Berlin Embassy by William Russell

Author:William Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: genealogy
Publisher: E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc.
Published: 1941-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

AH Germans 3 received a clothing-ration card, divided into one hundred points, which were intended to supply their needs for one year. Cloth for a man's suit was thirty points; the lining, thread and wadding required another thirty points. The man who bought a suit had only forty more points to play around with for the rest of the year.

Expensive silk dresses and very expensive woolen dresses were unrationed, but they were difficult to find and later the supply was exhausted. When one German woman asked another, "How much did that dress cost you, darling?" she was not referring to money. She meant, "How many points did you have to give up?"

Great interest was shown in articles of clothing which could be bought without giving up any points from the ration card, such as thin raincoats or cheap bedroom slippers.

When walking with Richard one day, I saw a small sign in a shoe-store window. We came closer to the window to read what it said. The sign concerned bedroom slippers (it said they were all sold out) but when we turned around we found ourselves being pressed by a crowd of people who thought we must have stopped to read about something to be bought without points. We had to push our way through twenty people before we were free.

Many cartoons and jokes appeared in the German newspapers and magazines on the subject of clothing-ration cards. One cartoon showed a pretty young lady clad in a lovely new Easter bonnet—and nothing else! "I had only

8 Persons of the Jewish race were not given clothing-ration cards. They had to apply at special disbursing offices for permission to buy each article of clothing which they needed. The reader is free to imagine how generously these special ration cards were given Jews. Most stores in Germany stuck signs on their doors, stating the hours when the Jewish customers might enter the stores. In Berlin, Jews were not admitted to most shops before twelve noon. This rule was enforced to assure the "Aryans" of getting their pick each day.

six points left/* she explains, "and I just couldn't resist this hat. 5 ' 4

The best introduction a foreigner could have to Berlin society was to present a pair of silk stockings to his hostess as he entered the door. In war time, if one had a show girl on his hands he didn't think of giving her pearl necklaces. Hosiery was the smart thing. Back in the prosperous days of 1938, we used to lure the girls with a pat of butler or a half-dozen eggs. Now nothing less than a pair of stockings melted a cold heart.

I know an officer in the air force who had bought a long leather coat, which reached almost to the ground. When he met a woman whom he knew slightly, he heard her exclaim disapprovingly, "J ust think! How many pairs of shoes I could have had made out of all that leather!"

Special permission was required to buy a pair of shoes.

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