My First Step As a Dealer --- Childhood Memories (2)

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How small a child’s world is! The yard behind and the street in front of the house were all I knew and needed. What joy when the goat had kids and we could play with them. I also had a trained hen once which came to me, spread its wings and allowed me to stroke it! The street was a cul-de-sac, fenced off from the goods station/freight depot of the town with a row of houses on either side. From early spring to late autumn hordes of children used to play in the dirt and mud (the pavement had no asphalt) or in the street. No probs as there were no private cars around in those days. We were always dirty. In winter we went tobogganing on a slope nearby. Quite often Soviet tanks stood on the other side of the fence, watched by bored young soldiers who let us climb onto the tanks occasionally. They had no presents for us, though, as the American soldiers had for the children in West Germany. No chewing-gum from them! Instead we gave them something sometimes. Poor sods, thousands of kilometres away from home, badly housed, badly dressed and badly fed. The winners of the war, but also the losers. One event has become family lore. My grandmother, always a business woman, had heard that coal had been unloaded at the goods station. Yet, the whole area was off limits for German civilians. So she packed some ripe pears in a bag and sent me through the hole in the fence through which the children used to crawl to the Soviet soldiers and told me to exchange them for some coal briquets. Which I did. How I managed language-wise, I can’t say. I was only four or five years old! ----- If you're interested in more childhood memories, click on the green bar 'MALUS CHILDHOOD MEMORIES' above the title.