Oma story part 2

Margret Clarke (Oma) her story from World War 2 This is part 2

Some of you will remember my my mother Margret (Oma) Clarke 4th Dan she was a very popular Judo Coach you can find more details at 

http://www.youngjudoclub.co.uk/Margret%20Clarke%20forgotten%20Heroine.htm

This is my life Story. I am now seventy years old and thinking back on my life. Some of it was sad, some funny and lots of time happy. I can remember every day my parents with love and affection, the time they spent with me telling me about the past and the different life style. My father was a wonderful story-teller and I remember sitting in our flat in the kitchen at our big table listening spellbound to his tales. The whole family life was spent a lot round the table, my Mother sewing or cooking on one end, my Father reading a book and me doing my homework.

Margret with Cousins just before the war

My father had his education as a boarder at monastery in East Germany, My grandparents came from a mainly Catholic area and when my Grandfather got a different posting in East Germany it was decided to send him for Catholic education in a monastery and my Aunt was sent to be educated by nuns. Whilst she enjoyed it my Father hated it, it was quite an eye opener to look more behind the scenes. Of all the monks he liked only one and in later years he found that the monk had been transferred away for some wrongdoing. My father said that nothing improper ever happened to him and he said the Monk was very kind realising that my father was homesick. The Monk was extremely lively and full of high spirits. My father had a good voice and had to sing a solo in front of the King of Saxony.

My mother had a more sedate life, her father had a very large roof making business and she had a quiet and somehow boring life. She had two more sisters and did not want to spend her time waiting for a husband. She asked her father to go to college to become an accountant. (Margret’s Grandfather owned a 6-story house and at one time had servants. They were Roof Makers I believe over 300 years old) Life was quiet in both families till 1914 when the First World War broke out. My father was not quite seventeen years old but he volunteered and got accepted by lying about his age. The same year on Christmas Eve he got wounded in Poland, he was left during the night and heard someone crying. He found a young Russian soldier nearby, both of them tried to keep each other warm. Early in the morning the German Red Cross found my father, at first they refused to take the Russian as well as he was nearly dead and there was not enough room in the ambulance. After my father refused to leave him they took him and the Russian soldier who died in his arms. It left a big impression on him.

Margret's Grandparents

Also around this time he was awarded the Iron Cross second class for delivering important messages to another company by passing through enemy lines. After the war life and conditions changed dramatically. My father moved with his family back to the West Germany and next door to my mothers home.

Tragedy came to my mother, in one year her mother died, a few weeks later her brother and later her older sister died of influence. Four other girls in the street died also.

The great inflation then hit Germany, wives waited for their husbands to get paid and rushed to the shops to get food. My mother was working for the local council and as inflation got worse a month’s wage could buy a pound of butter. My grandfather had a three-month contract and after paying his workers he had just enough money to buy a box of matches. He had to make all his staff redundant and worked only for himself and his son. In the end big firms printed money on the premises and the amounts involved went into billions of Reichsmark.

The life in Germany became quite desperate and at that time the Ruhr French soldiers occupied district. Germany had not fulfilled the quota of coal, which had to be send to France. Then came the time of the great unemployment. My parents did not to get married till my father did find work. After a long wait he got an offer away from their town. It was in a different County call the Sauerland and a Baron von Elberfield would employ him. His duties would be to be responsible for the electricity on all his farms and also keeping the farm machinery in working order. My parents decided to accept the post as a house was supplied with the job It was a very old house supposed to have been an highwayman’s hideout. The house was in a deep forest and in front of their house was a fairly large lake. In the summer it was very idyllic, however it was very bleak and could be snowed in in the winter. My father was very busy and out all day. He was a good musician and the people in the village liked him a lot and asked him out to the village local to play piano. Nobody had a radio and his entertainment was most welcome. My mother was very lonely as she came from a large family and was used to town life. Her only company was the occasional visits of some Gypsies who lived in the woods behind the house.

My parents got married in 1924 and I was born in December 1926. It was extremely cold that winter and my father had to fetch the midwife in the middle of the night leaving my mother alone. It took over two hours to get her to my mother, by that time I nearly arrived. As I got older and started to crawl I managed to get out of the house and found my way to the lake where I fell in, luckily some Gypsy children where near by fishing and got me out just in time. Another time I found my way to the Gypsy camp and  got under the hooves of their horses and pulled on their tails. The horses stood quite still till someone came to rescue me.

By that time I had a little sister and was very fond of her. The milkman came only twice a week so my parents bought a goat. This caused much amusement to the villagers who somehow got to hear about it as news travelled very fast. It took my mother some time to master the art of milking.

