Jean: Memories of a Stolen Youth

Prologue

Unfortunately, in life one cannot go back in time, not even for a few moments. I really wish I could – and preferably for several years – so that I could do many things differently. But of course, like anyone else I can’t. Only in my thoughts I can travel back to the old days and then those memories of the past are there again, when I was a boy and later a young man. Not that these memories are always pleasant – not by a long shot. That bloody war threw my life off the rails; I really could have done without it. I often wonder what my life would have been like had I not been sucked into the mills of that madness. If only I had been able to stay in Ivanda and continue my life there, perhaps everything would have been fine. Of course, it is idle to think about this seriously, as if one could change the world by dreaming up beautiful things.

My life would certainly not have been easy, but at least it would have been my life, not one determined by some idiots who set the world on fire; by officers who ordered us to do things that no human being should have done. I would not have been forced to live in a foreign country with which I had no affinity other than the history of my ancestors. I would have been with my own family and my people.

But it’s too late for regret, now that I'm lying here dying. I've just had my bottom scratched out – I can't even go to the loo any more. My family is there, or at least some of them. I can't really see them very well, especially without my glasses; everything seems shrouded in a veil. My eyes have always been bad and yet I still ended up in the military. Back then I guess they would have taken anyone who was able to walk towards the enemy. But even walking has been impossible for me since I had that stroke. Like a war invalid I had limped for almost 30 years, but over the last few years even that was no longer possible. Now I am lying here in the nursing home and I know that it will soon be over for me. I am all too familiar with the atmosphere of a military hospital where people lay dying. I survived the war and many other things, and I have lived to be almost 82, but I probably won't make the next three months to my birthday. What a miserable end, tied to this deathbed! However, in my memories I am free and I can return once again to those days when everything still seemed possible.

IN THE BANAT

I was born in a small village called Ivanda in Romania in 1922, a descendant of former German immigrants. To be more precise, I was born in August and upon my arrival the light was very bright. Luckily it was as warm outside as it was in my mother's womb. At least the latter made things easier.

The village of Ivanda is in the Banat, a region on the border between Romania, Serbia, and Hungary. Most of the inhabitants were so-called Banater Swabians, migrants of predominantly German origin. They had immigrated in the 18th century when the monarchy of Austria wanted to repopulate the empty lands devastated after the Turkish wars. Although most of our ancestors did not come from the German region Swabia, this became our ethnic group designation, probably because most of these migrants had travelled down the river Danube from Swabian Ulm. Thus, we cultivated our Swabian culture, or at least what we considered to be Swabian culture. We tried to stay clear of the internal affairs of the Romanian regime in power at the time and above all, we kept mostly to ourselves. We didn’t assimilate Romanian culture and there was never a question of integration. This did not seem to cause the rulers any headaches either, as they held our efficiency and productivity in high esteem. After all, this was the original reason why the Habsburgs had brought us here. They wanted us to take the land and make something of it, and that’s what we, or rather our ancestors, did. None of us became wealthy, except for a few families who moved into the bigger cities and set up businesses. These urbanites also started to get more involved in the political affairs of the country, but not always successfully, while we in the countryside minded our own business. Unfortunately, this was soon to change.

Actually, we just wanted to live peacefully. It was hard enough trying to wring out a living in the humid lowlands. Like most of the community, my parents were simple, hard-working people. My mother Roza took care of the household of six children, four boys and two girls, as well as the vegetable garden. Our father, like so many others, was a farmer, working a few acres of land with his hands and a single ox. My grandmother Marga also lived with us in a small room in the house. I believe my father's family came from Schag, a small town on the road to Timisoara, because we went there one day in a horse-driven cart to fetch her. I have no memory of my grandfather Rudolph, who died a few years after returning from the First World War. My grandmother said that his lungs had given in as a result of exposure to gas in the trenches.

We didn’t have much land so life was a constant struggle, but that's how it was for a lot of people here in the village. Even though everyone had to look after themselves, there was also a lot of solidarity if anybody was in real need of help. We also had our village council, which took care of the issues within our community, and we mostly regulated our own affairs even at the regional level.

