WE WERE LUCKY
An autobiography by Hilde Gerrard neé Weissenberg, born 1907 THE TWINS ARRIVEI began to have terrible backache and tried to get relief, but nothing helped. I had the pain for some months when my doctor suggested that I should go to a Dr Krohn a gynaecologist. Can anybody imagine my surprise to hear that I was pregnant. When I was 20 years of age my period had stopped and I was told after three years of marriage, that I could not have children. In 1932 my doctor suggested a new drug on the market and asked me if I would like to try a course of Progynon which could restore my menstruation. I was very pleased and agreed to have the injections. I felt well after having had them and when I emigrated I learned how to give them to myself every twenty-eight days. I was able to buy Progynon in Italy and continued with the treatment all my life until I was about fifty years old. In 1936 I suddenly heard that I was pregnant. After my 21st year my menstruation never returned therefore I had no indication of the fact. The now so famous fertility drug did the job as far back as 1936.
I am only 4'9" in height and grew very wide in pregnancy. The Italian doors in the portas were very narrow and to the amusement of our friends they had in the evening, when the entries were closed, to open the whole gate to let me through. My doctor took an x-ray photograph about November and found that I was carrying twins. When I told Gerhard, he jumped on to the top of the table and soon I began to prepare a second layette.
We were booksellers in Germany and also in Italy and that means that Christmas is a very busy time in the trade everywhere. I worked in the bookshop almost to the end of the pregnancy, my figure hidden by the top of the desk, but about the 20 December I had to stay at home and Gina, our help, stayed with me. The pains started on the 22nd and in the late afternoon she rang Gerhard to come home to take me to the maternity home. He reached home about 10.00pm as he did not take it seriously that labour had started. The night was so foggy, I had to go to the hospital at once. The taxi driver could not drive quickly and Gerhard had to walk in front of the vehicle with a torch. About midnight we reached the hospital San Guiseppe on the other side of Milan. I had already lost water and at last I could lie down in the labour ward. The pain was terrible and the nuns gave me a rope to pull, which was attached to the end of my bed. It had no effect at all and they would not phone my doctor as they thought it too early. In the morning they informed him and he came immediately, at about 8 o'clock. On the 23rd December my son was born at 9 o'clock and at 9.20 my daughter, and I was very happy. The hospital was very busy, no beds available and Christmas preparations everywhere. As my room was not yet ready, I lay on a stretcher at the end of the corridor sweating. At 1 o'clock I got a bed and was praying that I might not die of pneumonia now that I was a mother. Later I had the babies next to me and I was the happiest woman in the world with the twins.
At the same time, due for confinement was a dentist's wife. She was expecting at the same time as I - one baby. When I was allowed up I wanted to visit her and was told that she had died. I was very shocked because everything in her case seemed normal. Gerhard however was told by Dr Krohn that my babies lay the wrong way etc. and I often asked myself - did fate mix us up, was not I meant to die? Her baby was a strong boy - but she had a liver infection and did not survive. We went home on December 31st a family of four - the babies in German carry-cushions provided by their grandparents. They were overjoyed and came immediately to Milan to see them. At 12 o'clock when New Year began I took a glass of champagne and splashed the babies with it, hoping they may have happy lives.
Our flat in Beato Angelico was now very crammed. We moved house to Via Moretto 40 on the top floor, with a large terrace and a conservatory. Each room had a door direct to the terrace path so that one could walk from one room to another by way of the terrace if the weather was fine, but in winter or rainy days we use the hall and corridors. When I saw the flat for the first time I was delighted. The view was beautiful, on clear days one could see in the distance Monte Rosa and one could be outside in one's own flat, which was lovely.
the twins grew and were admired in their twin pram. One woman stopped us in the street, who was also an immigrant, telling me I should never bring such a treasure on view; that it could provoke jealousy and tempt fate - a way of thinking that never occurred to me. I stayed at home to look after the babies and was very happy. I was also needed in the library and as so many refugees were looking for work it was easy to find a young girl, who would come to live with us and look after the children, so that I could go back to work for at least part of the day.
My brother and sister-in-law Albert and Bertchen lived not far from us. During our stay in Milan we made friends with Herbert Wolff, Walter and Margot Heineman, who also came from Berlin. When Margot played with the children I once saw tears running down her cheeks. It was only by chance that I learned that she had lost her five-year-old son due to diphtheria shortly before their immigration.
The twins were about six months old, when they became ill and the doctor said that they ought to get away from the heat in Milan. It was not an easy thing to do, as we had no funds to take up residence in the mountains or by the sea. Friends stayed at Siusi for their holiday in the German speaking part of Italy - the former Tyrol. I went to visit them and tried to find a cheap abode to get out into a cooler climate, into the mountains. I found a flat in a peasant's house under the roof and, also in the same building, a small room at the side, without a window - just a door - and rented both. The small room was just big enough to have shelves made on three sides and about three hundred books in German came up from Milan to the little new lending library in Siusi. On a large wooden notice board we announced "Biblioteca Circolante" and opened the doors 2 hours in the morning and again 2 hours in the afternoon. The people came and borrowed books and we were in business. Between the street and the house was a small garden and the pram stood there, where I could watch it and, also at the same time the shop. The takings were small but so were our expenses. The air was wonderful, the woods dense and the mountains all around. We were and felt on top of the world and the babies recovered quickly.
When the middle of August - ferragosto - came, the time when all shops in the town close for a fortnight; Gerhard came up as well and we also could have a holiday, just working in the tiny place, which earned enough for our modest keep. We stayed in Siusi until the beginning of September, when we returned to Milan.
My parents came to visit us from Breslau and so did Gerhard's mother, Fanny. They admired the babies, played with them and enjoyed haying them for the short, precious time given them. We asked them to stay with us, but they had their savings and income in Germany and did not want to live on our earnings. Of course nobody had any idea of the fate that was in store for them. That was the last time we saw our parents.