My mother’s father came once to visit us and promised some work in Witten Annen for my father. he found some work as a electrician there. On moving home my sister got a bad cold, which developed, into Bronchitis and she died a few days later. At the time my father visited his parents who had moved to Dortmund. My mother was heartbroken and later told me that to loose a child is like some part of you dies as well. She never forgave my grandmother for saying she now had an angel in heaven to pray for. She did not want an angel in heaven but a child on earth. I remember vaguely missing my sister and looking for her in the most peculiar places. After a while I started playing with my cousins.

My grandfather had a large house and on each floor his children had a flat with their families, as my parents were the last to move only the attic was free, we had to share the flat with another family. The man of this family was a tailor and customers used to come to his rooms. He had a large family and money was short, the children got clothed from the remnants of the suits he made for customers. The wife was scrupulously clean and all the family’s clothes would be washed with a wash board every night and dried overnight over the cooker

During the week brown bread, lentil beans and dried pea soup was their main meals. Many times did I sit with the husband at the big tailor table and watched him sew whilst the wife used a very ancient sewing machine to finish the garments. Sometimes I was allowed to help with the tucking of the cloth before sewing it. Thinking back on that time I know I learned quite a lot, which came useful in later years.

Margret's Parents with husband Nobbys Parents 1950 what was the name of the baby?

My mother also taught me a lot of needlework and the finer art of embroidery. As a young lady she was sent for several months on a course for the finer art of sewing to the nuns who ran a school for young ladies, she used to come home at night. As I got older I also attended a short course but only on an afternoon in the week.

As more lost their jobs my father got unemployed, money was very short I remember my mother cleaning my grandfather's rooms in order to live rent-free. What he did not tell anyone, he also paid insurance for her. It was a big surprise when my mother got a small pension in later life. This was because the other children had better flats then us, we only had meat on Sundays or cake in the afternoon. The cakes in Germany are very tasty and therefore very tempting for young child. My mother made always certain that I had wholesome food. I always had fruit, milk and butter.

On the whole up to then I had an uneventful childhood but a lot of changes were in the air. In 1933 I started school, it was an eventful time, not because of school started but the present Kleinemannerkins got (in English it means the little I men). It was a nickname for the first year school children. After the first day the parents waited outside the school with a big colourful cone filled with lots of goodies and photos were taken. On that day I had my first marriage proposal. After the first year I never did see the boy again as his parents moved away.

1931/32/33 was the time of a lot of political upheaval in Germany. Even at that young age I was aware of it. My father was a patriot and belonged to a group of ex service men, our neighbours turned into communists and the friendship ended between the two families. I even remember a fistfight between my father and the oldest son. My mother stepped in to stop he fight. At the same time my father was during the war under the command of General Hindenburg and admired him very much and was proud when Hindenburg became the Reichsmarschall of Germany. When Adolf Hitler became the fuehrer in 1933 he was upset and I overheard him telling my mother that would be the end of Germany.

My father did find work in a industrial firm which was only across the road from our flat. Work was easy to find for everyone, Hitler gave Germany its self-respect back. He gave the working class the chance to have holidays; it was called ‘Kraft Durch Freude' translated in English Strength through Joy. All this impressed most of the people and only in later years came the rude awakening. My father and his father had heated discussion about politics. My grandfather sceptical about the regime in religious matters and he proved to be right.

My father was impressed with the Third Reich that he became a member of the party. The day I remember well was my first communion, it was very much a family day with lots of relations coming for coffee. Even the shopkeepers sent flowers for small presents. We dressed in white with flowers in our hair and we were also presented with a wonderful decorated candle. The candle would only be used on special occasions.

For the first years of my schooling I was in Catholic school under a very strict regime, we were expected to go to Mass besides Sunday school every school day. Each morning we had to tell the teacher if we went or not and had to give reasons if we did not go to Mass. At that time my father left the church and the priest came one day to my classroom, my teacher had to point me out to him. Nothing was said but I felt as an outcast. If we saw a priest in the street we had to curtsey. If we saw a priest we would try to hide because the protestant children used to laugh at us.

My parents were very loving but also very strict. My cousins got more spoiled even if they came from larger families. It was expected of me to do well at school and both my parents spent a lot of time reading with me and controlling my homework. I used to like sport and was good at it, for instance I liked gymnastic dancing, which at that time was not known in my hometown. I remember visiting my grandparents in Dortmund and as the adults were busy talking I got bored and started to do cartwheels and gym sequence, when my grandmother called out in horror that she hoped I would not become a dancer. On the occasion of our visits I always had to recite a poem or song. This time I deliberately sang a rude version of a Christmas song and made out I did not know what it was about. Everyone was shocked except my grandfather who grinned and winked at me. He was friend for life for me and my grandfather never let me forget it.

After a few years we all were made aware through propaganda of the danger to our country from the Jews. My parents were the first owners of a radio and we listened spellbound to everything on the set, some of it was a mystery.