At home we didn't have any books except for the Bible, which is why my parents were unable to read or write very well. There weren't many other distractions in the house either, and so we played most of the time outside, weather permitting. Our toys were very simple. For example, the heads of the girls’ dolls were made from bottle gourds, painted by our grandmother and they were dressed in clothes made from old curtain fabric or whatever else was available. The dolls were really pretty and their pumpkin heads could withstand quite a lot rough treatment. Grandmother Marga gave me a little bear made of burlap and stuffed with straw, which I always kept under my pillow. Despite our simple circumstances, we felt we had a wonderful childhood.

Ivanda was a small village with about three hundred inhabitants. Like all villages from the time of the immigrations, the sandy streets were arranged like a chessboard, and each house had a courtyard and a large vegetable garden. When it rained hard the streets would turn into a brown sea of mud. What remained after the rain were huge, deep puddles and a wonderful smell of rain and wet ground. These puddles often lasted for weeks and were populated by fat, green frogs, and catching them was great fun. Afterwards we were always covered in mud and had to go for a swim in the village pond before we dared to go home.

Our house was typical of our village. There was a ground-level living area with the kitchen and the living room, where almost everything happened. Then there were the bedrooms, of which we had too few. For this reason, the younger boys, Jacob and Matyas, had to sleep in the living room, while my brother Nicolae and I shared a room, as did my sisters Lissi and Leni. Attached to the house was the pigsty and under the roof was the pigeon loft. When it was quiet in the house, the deep cooing of the pigeons was a constant companionable sound. However, complete silence only really occurred at night, when the pigeons were equally asleep.

There was also a small cowshed with a hayloft and a thatched roof. Everything was built around a courtyard, partly covered by grape vines, which doubled as our bathroom. There was a zinc tub, but most of the time this leaned against the wall of the house in a corner. We didn’t bath very often because this involved heating a lot of water. Instead, we usually washed ourselves using the pump in the courtyard next to the well, but even in summertime the water was very cold. However, grandma, mum, Leni and Lissi washed themselves in the house using a bowl of warm water. Our toilet was behind the cowshed. During the warm seasons it was tolerable, although the flies were a real nuisance, but during winter it was uncomfortably cold so one had to follow natures call in a hurry.

From todays material point of view, we were actually poor, but as children we didn't really know this and were just happy. Our parents always reminded us how much harder it had been for our ancestors in the 18th and 19th centuries. They told us: ‘The first had death, the second had hardship, the third only had bread.’ This saying was deeply rooted in the collective memory and described the living situation of the settlers who had migrated in the 18th century to the then swampy Banat, which was still plagued by occasional Turkish raids.

The community had its own German school in the village, but we didn't always have lessons. We had more classes in winter but none at all during the harvest season. Then we had to help in the fields from an early age and didn’t have much time for school. However, now and then the Romanian school authorities gave us warnings as to not neglect the children’s education.

As a boy, I was always outside in the gardens, in the fields or fishing from the banks of the Temesch, the big river not far from our house. I used to hang around with my friends, Sepi Horti and Karl Follmer, during the holidays. Sepi was not one of us. He was a Serb, but this didn’t bother us, of course. Only my father Nicolae didn’t like him very much. He wanted us to keep to ourselves and only work together with the Serbs and Romanians when it was absolutely necessary. He also thought that the ‘lazy Serb’ prevented us from working. Everyone was expected to pitch in and not just enjoy themselves. This was his simple philosophy of life – pray and work – almost like in a monastery. We only found out later that he also had other pleasures.

During my early childhood we did not have a horse to work the fields. Only an ox. It was quite old and, in contrast to us, quite fat. My mother Roza was often desperate to feed her brood and scolded me every time I tried to run away instead of helping in the gardens. But she was a good woman – firm but also fair – as one had to be with a herd of six children. Although we had to work, there was still time to roam around.

