Die Siegessäule (Victory Column)This picture with Klaudia was taken during our first week in Berlin
The first few days in Berlin Peter and I were suffering terribly from jet-leg, that is we woke up in the middle of the night and just couldn’t go back to sleep. Sometimes we would start playing Rummy Cub in the middle of the night! On one of the first days it got windy and cold. We were out on this day. I soon did get very exhausted. Next day I started getting a bad cold. But when the weather improved and I did go out into the sunshine, I soon felt a lot better. But I think a bit of this cold was with me for nearly a week. Peter bought me some lovely flowers. We soon noticed all over Berlin there was a glut of flowers. You could buy flowers just about everywhere, beautiful fresh and low priced.
We arrived at Berlin Tegel Airport on time, however it took quite a while before we did get through customs and were able to receive our luggage. Klaudia was waiting for us. It turned out she had forgotten where she had her car parked, that is she knew where the parking area was but she wasn’t sure how she would be able to get there. She ventured into one of the old lifts of Tegel Airport and left us behind. All we could do was wait. In the end we made it to the car all right. With all our luggage!
Our arrival was on a Sunday. In Berlin nearly all shops are closed on Sundays. Klaudia first of all took us to Peter’s sister’s place. Surprise, surprise, she had a big bag full of goodies prepared for us. She had thought of everything that we would need for the first day in our apartment, things like butter-milk, bread, cheese and wurst and fruit and tea-bags as well as milk and butter. Remember, the shops are closed on a Sunday, she said. Peter’s sister lives pretty close to the airport. However, we thought we might take off somewhat early so we’d be closer to where our apartment was. We had been told a woman would meet us in front of the apartment block at 2 pm. Perhaps there was a chance to meet her bit earlier so she could let us into our apartment? If not, we’d just stay in the surrounding park area, called ‘Tiergarten’ till it was time for the meeting.
Actually in the Tiergarten, not far from where our apartment block was, is the ‘English Garden’ with the English Tea-House. Klaudia was well acquainted with this place and led us there where we had some lovely refreshments sitting in the outside garden area. It was a beautiful balmy autumn day. Before we went to the Tea House we found a nice picnic table where we all dug into the stuff Peter’s sister had provided. I remember as cheese there was ‘Harzer Käse”, which I love and which is hard to get in Australia. Everything Ilse had packed, tasted wonderful!
The handover of the apartment at 2 o’clock went without a hinge. We straight away liked the place. It was tiny, just a studio apartment, with a small kitchen. But it seemed adequate for us as a holiday place. There were lifts which meant getting our luggage up to the second floor was no problem. Klaudia was helping us all the way. She was really great! She is a bit on the nervous side. (Who wouldn’t be a little bit stressed in a place like Berlin? Unless you’re on holidays , of course.) Once she’s a bit de-stressed, she’s a wonderful person to be with. And she said she wanted to make time for us to see us often while we were in Berlin. And she sure did keep her promise. She didn’t disappoint us in any way. We had some very good time with her. She kept talking a lot about Australia and how she’d love to go there once more.
On the way to the English Tea House
The English GardenWe like it here!Walking through the Tiergarten
Ah, it’s a cleaning car.And this on a Sunday!This is the entrance to our apartment.This is our splendid little kitchen.And this is a view from our apartment.
We arrived early for lunch. Peter took the opportunity to take some pictures. Looking at them now they revive memories of that day in Berlin. Once our guests arrived Peter stopped taking photos.
Today I was looking for some more pictures from the past. I came up with two pictures from 1958 and another two pictures from 1960
Peter with Gaby
This pictures was taken in Düsseldorf, Germany, in a park called ‘Hofgarten’, on 17th June 1958. Gaby was not quite nine months yet at the time.
Uta and Peter with Gaby
This pictures was taken by Uta’s Mum on her balcony in Berlin in August 1958. Gaby was nearly one year old. We were for a visit in Berlin at the time.
Uta with Baby Martin, two months, Monika, eighteen months, and Gaby thirty-three months.
This pictures was taken near Fairy Meadow Beach, New South Wales, Australia, in June 1960.
Uta and Peter (25) with all three children
This is where the pioneer family ended up in Oak Flats, NSW, Australia, which was ‘the sticks’ at the time. This picture was taken on the 28th August 1960 which was Gaby’s birthday. We were building a garage at the time. One year later the children were stricken by polio; as it turned out, Gaby very severely.
With hubby’s help I managed last night to add some of the continuation of my memories 1943/1944. Over the past five years or so I saved quite a few pages of memory writing in Open Office. So far my writing is not very well organised and needs more editing. When I started with memory writing I did it hoping that maybe some of my grand-children and great-grand-children might be interested in reading it later on.
Hubby and I joined a writers’ group for a number of years. When this stopped, I stopped writing since nobody seemed to be interested to read any new writing of mine on a regular basis. In the writers’ class we were given lots of encouragement by a qualified tutor! Recently I always found excuses why it wasn’t important to keep writing. Somehow there were constantly other things that took priority.
I’m glad now that my niece encouraged me to try blogging.
What an incredible story Aunty Uta. I loved reading every word. Somehow, listening to or reading someone’s stories of the past is so much better and that much more evocative compared to a history book. I felt transported to a different world as I read this post.
I’m glad you started blogging. It’s very commendable and your memories are amazingly vivid.
