Week 22 2014

Tendring Topics…..on line

A Personal Story

            Those who regularly read this blog hoping to find a solution to the World’s problems, the problems of the United Kingdom, or even those just of Clacton-on-Sea, will do so today in vain.  This week’s blog is a personal story that began in Germany during the closing months of World War II.  Last Saturday, 17^th May,  the Bowling Green pub/restaurant a few miles outside Clacton-on-Sea saw the latest, perhaps its final, chapter.

            I spent the last eighteen months of the war in a ‘working camp’ (Arbeitskommando) of British other-rank PoWs in the small German town of Zittau.  It has about 30,000 inhabitants and is now the Federal Republic of Germany’s most easterly town, just on the German side of the point at which the frontiers of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic coincide.  There were only thirty of us PoWs.  Our accommodation (a dormitory and barrack room within what was left of the town theatre that had been badly damaged by fire) was luxurious by PoW standards.  These rooms were on the first floor and the guards lived immediately below us on the ground floor.   The guards were neither the sadistic bullies nor mindless morons of popular fiction.  They were, in fact, remarkably like us.  Most had seen active service on the Eastern Front and had been wounded and/or badly frost bitten.  Their sole ambition was to keep their heads down and survive the war.  Ours was the same! Our rations were better than they had been in the concentration camp in which we had been incarcerated  in Italy. The Red Cross food parcels arrived regularly – and we were often working with food, in railway trucks, warehouses and wholesalers’ premises.  We rarely went hungry.  I have spoken to many other ex-PoWs about their experiences and ours were far better than most!

            Our work, which was heavy, for up to ten hours a day and with only one ‘rest day’ in three weeks nearly killed us at first after idleness, boredom and semi-starvation in Italy. We soon got used to it though – and it did make the time pass quickly. The work was mostly loading and unloading trucks on railway sidings in and around Zittau.  We also did any other manual work that was needed – digging graves in the cemetery, sweeping the streets, moving furniture, delivering coal, potatoes and other vegetables from wholesaler to retailer and so on.  We worked in parties of two to six, sometimes with a guard but often with an unarmed civilian with an arm band denoting that he was in charge.  We quickly picked up enough basic and very ungrammatical German to make it possible for us to chat with German civilians and other POWs and forced-workers mostly from Russia and Ukraine, who worked with us.  We really had an astonishing amount of freedom while we were working. It would have been easy to escape – but where to?  Take a look at a map of central Europe!

            One day in mid February 1945 a few days after the fire-bombing of Dresden by the RAF and US airforce on 13^th and 14^th of that month (in my opinion a war crime if there ever was one) we were sent with a guard to Zittau civic museum.  I remember that the incessant thunder of gunfire from the east was getting louder every day as the eastern front moved inexorably nearer and nearer to Zittau.   It was obvious to our guards, the local civilians and foreign workers and to us that the Third Reich was collapsing and that within a few months – perhaps weeks – the war would be over.  Our job was to load large and heavy cases onto a lorry, climb onto the lorry and unload them at our destination.  This proved to be some ancient ruins near the summit of a mountain (Mount Oybin) a few miles from Zittau.  It was, in fact, a ruined monastery and we unloaded the lorry and put the cases in the crypt.  We were told that they contained ‘treasure’ from the museum and they were taken there for safety from the kind of air raids that had devastated Dresden – only some sixty miles away.  It was ‘just another job'.  It was sixty years before I gave it another thought!

            The war in Europe ended on 8^th May. A free man again, I walked through the front door of my home in Ipswich on 18^th May (by a happy coincidence my 24^th birthday!). How, in the turmoil at the end of World War II, I managed to get home from the Soviet occupied, most easterly part of Germany, in just ten days, is another story.

            Sixty years, almost a lifetime later, my wife and I had two adult sons and we were beginning to think about our diamond wedding celebration.  I was a freelance writer and had an article about some of my experiences as a POW published in The Friend, a Quaker weekly journal.  In the article I wrote positively of the time I spent in Zittau, although I thought it unlikely that any reader of ‘The Friend would have heard of the town.  I was wrong.  The family of Jasper Kay, a Quaker and Friend reader living at Cottenham near Cambridge, had originated in Zittau.  He was in regular correspondence with a Zittau family and would be paying his first visit to the town in a few weeks time.  Was there anything I would like brought back from there?

The Kulke family in 2008  Left to right – Ingrid, Maja (born 2006), Frau Ingrid Kulke, Kornelia (Konni), Andreas.  Tomas was not yet born but was imminently expected!

