Special Places

My Special Place

I long to be in the small German city of Germersheim, the birthplace of my mother. It is situated on the western bank of the Rhine River, on the French side. The local German dialect has traces of French. A three hundred year old building still proudly bears the sign that Napoleon once spent the night there.

Germersheim used to be a military fortress, and so the old town was completely surrounded by a wall, 12 feet tall and about 3 feet thick, although today much of it has been destroyed from 300 years worth of constant battering. My grandparents moved there during the 1930’s when my grandfather was an officer in the German Wehrmacht (army). My grandfather, one of the few lucky soldiers to survive WWII, returned there after the war, surrendered to the Americans, and was imprisoned for two years. My grandmother remained in Germersheim to be near her husband, to visit him twice weekly, and to bring him food because prison rations were meager.

As a child, I roamed the streets of Germersheim. I know the city like I know the faces of my children. For years, my grandfather would take me on walks, telling me which buildings my grandmother has to flee from because a bomb had dropped in the vicinity, and stories of his escape from the army. I know of all his hiding places. I know of the hospital where, risking his life, he went to look on the face of his daughter who was nearly dying of fever. I know every one of the 5 buildings my grandmother lived in during the war, and I can tell you what happened at each of them.

The one I am always drawn to is in the city center, across from what is today the post office. On the ground floor is a tobacco and magazine shop, but the upper levels were apartments. My grandmother, great-grandmother, and the children lived there when Germany had finally surrendered. There were no steps in the building. They had been chopped up for firewood during the winter. To get from one floor to the other they had to use ladders.

Perhaps not known to many, the French army had units of Moroccan soldiers—and unlucky for the women of Germersheim, they were the occupying force of this part of Germany. The French gave the Moroccan enlisted men free roam of the city for 24 hours. Mass rape occurred—to my great grandmother and grandmother, and to any woman or girl with pubic hair. Months later, mass abortions.

The youth of their adulthood was shattered into bits. Yet somehow they glued their lives back together with strength, humor, and grace. I doubt could come through such adversity without bitterness, but these places remind me of what the human spirit is capable of enduring.