WE WERE LUCKY
An autobiography by Hilde Gerrard neé Weissenberg, born 1907 LIFE BEGINS TO LOOK MORE REGULAROne day Gerhard got a case of German books and had to go to the station to claim them. To his surprise the clerk spoke to him in a very good German and within a very few days we got an invitation from him and his wife for the four of us to come to tea to their house. He had been a prisoner in the First World War and had continued to learn the language. They made us very welcome and became uncle and aunt to the children and good friends to us. The only air-raid exercise happened on the way to their house for our first visit and we arrived wearing gas masks, which luckily we never had to wear in earnest.
We bought several household utensils from the local ironmonger's shop and as the owner had a vacancy for a salesman and Gerhard applied, he gave him the job. So he finished his gardening and learned how to make keys, a lot about artificial manures and that saucepans and kettles were very scarce.
I started to teach German. At first our neighbours asked me to teach them and they came to our home. As soon as it was known that I had a group, the Evening Institute offered me the job in the school, which I gladly accepted. I was well paid and I enjoyed the work. My classes grew and were filled to the last chair - about 30 people attended. I had no training and no experience at all but I prepared myself well in advance of the lessons. I had a very nice headmaster and one day I wanted to ask him if he thought that my teaching was in order and I confessed, again, that I was a "bloody beginner" (literally translated from "blutiger anfaenger" meaning inexperienced). He said that the class was going well but made no comment to my expression but disappeared and for weeks I only saw him at a distance. When I got to know what I had said, I went to his office and told him about my "bloody" ignorance and he confessed that he had laughed so much that he avoided meeting me in the corridors.
My students sometimes sat for examinations and I got such recommendations based on the results that I continued teaching even after the war, when the teachers were back again. I stayed at this and other larger colleges for twenty-one years teaching German. At an influx of continental foreign workers I taught English but only for a short time, as they soon settled in the country, where they heard the language all day long.
Gerhard was working as an ironmonger, when a few months later the manager of a nearby branch shop had to go for military service. The boss offered Gerhard the position as branch manager, which he gladly accepted. His German name of Gerhard was however not favoured and he did not mind what be was called, as long as it was not Jerry - so he become known as ironmonger "George", the British workman. There was a flat above the shop, which was unoccupied, and we moved in. Albert and Bertchen sold the house again, which their had bought for us.
At the time when we arranged to move, Albert and Bertchen's employer died. As she wanted her dog to have a good home she left them part of her furniture; enough to enable them to set up a small house. They left the village with the dog and the furniture and found a place, where he could set up his upholstery business. It was very near the shop where we lived and we became close neighbours again and stayed together for many years. Albert was upholstering and Bertchen taught herself to sew loose covers for soft furnishings. They were both very busy and earned a reasonable living.
We all enjoyed the day when they bought a secondhand van to move the furniture to be upholstered. On Sunday we got a lift to the countryside or the sea. The petrol allowance was limited so we either collected or delivered chairs or armchairs and used them as seats when we travelled, as the van had only two seats and there were six of us and the dog Tisa. During those excursions we had our first glimpse of England and thoroughly enjoyed what we saw of it. It was St. Annes, Blackpool and the Yorkshire Dales.
Albert and Bertchen gave the children a small portable organ and soon they started practising. On one Sunday afternoon we had English visitors to tea and the children played and sang "Land of Hope and Glory" very proudly and the visitors were amused at their choice; they and we meant it!
They went to the local infant school, which was near home. One day my daughter came home crying - a girl had pricked her with a needle in her arm and called her "You German". I don't know if this was the reason but neither of our children spoke German. We tried to bring them up bi-lingual and they understood every word we said to them in German but they replied in English only. At night they wanted a bedtime story and that story was available in German only and that way they had later on a large vocabulary at their disposal, when at last they decided to speak German too, when they were already in their teens.
V.E. Day (Victory in Europe) came at last and the joy of Victory. The town was illuminated and everybody was in the streets. I had only rice in the house, made a large bowl of risotto and the neighbours came in for supper - we were accepted.
Our nearest and dearest were amongst the heaviest casalties. Six million Jews were killed.
A few days after V.E. day a transport arrived with young Jewish people in their teens. They were originally from Eastern Europe and had been forced to work in German munition factories and were freed when the Allied troops entered Germany. The young people were accommodated in a large country house in Brierfield and the local women visited them and taught them sewing, handicraft, English, etc. One girl in particular I shall never forget - Mirjam. Her lovely eyes were full of sadness, when she related her story of how she lost her entire family. Here was only a transit station. They left as soon as they found a relative to go to - or like Mirjam - to go to Israel, which was very, very difficult to reach in those days.
Clarence, the man whom Gerhard had replaced, returned from the war and our career as ironmongers came to an end. We gave up hope of ever reaching America.