THE FORGOTTEN ONES

Continuing CHAPTER ONE

Early on Saturday morning we had left Wolferborn in Werner’s car to drive to Idstein. Werner and Minna had gone with other villagers on a short holiday to the Tyrol, leaving us the keys to the small brown Sigma. We had driven down through the forested hills of the Taunus Mountains, with me admiring the fresh green foliage of spring and the red roofed villages secluded in the valleys beside glistening streams. I found it all overwhelmingly picture postcard pretty. Between the hills of the Vogelsberg and the Taunus, the nature of the countryside was gentle, undulating terrain. Most fields were ploughed ready for spring sowing, but those seeded with wheat in the autumn were green with crops about ten centimetres high. My years of living on the land have conditioned my mind to constant observance of climatic changes and evaluation of arable ground.

Eberhard parked the car on the outskirts of Idstein and enthusiastically escorted me through the old city. His guided tour proceeded along cobble-stoned streets, unchanged by five hundred years of wear. We stopped in front of the Witches’ Tower, a tall, circular, heavy stone fortress. Its solid walls equalled the height of the tallest city facility. Above this impregnable structure was a mean battlement and behind this, around the circumference of the building, appeared six slim apertures. A partial roof protected these openings. Thrusting through the grey, slate tiles was another narrower column of squared stone. This turret, rimmed by a separate parapet like the battlement below, contained indentations for the archers to fire their arrows. Above this rampart were four more small inlets under a peaked, slate roof – the shape hats worn by old witches of folklore.

From the foot of this tower we strolled up-hill past the shops of the city, each with apartments above them. Constructed centuries earlier in the typical architecture of Hesse, they comprised rammed earth panels, supported by beams and uprights, with cross braces of sturdy timber. The solid expanses were plastered in white, with the many timber pieces contrasting in stained black or brown. We paused in the shadow of the town hall with its massive white front and square black clock, showing the time at ten minutes past nine, to allow me to photograph the street. The architecture of the city interested me for its novelty. I stepped backward until I could include the Witches’ Tower into the end of the frame, yet feature in the foreground the steeple shaped, slate roof of the Rathaus with the cock of a weather vane showing stark against the blue sky.

As we approached the castle, the street became a bridge over a lower road, with walls on either side. Eberhard had paused to read the brass plaques on this entrance wall. A metal grille barred the entrance to the castle. Achtung. The sign called our attention to a notice of closure. Scaffolding erected across the entire front of the castle carried workmen cleaning down the stone walls and replacing cracked mortar.

Forbidden from entering the portcullis, we began to retrace our steps.

Eberhard said, ‘We will go around the side into Idsteinwald.’

He gestured towards the narrow Wanderweg into the forest on a hill overlooking the castle. ‘The college used the forest for all our botany lessons. We boys were expected to know the name of every tree and smaller plants.’

‘And did you?’

‘I certainly did. Our mother had taken us walking in the Rhon mountains almost every summer Sunday. I quickly learned the names of the exotic species here.’

I noticed some of the tension leave his grip. He named the trees: linden, oak, beech, larch, spruce, fir, aspen until we came to an opening in the midst of an especially thick grove of beech trees. Here an inscription, cut into ornately carved wooden planks, confronted us. A decorative frieze of acorns, oak leaves and an owl topped four boards. Eberhard read the verse.

Und wieder such ich Dich

Du Dunkler Hort

Und Deines Wipfelmeer’s

Gewaltig Rauschen.

Jetst rede Du!

Ich lasse Dir das Wort!

Verstummt ist Klag’ und Jubel.

Ich will lauschen.

‘Please translate,’ I asked.

‘It isn’t easy, but it goes something like this: And again I am looking for you, you dark forest and want to listen to the mighty roar of your tree top canopy. You are talking now! And I let you have your say! Quiet are complaints and joy. I want to listen.’

‘That’s lovely.’

‘And new!’ Eberhard turned left to lead me down another twisting track to a watercourse. After crossing the stream, we climbed a steep hill, emerging on a large, rocky outcrop above the forest trees. Positioned on the rocks we looked down on the castle and beyond to the main autobahn linking Frankfurt and Cologne.

‘I can’t remember how many times I came here and sat on this rock.’

‘It’s a great view’.

‘It was here that I first sighted the American Seventh Army moving north on the autobahn and thought what a splendid target they would have made for the Luftwaffe.’ He gave a derisive snort. ‘By then we had no air force.’

