What's it like to be German? ( Archived) (38)

My mother has a niece about the same age as herself called 'Mutti'. I guess she's maternal.

Mutti's daughter, Ilona, used to travel Europe collecting stray dogs and Mutti's Hausfrau ways gave way to a houseful of mutts. Ilona once went to a party where a live pig was being auctioned to go on the barbeque. She bid beyond her means to save the pig. She and her now husband live on a farm where they devote their lives to a multitude of rescued animals (including the pig).

Oncle Franz, my mother's eldest brother needed a bIcycle to get to his first job as a man. He put a down payment on two - the much needed one for himself and one for his littlest sister, my mother. He paid off my mother's first and continued his twenty mile walk to work until he could pay off his own.

My Tante Annie had bipolar disorder as far as I can work out. She was so afraid of the world ending at the Millennium, she threw herself out of the farm loft with a noose around her neck.

Her husband, Oncle Heinz only joined in a conversation to say, "Uh huh. Doch, doch." Cousin Erica, their daughter, liked bananas.

Tante Gertrude had four children and lost three of them. One was training to be a doctor, but passed out on his break and choked on his vomit. The autopsy showed his stomach was eaten away with cancer. My cousin Reinhild died of cystic fibrosis. I only met her once when I was four years old, but she was my heroine - I thought she was the most stylish and beautiful young woman who ever lived. After she died, Tante Getrude kept a lamp for me that was to go in Reinhild's newly decorated bedroom for when she came out of hospital. I still have it.

Tante Aggie, like my mother, married a British man. She abandoned her only child Johnny to live with his unfailingly critical paternal grandmother. He was shy, awkward and hung himself when he was in his twenties. Aggie had her left hand beaten raw at school, so she could only use her right.

Another cousin worked day and night to support her son who she had to lodge with a foster family, back in the days when being a single mother was a moral crime.

Oncle Erwin and Tante Herta were friends who were wealthy, but childless. They sent us presents every Christmas, birthday and Easter. Lovely clothes, toys, chocolates. I still have the hump-backed, straw filled, traditional German teddy bear who arrived in a shoe box for my 7th birthday.

Oncle Otto and Tante Helga were not so wealthy friends, but we're equally generous towards us, giving gifts of Steiff toys and welcoming us into their home. We watched The Little Mole on their television. We sat for hours talking over delightful Kaffeetrinken and Abendessen. Their daughter Connie married an American soldier from a nearby base and then emigrated to the US. She still writes to my mother.

During the war when they only had onion soup (recipe: one onion, lots of water), my Oma would carefully pick out every last bit of onion for my mother as it made her sick. If my mother was sick at her sister's table, she'd be made to eat her own vomit.

My sister had a penfriend, Uta, who she visited when she was 15. On hearing that her little sister (me) had a pig obsession and collection, Uta's parents gave my sister a small Steiff bore to bring home to me. I was so moved they had thought of me, I kept bursting into tears for a whole day. I still have the bore. My sister amused them with Irish jokes told in German with an Irish accent. The German equivalent to Irish jokes, are Bavarian jokes, or at least they once were.

Does that give you an idea of what German people are like? Kind, abusive, caring, tragic, funny, sad, tough, delicate, thoughtful, thoughtless, welcoming, rejecting, loving...much like everywhere else, perhaps.

My father was German in the USA with 9 uncles and no more story.
He was a ruler over his children and his wife and almost died alone.