I replied, telling him where I had lived and where I had worked while I was a PoW there.  I would very much appreciate post cards or photos of the town.  Thus began my friendship with the remarkable Kulke family.  Daughter Ingrid had a knowledge of English.  She had been Jasper’s correspondent and became mine too.  She translated my original article and my letter into German for her family.  Her mother, another Ingrid, and her brother Andreas, cycled round Zittau and district taking photos of all the places I had remembered.  Frau Kulke also obtained for me a facsimile of the local newspaper Der Zittauer Nachrichten, for 18^th May 1944 – my 23^rd birthday that I had spent in the town.  My wife and I felt that we had become members of the Kulke family.  When Andreas married Kornelia (Konni) we were told all about it – and I received an excited card when their first child, a little girl whom they christened Maja, was born.  During the course of my email correspondence with Ingrid I mentioned that one of the more unusual jobs that I had done while I was working in her home town had been to help transport those heavy boxes of ‘treasure’ from Zittau Museum to the crypt of the ruined monastery on Mount Oybin. To my astonishment this caused great excitement.  It seemed that I had, quite accidentally and inadvertently, played a minor role in the 550 year history of the Zittau Great Lenten Veil (or ‘Fastentuch’) an enormous textile artefact that was, and is, the town’s pride and joy.

                                                     Zittau’s Great Lenten Veil on       display    

During the Middle Ages it had been the practice to screen off the sanctuary and choir of churches with a linen veil during the season of Lent – to impose a spiritual as well as a material fast on the congregation.   Zittau’s Great Lenten Veil was unique in that it had 90 pictures, 45 of scenes from the Old Testament and 45 from the New, painted upon it.  When the war ended it was found to be missing from its home in the Zittau Museum.  Months later it was discovered on Mount Oybin where it had been found by Russian soldiers, cut into four pieces and used to line the walls of an improvised sauna!  It was rescued and, after German reunification, lovingly restored and returned to its home in Zittau.  It is now permanently on display in a controlled atmosphere and lighting in the redundant church of the Holy Cross.  Here it attracts thousands of visitors every year.  No-one in post-war Zittau had known how or when the town’s famous artefact had been transported from the town museum to Oybin – until I sent that email to Ingrid!

Meanwhile my wife had become increasingly reliant upon me and, for two years, I could think of little except her care.  Sadly, on 12^th July 2006, just three months after we had celebrated our Diamond (60 years) Wedding Anniversary, her life came to an end.  It left a gaping and aching space in my life that even today, nearly eight years later, has not wholly healed.

 My interest in Zittau helped to fill that gap. I managed, with the support of my family, to visit Zittau four times between 2006 and 2011. I met Frau Kulke and her family.  Little Maja acquired a young brother Tomas.  They are my ‘honorary niece and nephew’ and I try never to forget them at Christmas and on their birthdays!  I met Dr Volker Dudeck who had been Direktor of Zittau Town Museum. Now retired, he devoted his life to the care and publicising of the Great Lenten Veil.  I visited Mount Oybin and saw the crypt to which I had helped take those cases in 1945.  My last visit (and it will be my final visit I feel sure) was on the occasion of my 90^th birthday (18^th May 2011) and I was accompanied by members of my immediate family.  There were nine of us in all.  We were given a champagne welcome and reception in the Town Hall by Mayor Herr Voigt, there was a special VIP showing of the famous Great Lenten Veil in its permanent home, and a ‘command performance’ by a local piano-accordion orchestra beginning with ‘When the saints come marching in’ as they marched in, followed by the European Anthem Schiller's Ode to Joy, and other folk and light classical music, and concluding with Happy Birthday to you’ performed with great gusto and enthusiasm.  On our last evening in Zittau I hosted a dinner party for the members of my family and all my German friends including Dr Dudeck and his wife and the Mayor of Zittau and his.  It was a birthday never to be forgotten.

            And the event at the Bowling Green on 17^th May this year?   Well, I had had a  birthday celebration lunch last year but I had left it rather late and several folk both in England and in Germany who would have liked to be present  had prior commitments.  I could also feel that my body and mind were wearing out (I can’t think of a better way of putting it!).  It wasn’t being morbid or pessimistic, but just realistic to feel that this year I might have my last opportunity to see some of my friends, particularly those from Germany.