His despondency was short lived, as he pointed out the various floors of the castle, naming those used for dormitory accommodation, classrooms, and private quarters of professors, the dining room and offices. ‘I had to know who was behind any of those windows. I was the warden in charge of ensuring that the school was properly blacked out.’ His voice became charged with pride. ‘It was such an important job. My fellow students envied me.’

I brushed some lichen aside and seated myself on a ledge.

Eberhard pointed to a walled enclosure. ‘That’s the parade ground. We were chased out of bed at six in the morning, and were expected to be in formation within five minutes. The flags were raised on the battlement as the sun came up. We had to complete twenty minutes of callisthenics. After that, we ran three to five kilometres every morning.’

‘All year?’

‘Yes. Most of the year it wasn’t too bad, but we really suffered after the Christmas concert.’

‘Why?’

‘It was our only opportunity to parody our professors and mock instructors who were Partei members. All the academic teachers – history, physics, and chemistry – were professors of quality, nor were they necessarily members of the Partei. The Nationalsozialistige Deutsche Abeiter Partei was a workers party,’ he made the class distinction. ‘But the college employed several instructors who strutted around in uniform. They were our sports teachers and the like.’

‘Wasn’t your criticism rather foolish?’

‘The instructors exacted a heavy price for our levity. After Christmas the callisthenics were completed regardless of weather conditions and the early morning run was twice as long as usual. But, by the next Christmas we would be at it again.

I acquired a reputation as a practical joker.’ He grinned mischievously. ‘I wasn’t joking though when I threatened to poison a professor’s rabbits.’

‘Rabbits! Why?’

‘Doktor Hubmann was our history professor – a typical absent-minded professor. He could wear a red sock on one foot and a green on the other, and sometimes a black shoe mismatched with a brown shoe. He was totally engrossed by the study of history – nice fellow and meek too.’

‘Why did you hate his rabbits?’

‘I didn’t really. We had kept rabbits at home – for meat. But, Hubmann’s rabbits were a damned nuisance. He was always deputising one of us boys to cut milk thistles for those blasted rabbits.’ Eberhard waved towards a green sward. ‘He kept them in wooden hutches on that small grass terrace. One day he complained, saying I hadn’t cut enough thistles. I told him I would poison his confounded rabbits and then none of us would have to waste our precious time getting feed for them!’

I had glanced at my aging husband and saw the grim determination in the jut of his cleft chin. He was still a ruggedly handsome man, strongly muscled and sturdy, blond hair greying – the square head evidence of Prussian forebears.

Eberhard broke the silence. ‘Athletics was an important part of our training. The castle was a teacher training college, so we received an excellent education. We were to become primary school teachers.’

‘I’ve never thought of you as a sportsman.’ I had given his thickening mid-rift a disrespectful pat.

‘We had to be proficient in all skills – sports, shooting, music and communications. A schoolteacher was expected to conduct singing lessons. We had to be proficient musicians, playing either piano or violin.’

I knew he had chosen the violin, as he had previously mentioned this when we attended Chamber of Music concerts in Toowoomba.

‘As I had lost my mother early in the first semester, I requested advice from my grandmother, Jenny Helwig. She decided that I should learn the violin.’

Eberhard and I had married two years previously and there was much I still didn’t know about my husband. Coming to Germany for this holiday had been my idea. Despite my own lack of linguistic skill, I sought immersion amongst his family in the countryside of his birth, better to understand Eberhard. Reflective moments like this, as we sat in the warm morning sunshine, had become periods of revelation.

‘I’ve heard you sing. You have a strong voice.’

‘My voice was superb until I was drafted into the Wehrmacht, but singing at the top of my lungs while marching and carrying heavy packs strained my vocal chords. Here at Idstein, I sang in the college choir. Thanks to a gifted music teacher our choir became famous. We were invited to give concerts all over Hesse.’

‘Good times.’

‘Not always. Towards the end of 1943 I fainted at a rehearsal.’

‘Fainted?’

‘The doctor said I was anaemic and undernourished, and confined me to the infirmary for two weeks.’ He smiled. ‘I was fed special rations, including butter, until I regained my strength. But, it knocked my school grades and I missed out on getting the gold medal. We were expected to be top athletes, capable of running three hundred metres, a thousand metres, and five thousand metres. Other sports were the long jump, high jump and such things as throwing dummy hand grenades. The Sturm Abteilung presented a bronze, silver and gold medal for sporting events. I was a fairly good distance runner, but I had to train hard to get my short sprints up to scratch.

I held the bronze and silver medals, but I missed out on the gold in the third year. The competition occurred while I was convalescing. It was my misfortune that I never had another chance. I was drafted into the Wehrmacht.’

To be continued.

Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine is available on http://www.australia-book.com.au