Thank you very much. Your reply made my day. I started reading some of your blogs and enjoyed them very much. Blogging for sure opens different worlds for us, doesn’t it? I try to read as much as possible. I loved it that you included old family pictures. I hope that some day in the not so distant future I may manage to add some of my old family pictures. I’m going on 77 and there’s still so much to learn. Yet I have to try to take it easy. I have to accept that certain things take longer as you get older. When I change trains at Central Station in Sydney for instance it takes me much longer to proceed along the stairways than most other people. I JUST HAVE TO TAKE IT A BIT SLOWER THAN ALL THE YOUNGER PEOPLE: And that’s it. As long as I can manage a little bit, it’s better than nothing.I enjoy my life.I can honestly say I am grateful for every day that’s still given to me
Today is the 22nd of January 2013
I thought the other day I should go back to writing more about my childhood memories. I do not like so much to write about the present when I have to be constantly aware that I shouldn’t say things about people who are still alive because they mightn’t like what I tell about them. Another way to avoid offending people would be to fictionalize all my writing. I sometimes do change a few names. However I am usually reluctant to do this. I get all confused when I don’t know whether to just change names or fictionalize my writing all together.
Since I looked up what I published here at world.press way back in July 2011, I thought it would be interesting to copy it so that my new readers could read it. I noticed Munira was one of my earliest readers. I’ve copied here her comment to my childhood memories. To me this comment is very interesting. I couldn’t copy all of what I had written in July 2011. But for bloggers who would like to read these memories, please look them up in the archives under July 2011.
I’m a bit late with this post. More than three weeks have already gone into the New Year 2013. Here now I want to document what we did on the last day of 2012! Our day started with a trip to Bondi Junction, where we met our daughter. We had a cup of coffee with Caroline (sorry no photo). Then Caroline had to go shopping. We strolled back to the station. This time to a different entrance to the station, one that we weren’t familiar with yet. A beautiful large rest asrea opened up in front of us. Lots of different food and drinks were on offer at different outlets. In the middle of the plaza some delicious looking (homemade) ice-cream caught our eye. Peter and I each had a cup full of this very refreshing treat. It wasn’t expensive but tasted wonderful. There were plenty of seats everywhere to have a rest. We took the lift down to the platform. Only a few minutes and our train departed. We got off at Town Hall Station. Later on we looked at the displays of some cake-shops. We were hoping we would find some Berliners. It is our tradition to eat Berliners on New Year’s Eve. We had no luck. We couldn’t find any. We went back to Town Hall Station to catch our train to Dapto. While we were waiting for the train we took some photos. The trip to Dapto took nearly two hours. Some shops in Dapto Shopping Center were already about to close when we arrived there. We knew we had a bottle of Bubbly at home in the fridge for our end of year celebrations. But we were still without any Berliners. I felt a bit tired and was sitting down for a while. In the meantime Peter rushed into another shop that was still open. Surprise, surprise, he came out with some delicious looking Berliners in the form of stars! He got them at half price for they were the last ones that were left! At home we watched “Dinner for One”, which is a tradition with us to watch on New Year’s Eve. It is a sketch about Miss Sophie’s 90th Birthday. Very, very funny! We’ve seen it so often and every time we laugh our heads off again. Peter tried out to take a few pictures from the TV showing Sydney Harbour. At midnight he took also some pictures of the fireworks. Soon after we went to bed. But of course we did have our Bubbly and did eat the heated up little stars with it. They tasted delicious, just as good as the balls, called Berliners, do taste. Of course we did get messages and phone calls from our children before we went to bed, wishing us a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
This is about an elderly couple, both born in 1933, just a few months older than Peter is and I am. We’ve known them for ages. When we moved, we lost touch for a while. Then we found out they had moved too. It turned out they lived not far away from where we lived. Indeed, what a surprise this was! They had moved into a very beautiful new home in a village for the elderly. From then on we started seeing each other about once a month for coffee and cake and a few games of Rummy. They always enjoyed playing this game with us. We had some good times together. Both of them suffered some ill-health; we thought the husband more so than the wife. We couldn’t see them for quite some time because the husband apparently was in a bad way, so the wife said on the phone not to come and visit. Should we have made an effort to see them anyway? Instead, I always waited for them to tell us when we could see them again. I wrote them a Christmas card. They knew that we had gone overseas for a while and that one of our daughters had died shortly before we left. So I wrote in the card a bit about our overseas trip and that we were now back home again. When we didn’t hear from them, I should have made a phone-call finding out how they were. But I didn’t ring. Why do I tend to put off phone-calls like this?
Then, yesterday, we got a phone-call from one of their sons. “Mum died last Friday,” he said. I thought I hadn’t heard right. “Did you say your Mum died?” I asked. He confirmed it and explained the funeral service would be on Friday at 11 o’clock at the Catholic Church in Dapto with the funeral procession going to the Memorial Park in Dapto after the service. And he said all the details were in the Illawarra Mercury if we wanted to have a look. “How’s your Dad?” I asked. His response was that he’s very shocked. But the family is with him. They are of Dutch origin and have a large family in Australia and overseas.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
AuntyUta 
With hubby’s help I managed last night to add some of the continuation of my memories 1943/1944. Over the past five years or so I saved quite a few pages of memory writing in Open Office. So far my writing is not very well organised and needs more editing. When I started with memory writing I did it hoping that maybe some of my grand-children and great-grand-children might be interested in reading it later on.
Hubby and I joined a writers’ group for a number of years. When this stopped, I stopped writing since nobody seemed to be interested to read any new writing of mine on a regular basis. In the writers’ class we were given lots of encouragement by a qualified tutor! Recently I always found excuses why it wasn’t important to keep writing. Somehow there were constantly other things that took priority.
I’m glad now that my niece encouraged me to try blogging.