In 1932, autumn arrived early and it became pretty cold. Nevertheless, on a slightly foggy Saturday morning I decided to go fishing at the Temesch. I had already caught a few small fish when there was a crackling noise in the bushes behind me. I looked around but couldn’t see anything. Then there was a loud rustling sound nearby and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I grabbed my fishing knife with my right hand and the club with which I killed the fish in the other and walked slowly towards the bushes. Suddenly a small furry face appeared. I screamed and jumped backwards, but it was only a young brown bear who was now pushing its way through the undergrowth, approaching me curiously. I immediately remembered my father's warnings. Where there is a little bear, the mother is not far away. Normally there were no bears in our area. They stayed in the mountains, but the early snow could have brought them here. The little one was standing in front of me now but I couldn't hear any other sounds. Maybe it was alone? But bears can also be very, very quiet, my father had said. Carefully, I held one of my small fish out to it. Amazingly, it came right up and grabbed it. It seemed to be completely starved. The fish disappeared immediately so I held out another. It took that one too. What to do? Maybe it wasn’t wild at all, but had escaped from somewhere? Hence, I decided to take it home with me. I held it carefully by the neck and with a fish in front of its nose, I lifted it into my cart and put it next to the bucket with the catch. It eagerly helped itself to the fish on the way back. There was probably not going to be lunch from the Temesch catch today. In the village, people were amazed when I rolled through the streets with my new companion. The bear seemed to enjoy it too, sitting there looking around with wide open eyes. The bucket was empty by now and its belly was obviously full.

When we got home, my dad looked at me with wide eyes too. Surprisingly, he reacted quite calmly, which did not happen very often with him.

Where did you find this?

It found me by the river, I explained. It was all alone so I fed it and then took it with me. Can I keep it dad?

A bear like that needs a lot of food, Ioan, and he’s going to get a lot bigger, he replied.

We could build a small stable for it and I would get its food, I said.

I looked at my father with pleading eyes and it was one of the rare moments when I could catch something like true warmth in his gaze. I knew then that I would get to keep the bear. At least for now.

What should we call it then?

Paul! I said off the top of my head.

Is it a boy? dad asked.

I hadn't thought of that. But my father grabbed it and cleared it up on the spot. It was a Paul. Now my brothers and sisters came out of the house and gazed in amazement at our new family member. Paul was led into an empty pigsty and we went into the house to eat. We were not even properly seated at the table when there was a terrible whining sound outside. Paul didn't seem to like being in the pigsty at all. After a while, the howling got on my parents’ nerves too and so the bear was allowed out of the pigsty. This seemed to calm him down, except that he began following me wherever I went. Eventually, of course, he followed me into the house, where he went into a corner and took a nap. There he stayed and from then on became a real pet.

Paul was a clever bear and quickly figured out whom he had to charm in order to secure his stay in our house. Although I was the one who made sure there was always enough for him to eat, he seemed to be particularly fond of my father. When he came in from the fields, Paul would be waiting at the gate to greet him, much to the dismay of our dog Asta, although she, too, came to terms with Paul’s presence. Inside the house, he would lie at my father’s feet under the table, growling contentedly. He behaved just like a dog. My father didn’t really let on how much he liked it, but displeasure at this disloyalty was written all over my face.

Paul was also docile and trainable in other respects, so I taught him how to dig up potatoes. With his strong claws, this was easy for him. Of course, he was only after the food, but since I was present, I could always pull him away and collect most of the potatoes, while he had to make do with one or two. In this way he helped me in the garden and at the same time reduced the amount of work I had to do to get him food. Of course, my father didn't like this at all, as he would have preferred to see all the potatoes going into the cellar. Hence, we shifted our tactics to going to the church fairs in the many small surrounding communities. My father put a device on our bicycle for this purpose so I could attach the handcart and ride off with Paul in tow. As he was a very good-natured bear, I would sit with him at the edge of the market square and whoever wanted to – and dared to – was allowed to cuddle him for a few minutes after paying a few bani to his caretaker. This business went quite well. As he was not wearing a muzzle and was now almost fully grown, it became a bit of a test of courage, especially for the young men who wanted to show off in front of their girls. I also took a small bag of potatoes with me and whoever paid was allowed to put one into his mouth. That was only for the very brave. We all had fun and when the weather was good, we made a few lei by the end of the afternoon. Then we packed up and cycled home. I was very proud of the money I earned and was allowed to keep some of it, while the rest went into the household kitty. We did this every weekend in late summer until the church fairs were over. Unfortunately, we were able to do this for one season only, because Paul grew steadily and became heavier and heavier. Although he could still fit into the handcart, I could barely pull it with the bike, let alone slow it down, so we had to give up this side-line.