 

Left to right - Frau Julia Dudeck, Dr. Volker Dudeck, me, Maja Kulke

In the end twenty-two of us sat down to that birthday celebration lunch on 17^th May.  I was particularly pleased, and humbled, by the fact that Dr Volker Dudeck of Zittau, a distinguished historian and a ‘cultural senator’ of the Federal State of Saxony had, with his wife Julia, driven 1000 Km. from the most easterly town in Germany to be with me.   I had four totally unexpected guests.  I hadn’t invited them because I hadn’t for one moment thought they’d be able to come – but I was delighted when they did!  They were my ‘honorary nephew and niece’, Tom and Maja, now five and seven respectively, but shortly to be six and eight!  With them were their mum and dad, Konni and Andreas.  Their presence made the event perfect.  There were seven Germans (all originally from Zittau), two Austrians (Ingrid’s god-daughter Jenny and her boy-friend Sebastian), one Belgian (my grandson’s partner Romy) and the rest of us were Brits.  Most, but not all, of the German speakers also spoke English but we were extremely fortunate in having a waitress who could understand and speak German!

Maja and Tom with their mum, Konni Kulke

The lunch, with friendly conversation, a delightful short speech by Jenny and Sebastian and a brief display of folk dancing by Ingrid and her English partner Ray, lasted till 4.30. Then I said farewell to my guests and was driven home for a much-needed rest, while the younger of my guests made their way to the sea front to sample the delights of Clacton’s sandy beaches and lively pier.  It was the first time that Maja and Tom had seen the sea and I’m told that they really enjoyed it. 

 That celebration lunch was, I think, my swan-song.  Even if I survive until this time next year, I will certainly not be capable, physically or mentally, of hosting another similar event. It was a wonderful way to celebrate my 93^rd birthday and I like to think that the friendship that has developed between members of my family and people of Zittau has been a tiny step towards Anglo-German friendship and thus towards world peace

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Tendring Topics……on Line

Some Pictorial Memories

It was just as I was posting last week’s blog on the internet that my grandson Nick’s photographs from our trip to Zittau arrived by email. They were far better than mine (well, he did get a B.A. Honours degree in photography at Westminster University) and really revived my memories of that very happy and action-packed weekend.

There was the picture of the high-speed train pulling into Frankfurt Airport station where we changed trains on the way home. Its streamlined glass-fronted driver’s cab reminded me that on our outward journey we had been in a carriage just behind the cab. It was possible for us to move forward so as to be just behind the driver, able through the glass windscreen to have a driver’s-eye view of the rail-track ahead.

Then there were the pictures taken on the summit of Mount Oybin: the arched doorway to the crypt through which, in February 1945, we had carried those heavy cases that we now know contained the historic Great Zittau Lenten Veil, and the nave of the monastic church with its soaring stone walls and windows. How on earth, we wondered, had those medieval builders managed to create such a magnificent and beautiful structure at the summit of a mountain? While we were there, concealed loud-speakers brought us the sound of plainsong chant from an invisible monastic choir; very spooky!

The following day had been the celebration of the restoration of the Lenten Veil and tenth anniversary of its installation in the museum/church of the Holy Cross. Speeches in German, most of which neither Nick nor I could understand, were punctuated by captivating performances by a Polish choral group, two violinists, two guitarists and four singers (though the musicians also sang). The lyrics, some in German some in Polish, all so we were told, had their origins in the Bible. The music was arranged by one of the choir members and had been inspired by traditional folk music of Polish, gypsy and Jewish origin. It was just the kind of light-classical/folk music that I, and it was obvious the German audience, enjoyed.

Among the speakers was my friend Dr Volker Dudeck, retired director of the Zittau Museum, who referred to the contribution that ‘the Englishman, Ernest Hall’ had made to the history of the Lenten Veil and how honoured they were that he and his grandson were with them on this occasion!

When the speeches were over, but before we repaired to a posh mayoral reception at the Town Hall, Dr Dudeck presented me with three copies of a glossy, illustrated booklet entitled, in German, ‘Return to Zittau’ by Ernest Hall. It was a German translation of the long, nearly 8,000 words, article that I had written after my visit to Zittau two years earlier, illustrated by local pictures and pictures taken from my Flickr site. It came as a complete, and very pleasant, surprise. The photograph shows my friend Ingrid and myself each holding one of the booklets.

But, of course, the photos also recorded something of the friendship that has developed between my family and the Kulke family of Zittau. There was Ingrid’s little niece Maja, who will be three in September and, at about the same time, will have a new brother or sister. Her mum and dad, Ingrid’s brother and sister-in-law Andreas and Kornelia, and Ingrid and Andreas’ mother Frau Ingrid Kulke who has always been so friendly and hospitable. And, of course, Ingrid herself, who now lives in Bayreuth in Bavaria but who made the long car journey to Zittau to see us.

