Growing Up Nazi

As it was I couldn't remember life before Hitler and his Nazis. I watch collected moisture drip from a dying leaf and try to recall a time before this war. But I can't. I had been born October 21 in 1931, making me eight, almost nine, when the war began in 1939 with my country attacking Poland. I could not recall a time when I was not hungry or not angry at this pointless war. A war that I did not understand. I desperately tried but I could not grasp the point of all of this death or the problems put on me by the adults around me that did nothing to stop the horror. 

I was a witness as one by one the men in my town were called off to either join the war to protect Germany or, if they refused to join, to die alongside their families. I felt weak, unable to do anything as I watched my own father don his own pointed cap with the skulls and crossbones symbol. I could only watch amongst all of the other crying mothers, sisters, and children as my father waved his white handkerchief from the train until he was so far away that it was just one of many. 

I didn't allow myself to openly sob as my mother did, trying to be strong for my younger sister who fed off of my emotions like a dog. 

That was almost a month ago and now I sat with the plants, my sister sleeping beside me. I watched the small tear of water sliding evermore toward its inevitable fate of the edge of the leaf where it would drop and be absorbed by the earth. I did that and listened to the growling of my sisters stomach in her sleep. 

My mother did her best to feed us and keep us healthy but both of us were still dangerously thin and not much more then callouses and bones. I stetched my hand out and drew it down her hair. It was knotted and rough, a result of having not been washed in too long to think about. We couldn't afford soap. There were not very many I knew that could. 

Mother called our name and I gently woke my sister, telling her, "Wecken, Kleines." 'Wake, small child,' arousing her as mother always woke me. She sat up with a grumble and I pulled her inside where mother had our dinner ready. The first the thing I noticed was that there were only two slivers of bread at the table. 

I looked at her with concern, "Mother, what about you?" 

Mother averted her eyes, "I have already eaten," But I could see her lie for what it was. But I knew not to question her and I sat down for a meek meal. 

~~~~~~~ 

We had school the next day. Irmgard, my sister, was not yet old enough to attend classes, but I was in the sixth grade, high school and part of the Hitler Youth. Not by choice, but by force. All kinder my age were required to be present at the daily after school classes. And my mother didn't mind because they gave each of us a warm meal. Much better then what I got at home. 

But I was never one to follow rules and returned home after school, depising the long marches on my bare and calloused feet. Regular procedure for the Hitler Youth. They only visited once, saying I needed to be there. I still didn't go and no one ever came back. 

As I walked home from school one day, saying Heil Hitler to everyone I passed and giving the salute, I found myself remembering the day my father taught me how to Heil Hitler, explaining the proper way I must do it, with a perfectly straight arm, and saying how doing this must replace the traditional 'guten tag' and I must do it correctly. Or we could all be taken away. 

That had scared me. The fear I saw in his eyes. But then he had left and I was only left to watch my mother and sister grow thinner and thinner as the war wore on. Never ending. 

I lived in Berchtesgaden, Hitler's mountain, the infamous place where Hitler had his well-known Eagle's nest. A Nazi guard watched from the start of the road that led up the mountain to his bunker on which people stared, hoping for a glimpse of Der Führer I greeted the guard, extending my arm correctly and he nodded, allowing me to pass, not bothering to check the papers I had to carry, stating me as a descendant from a long line of pure Germans. He knew already thanks to my passing through here twice daily.