, I remember we got out of school several be weeded and taken care of. I think the land barons and local farmers because these fields had to Workers as well as school children were East Workers were interned on the outskirts of town. East forced to work in the fields to grow food for the German Army. from Stalingrad. He either "Also, I am remembering that my Uncle Willie never returned dressed in civilian uniform came left home to fight in the war in 1939 or 1940. I remember a man said to her that my Uncle Willie was on his way back to my. Aunt Erna's. She lived downstairs. He he could get home, and he would from Stalingrad, and could he please borrow his son's bike so returned, and my uncle never returned, so Uncle return the bike at a later time. The bike was never long journey by foot. Approximately Willie was probably shot somewhere along the line. That is a Stassfurt, from Stalingrad. Stalingrad sixteen hundred miles separates Bernburg, which is close to fiercest battle. was known as the area with the in World War Two. I "Russians killed or captured several hundred thousand Nazi troops from the Russians. I am believe that the man who borrowed the bike from my Aunt was escaping Aunt Erna knew if my Uncle Willie certain that Uncle Willie was killed or captured. I do not think soldier in civilian clothing came to take the bike. Willie may was dead or alive when the German uncle because he knew that his sons have been dead by that time. The soldier must have known my because he would have been shot had a bike. Somehow he must have gotten rid of his uniform immediately. All German soldiers were at the German fronts both east and west. shared. My Uncle Willie, and "We had one apartment that my mother, grandparents, and I downstairs. A room across the his wife, Aunt Erna, and their two boys--Herbert and Claus lived and brother-in-law. On the second hall from them was rented out. Aunt Erna rented it to her sister Hitler' that I previously floor Herr Kropisch lived--the maniac who told me how to say, 'Heil there, and they had several. mentioned. There was an apartment upstairs. A couple lived up and the other part was an children. Part of it was an attic where you could take your wash to dry, apartment. Kurt "Another brother on my mother's side was on the western front. His name was Erna. Before the war Tempelhoff. Uncle Willie and Uncle Kurt married women with the name side of town. They lived in his mother- Uncle Kurt and his family lived in Leopoldsall on the other half of a sandwich, so in-law's house. I used to meet him on the way from work. He would save me him, he would have this half- that I could eat it because I was so hungry. Every time I would meet Uncle Kurt didn't get food sandwich for me, and he would give it to me. That's how nice he was. Hitler came to power, for us while in the army. By the way, Kurt was my favorite uncle. After what Kurt did for a living. Uncle Uncle Kurt was drafted by the German Army. I don't remember shot in his lung but survived and Willie, did decorations, similar to upholstery in homes. Kurt was Erna had her two children that she raised by herself, but I don't think came back to town. His wife their younger son became a worked. I don't remember what their older son did. After the war he never said hello to me because policeman in the Eastern Zone. When I visited Stassfurt in 1959, he was part of the East German Police. fourteen, and I won a scholarship "In 1944, I was graduated from public school at the age of free for my mother. I went to the teacher's College. It to a teacher's College--which was totally Genthin, Germany. The war ended Spring, 1945. I planned to attend was an old mansion located in took a train to Madgeburg, and it until Christmas vacation when we were returned to our homes. I terminal. The Allies came from Britain, and bombed out the was bombed before I arrived at the walk across a big city. When main terminal. A few other girls and I had to get out of the train and city, we boarded another train that was not bombed and went to we got on the other side of the Genthin, there was another Genthin where my school was located. When I got off the train at schoolall by myself. bombing attack. People scattered, and I had to walk among the bombs to my knew that I survived. The doctor--or the professor--greeted me. But she Somehow I made it. pack us up and send us home having students stay was useless because she knew that she had to walked through the again because the war was over--but I remember walking between bombs. I and the buildings. I walked all the way to streets of the small town, and the bombs hit the streets wasn't worth risking school. The bombing seemed very frightening. I was fifteen. The train trip needed as a hospital for death because soon after Christmas the school was closed. The school was Ausbildung Anstalt in soldiers from the east and from the west. The school was in the Lehrerinnen returned home. German Genthin, meaning teacher training institute. I don't remember at all how I special hospitals to soldiers returned home and most of them were wounded. Allies had to open with missing take care of these people. My school was one of them. I had never seen so many men limbs in Stassfurt. Genthin. Stassfurt "Later, in 1945, I worked for a lawyer after I came back from school in and a streetcar traveled through the middle of town. The only was a small town. We had bikes, His car was on blocks people who had cars were persons such as the lawyer--a professional. than for vacation--and because the Nazis took the tires. He was not allowed to use the car, other allowed during the war. I worked for him after you didn't have vacation because vacations were not worked in the lawyer's office, I the Nazis took the tires. They used the tires for the fronts. When I who were mothers of girls that I went to school with dated was amazed to learn many women became romantically Russians, and gave birth to Russian babies. Isn't that amazing? Many women Many mothers lost involved with the Russiansthe enemy. My mother did not go for any of this. mothers and their daughters their husbands- -German soldiers -- during the war. After the war, many dated Russians. by who "I remember a young man was escorting a young girl. A Russian soldier came trying to protect her. It wanted the girl. When he couldn't get her, he shot the young man who was another incident. seemed to me that his brain was forever plastered on the door. Also, I remember lived across the street My neighbor, Miss Keller, who was about eighteen or nineteen years old, through from my grandfather's house. One day I saw German boys in their early teens driving boys were Wachtel Strasse with her in the back of the wagon. Her head was shaved, and the clapping their hands ridiculing her. British Forces, and "At the end of the war, my part of GermanyStassfurt--was occupied by with hay. then by the American Army, and last came the Russian Army sprawled on wagons