Nick and I are on the photograph too. My eyes are shut and my mouth open (I hope I wasn’t snoring!) and I appear to be asleep. Perhaps I was! It was at the end of three very busy and tiring days and, as I constantly need to remind myself, I am eighty-eight!

‘Forty years on…….’

No, I wasn’t at either Eton or Harrow. Nor, as far as I know, have I ever met anyone who was. However I have always had an ear for a good lyric and the opening lines of the Harrow School Song have stuck in my mind.

Forty years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today…….

It was forty years ago, on 12th July 1969, that our then-new Quaker Meeting House was officially opened by George Gorman, Secretary of the Quaker Home Service Committee, in effect, though I doubt if its members would have cared for the description, the Quaker home mission organisation.

Clacton Quaker Meeting House as it looked when first opened. We have more recently added an extension to provide a toilet with wheelchair access

I was the Clerk (secretary, chairman and general dogsbody) of the Clacton Quaker Meeting at the time, so I had been deeply involved in the fund raising, the building and furnishing, and the official opening. We had invited members of every Christian tradition to attend. I am not sure if all sent representatives, but many did, and I know that there were, among others, Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Salvationists present. With Clacton Quakers and others from Colchester and Sudbury, the Meeting House was full and those present overflowed into the entrance lobby. Luckily we didn’t, in those days, take ‘health and safety’ quite so seriously as we do today.

The interior of the Quaker Meeting House today. The central table and the stacking chairs were there for the opening but many of the chairs have since been reupholstered.

We didn’t do any singing at the official opening. That’s not the Quaker tradition. However, those who were present on that occasion certainly are scattered ‘afar and asunder’ and many have departed from this world. I was shocked to realize that I would be the only Clacton Quaker who remembered that official opening and who would be able to attend our Meeting for Worship on Sunday morning 12th July and the Area Business Meeting (with Quakers from all over north-east Essex and from Sudbury in Suffolk) in the afternoon. At both these Meetings our Meeting House’s fortieth birthday would be remembered with thanksgiving.

And so it was. The paragraphs above were written before 12th July and it is now the day after. What I haven’t so far mentioned is that that date was not only the 40th Anniversary of the Meeting House’s official opening, but was also the third anniversary of the death of Heather, my wife for sixty years.

The last fifty years of her life had been inextricably intertwined with that of the Quaker Meeting. We had attended Meeting for Worship most Sundays, for the last year or so with Heather in a wheelchair friendly taxi. In the 1960s and ‘70s she had run a successful Quaker Children’s Class. Until disability overcame her in 2004 she had visited the sick and disabled and written long and chatty letters to absent Friends. She had often provided the flowers for the Meeting Room table and served tea for an after-meeting chat. For thirty years she had organised the letting of the rooms at the Meeting House to local organisations, and had made firm friends of some of their secretaries. It was in the Meeting House that we had held meetings of celebration and thanksgiving to mark our silver, ruby, golden and diamond wedding anniversaries. It was in the Meeting House that, three months after our Diamond Wedding Celebration, we held a Memorial Meeting of Worship to give thanks for the Grace of God made evident in Heather’s life. All our F/friends and family were present and I was very pleased that the vicar of St. James’ Anglican Church and the Christ Church URC Church Minister were both there.

At 0ur Golden Wedding celebration at the Quaker Meeting House on 27th April 1996. Heather and I were still in our early '70s (well, I was almost 75) and we were both still pretty fit.

At the Sunday morning Meeting for Worship on 12th July, sitting where Heather and I had so often sat together on Sunday mornings, it was difficult to accept that she was not still sitting there beside me. I rose and spoke about her, as I felt impelled to do, with only the greatest difficulty.

I had promised to talk about Clacton Meeting and the official opening of the Meeting House for about thirty minutes at the end of the afternoon’s business meeting. Remembering how I had felt in the morning I wondered if I would manage to do so. I needn’t have worried. There’s nothing like a Quaker Business Meeting (or I imagine the business meeting of any church!) to dampen the emotions and restore calm to the mind. I managed to give my thirty minute talk and I think that Friends found it acceptable. At least nobody fell asleep; nobody got up and walked out; nobody came quietly up to me later and said, ‘I wish Friend, that you hadn’t felt called upon to say this, that or the other’, and several did thank me.

Afterwards I, and I think everybody else, thoroughly enjoyed the tea that a few untiring and unseen Clacton Friends had provided for us.

It had been, I thought, a good celebration of forty years of Quaker service to God and to the local community, and of the service that Heather had rendered to the Quaker Meeting.