In our shopping centre we had a shop selling everything from darning needles to wool clothing and dress material. I used to love going in the shop for any excuse. Quite a few shop assistants were employed who were very polite. Sometimes the owner of the shop was there and treated even us children friendly. Her name was Frau Rosenthal, which I found out later was a typical Jewish name. I was later asked in England if I ever played with Jewish children and realised I did not know any. We had many Jewish shopkeepers in our town that lived in a quite exclusive part of our town but I cannot remember seeing any children or babies when passing their villas. Later I was told that their children were sent abroad. In the beginning the Jews mixed freely as neighbours till one day all of them had to have the Star of David on their clothing. The attitude towards them became more hostile. It worried my mother and she stressed it upon me that we are all God’s children, but I looked at them with some suspicion and some of the books and films became anti Jewish. '

After I was at school for three or four years the school system got changed, all religious schools were abolished and we had to attend schools, which were near to our homes. It made no change to me except that we had different school friends and different teachers. That suited me fine, as some of the teachers were alienate to me since my father had left the church. I started to like to go to school and learned well with very good report at the end of each term, I even got top marks one year on sports day. It was in my parents mind not very feminine, I was disappointed that they thought like that so I deliberately became a tomboy. .

One night instead of going out that evening my father stayed at home, I was already in bed but often I was listening to my parents conversation. I realised that my Father was upset. He had orders to be involved in the now infamous Kristallnacht. That was the night when all over Germany Jewish people got attacked and their houses were smashed. My father was horrified that woman and old men should be treated like that. My father defied that order and stayed at home. I don't know what happened to my father for he was for quite some time depressed. I was never told about this episode and I never let it be known that I had overheard it.

The news in the papers and on the radio got steadily worse and the grownups talked about the possibility of a coming war. I heard of the homecoming of the Sudetenland in to the German Reich and saw it at the newsreel in the cinema. Then came the Polish question, some part of Poland used to be German and was taken away after the first war, The Sudetenland was simply occupied by German troops, also Austria came into the now called German Reich. First the Sudetenland was taken back into Germany and most people thought that we were invincible, but Poland was a different matter and in September 1939 the allies of Poland declared war. The family was stunned by it and though things were going well in the beginning the older people remembered the first war, but did not realise that worse was to come.

How most remember her 

My own life was still very tranquil, I became a B D M girl which was something similar to Girl Guides here in England, it was compulsory for every girl to belong to it but most girls did not take part in their activities. I however did it wholeheartedly and enjoyed it. Thinking back on those years I can honestly state that I was not brainwashed, political or otherwise as the allies had suggested. We did craftwork, learning German folk songs, poetry and we did folk dancing and to my dismay I had to play the accordion and had to stay in the middle as the other girls danced around me. I would have rather danced myself. '

Food rationing had started which in the beginning of the war was quite sufficient. We all had ration cards and as far as I can remember with sheets of numbers and weekly it was announced what number to use for what food and how much. Sometimes we got an extra portion and to the delight of us children we even had chocolate, not often. It was a lot of work for the shopkeepers and we had to help by pasting the coupons on forms. I worked for our family’s butcher who was also a friend of the family.

At that time I was aware for the first time of foreign people. We lived in such small community/ family town and  even another person from a different town and dialect was new and interesting to us children.

When I left school I had a chance to become a teacher. My parents did not approve, as there might be a possibility to move away from my hometown. (We did not realise that I would move to England, but with the approval of my parents). I wanted to be a district nurse which were called at that time a “brown sister". Again my parents were too protective and thought it might upset me to be with sick people. I was persuaded to learn to be an accountant. I had two years of training when the war ended and everything was in chaos. However before that happened and the war with Russia had not started, Hitler made an arrangement with Russia. To get some German villagers out of Siberia into Poland and those Polish families had to be transported to Siberia; some girls from my county could volunteer to stay for three weeks with the families from

Siberia. I did go, we stayed two days in Berlin where I saw for the first time a coloured soldier. He must have been an officer, I remember staring at him and he realised it and smiled at me. when we got to our destination we lived at a school. The German people were so beautiful but so different from us. At first we could not understand each other. Their speech was so old fashioned. The food was different and a marriage broker arranged marriages. Suddenly the war with Russia started and some German soldiers came to protect us and take us home. I often thought what became of those German families. When I got home my father found that I stayed near where he got wounded inthe First World War.

In the meantime the war came nearer to us. We had the first air raids, but they went-mainly to Berlin and bigger cities and it did not concern us a lot. The first big shelter got built and somewhere several stories high. (Some are still in existence, as some were considered too dangerous to remove, as there was to many houses close by.

As the raids got worse everyone has small suitcase ready just in case we were bombed out.