One sultry summer afternoon, when I was about 12 years old, my friends Sepi and Karl came over to our house. We were hot and bored and were sitting in our courtyard in the shade of the grape vines when my mother left the house. Grandma was taking her afternoon nap and my father was fishing with friends at the Temesch. Paul was also lying in the shade, dozing off. I had been wondering for some time what might be behind the small door at the end of the hall, especially since my parents always kept it locked and when they opened it, they made sure that none of us were in the room. As there was nothing else to do, I went into the house and took a closer look at the door, sniffed at the keyhole, and thought I detected a faint fruity smell. It was a regular lock so I went over to my father's workshop, got a nail, clamped it in the vice and bent it with the hammer to make a lock pick. Then I hammered the tip a bit on the anvil and my key was ready. I had seen my father do this a few months earlier when he could not find the key to the shed. The makeshift key quickly went into the lock. I turned it once and the door immediately opened with a slight click. I carefully pulled the door handle and looked into a small shed containing several large glass jars of cherries and plums. They looked excellent and as I felt hungry, I took one of them out into the courtyard. My two friends were looking at me expectantly and their eyes widened at the sight of the fruits. We took off the lid and each one reached into the jar to take out a handful of cherries. They smelled a little strange but not unpleasant. Although they tasted a bit sharp and tangy, they were good and everyone wanted more. I was afraid that my parents would notice that the level of cherries had gone down so I closed the jar, took it back into the house and got another one. Now we could have some more. From then on, the situation began unravelling as a result of the pickled fruit. First Sepi started to giggle, which was contagious, and Karl and I followed suit. Then he started to laugh and we both couldn't stop ourselves: we laughed so hard that we could hardly breathe and our stomachs began to hurt. For a moment I thought I would suffocate. Once our laughter had subsided, I began to feel very hungry.

I could eat something now, I said in a slow strange voice."

The other two looked at me and burst out laughing again.

I'll go and catch us a pigeon, Karl said.

He stood up and immediately fell over again. We looked at each other in disbelief and started laughing again. Now all of us tried to get up but we could only crawl towards each other. Then the three of us staggered across the courtyard towards the pigeon loft, falling down several times and laughing our heads off. Finally, we managed to climb the small ladder to the loft above the kitchen. We pushed the door open and fell into the pigeons’ home with such a roar that all the birds fled. What we hadn’t taken into account was the thin reed mat ceiling above the kitchen and so the inevitable came to pass: the ceiling collapsed under our collective weight and we took it with us as we fell onto the kitchen table. I had just begun to realise that this had been a bad idea when my father came into the room. I can still see his face, which immediately swelled and began to glow red. He grabbed Sepi and Karl and threw them out through the open window. While I heard their cries of pain, he grabbed me by the collar, seized a piece of firewood and beat me savagely. I screamed, tore myself away and dived under the table. He was so enraged, however, that he yanked me out again by my legs and continued to beat me.

I'll kill you, you bastard. You useless, good-for-nothing scumbag! You miserable snot-nose, he screamed.

I screamed too and thought he was really going to beat me to death. Fortunately, amidst of all this, my grandmother appeared, snapped my father's raised hand, and said in her calm, dark voice: Nicolae, stop it, you're killing the boy.

When he now let go, my whole back ached and burned like fire. Eventually I crawled out of the kitchen into our bedroom and I heard my grandmother say: It’s all your fault, Nicolae. Why didn't you lock the liquor cupboard?

I heard my father's stomping down the hall and slamming the door loudly into the lock. Then there was silence and I lay in our bed crying myself to sleep. Dad would never learn from me that the door had actually been locked.

