Api’s Berlin Diaries: My Quest to Understand My Grandfather’s Nazi Past by Gabrielle Robinson

Author:Gabrielle Robinson [Robinson, Gabrielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, History, Europe, Germany, Political, Social Science, Jewish Studies, Wars & Conflicts, World War II, General
ISBN: 9781647420048
Google: SSrHDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2020-09-14T04:39:01.987000+00:00

31

LIVING IN INSECURITY

In the latter part of June, Api’s physical condition improved. He could take a few more spoonfuls of the flour or semolina soup that he had not been able to keep down before. As soon as he felt better, Api, as always, made plans. Since he had been lucky to get the loan of a bike, he would ride to RL 101, the Westend Hospital, to see about the dining room set he had left in storage there after the bombing of 1943. Api was allowed to do this because of his connection to Department 17, the large eye station there. Perhaps, he mused, he could install the dining room in Luisenstrasse so that some furniture would be ready for us.

But first he had to report once again to the health department. He was never given more than an hour’s notice about these meetings. This time, the Soviets were concerned about the rise in cases of dysentery. Api wondered what could be done when patients could not be isolated and there were no trash pickups, no water, and no toilet flushes. How were they to avoid an epidemic under such conditions?

Back in his attic, Api even felt a little hungry. He ate some peas and potatoes but left the meat because it smelled so bad. He had taught himself to eat meat for the calories, no matter in what condition, but, as his stomach was still shaky, he did not want to risk it. It was so difficult to catch up after an illness. But he had the luxury of finishing his meal with a glass of Burgundy.

For the first time, Api mentioned that he had a newspaper to read. Although papers had appeared for weeks already, Api may not have been able to get hold of a copy until then, or perhaps he had not wanted to read papers, since they offered nothing but the Soviet perspective and he had never been an eager newspaper reader anyway.

Amazingly, through the bombing and the occupation, Berlin had gone only fifteen days without any newspaper. Newspapers had always flourished in the city. At their height in 1928, Berlin had had exactly one hundred daily newspapers and many more weekly ones. The Nazis, of course, forbade and censored most of them, wanting only their own voice heard.

The first postwar edition in Berlin was the Tägliche Rundschau, the Daily Overview, which appeared on May 15. It was put out by the Soviets and contained mainly articles translated from Pravda that talked about German war crimes and Soviet people’s efforts to rebuild their own country devastated by the German army. The front page on June 9, 1945, carried headlines such as “Life Reawakens out of the Ruins,” and “The Soviet Union Heals the Wounds of the War.” These articles did not deal with Germany but focused on the Soviet Union and its struggle to recover. They stressed that the Soviet Union had conquered Germany in the field and now was fighting a second war to undo the damage done by the Germans.

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