I didn't notice any of the tidying up that evening and when I awoke the next morning my brother Nicki was already up. Now not only did my back hurt, but also my head. It was buzzing so badly that I could lift it only a few inches at a time. When I was finally on my feet, I shuffled into the courtyard and pumped the cold well water over my head. That felt good. My mother came out of the house and looked at me. Then she said, You've created a nice mess here, Ioan. She looked me over again, put her arm around my shoulder and led me into the house. I have never forgotten that touch for the rest of my life.

Inside the house, the kitchen was clean again. The hole in the ceiling had been provisionally covered with an election poster of the National Peasants’ Party. Elections were quite frequent in Romania. Not least because the king had parliament dissolved whenever he didn't like the politics. My parents were rather apolitical people and I wondered why they hadn’t just stuck the front of the poster against the ceiling. This way, however, the party candidate would probably watch us eat for a while. Now we could hear the cooing of the pigeons better, I thought, but I couldn't laugh about it. My father came home for lunch and didn't even look at me. His anger seemed to have subsided but I felt he was not finished with the matter. Talking was not his forte so he did not warn me to keep my hands off the jugs in the future – but there was no need to, I already knew this.

My own misery and my aching back and head kept me busy all day, but I enjoyed the attention of my siblings, who kept trying to cheer me up. It was starting to get dark when I remembered that I hadn't looked after Paul, let alone seen him. Oh my God, how could I have forgotten him? But where was he anyway? He could have turned up long ago if he were hungry. He wasn’t in the house, so I went out into the courtyard and looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if he had gained access to the vegetable garden in his distress. That would cause a lot of trouble again. My back was already hurting again. I opened the gate and went inside the garden. It was huge, but so was Paul and I would have spotted him immediately if he had been in it. I walked on, but everything seemed normal. No plants had been trampled or rummaged over. But where was my Paul? A lump rose in my throat. What had happened? He certainly wasn’t here and so I ran back into the yard. My heart was in my mouth. In the cowshed – nothing. In the pigsty – nothing. In the shed – nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing! Where was he? I had a terrible premonition, but what could I do? I ran into the street, asked the neighbours, all the people I met. Everyone in the village knew us by now, but no one had seen Paul. It was getting dark and I returned to the house. My father was sitting at the table.

Where were you? he asked.

I was in the village looking for Paul, but he is nowhere to be found, I answered.

Maybe he was hungry, you neglected him today. He probably went looking for his food somewhere else. That’s what happens when you don’t do your chores, he said.

He didn't look at me and continued to spoon soup into his mouth. I didn't know exactly what had happened, but I knew that he was lying. He had something to do with Paul's disappearance. It didn't seem to bother him in the least that he was gone.

Paul would never return and from that day on I hated my father with all my heart. Despite this rift, I could not imagine leaving this family circle for a long time and yet things happened that made this inevitable in the end.

GROWING UP

When I turned 14, I finished school and was apprenticed to the butcher, Mats Kandler, in Johannisfeld. He was also the local headman and a distant relative of my mother’s. I was supposed to learn a trade because according to our so-called Anerberecht - the right of inheritance - only the eldest son, Nicolae, would inherit the farm. The rest of us had to find a livelihood elsewhere. My parents thought that becoming a butcher was the right profession for me, but I didn't want that at all. I had completely different ideas about what I would like to do, but of course I wasn’t asked. Because I lived in the neighbouring village, I didn’t have to stay overnight with my master. On the one hand, this was good because I wouldn't miss my family but, on the other, it meant getting up very early every day and walking to Johannisfeld, whatever the weather. This could be an arduous undertaking, especially in winter, when there was a lot of snow. I was also not keen on slaughtering and processing animals. I rather admired the drivers of the big machines and lorries that occasionally roared through our village in a huge plume of dust. To me they were the real guys and I would have liked to do something like that. But I had no choice. What else could I do here?

The way to Johannisfeld was long and even if I walked at a brisk pace, which was almost automatic in the winter cold, it still took me over an hour. In summer I was often allowed to use our bicycle, which made the commute easier. It was also daylight by then and I didn't have to be so afraid of wolves. Of course, there were no longer wolves in our valley, but the old people kept on telling stories from the times when the wolves visited regularly in winter and those had left their mark.