A Gnostic Childhood - Gnostic Liberation Front

A Gnostic Childhood
A Gnostic Childhood
Part III
We Arrive In Borken Near Kassel
Page 1 of 9
The final days of the war were frightening because of the constant bombings of cities such as Kassel and Fulda.
We heard the bombers coming and didn't know if they would bomb Borken or keep going. They sounded like a
huge swarm of bees approaching and my mother would grab me and run with me to the "Bunker" where the
townspeople would seek shelter and protection during these attacks. Even though Kassel and Fulda were quite
some distance away, we could feel the ground in the bunker shaking when the planes dropped their deadly
loads.
When the Americans came to Borken, they confiscated all radios and "valuables" such as watches and nickknacks.
Herr Bott, a man of conscience and generosity put us and Frau Beumelburg up with members of his
family of which there were many all over this small town. We lived with Frau Ursula who was the wife of Herrn
Bott's brother or something like that. I shall be eternally grateful for their help and caring, especially since they
too had so little left.
Hunger was our main concern, and I remember going with my mother and Frau Beumelburg, who was "Tante"
Beumelburg to me, through the wheat-fields looking for wheat kernels that had fallen to the ground which we
were allowed to pick up and which my mother would later grind into a resemblance of flower. I think, she even
collected enough to take it to a flower mill and have it ground there at times.
We ate soups made out of this flower with bread crusts, which we had been given by toothless neighbors who
were unable to chew the hard crusts and I ate my first orange by being given orange-peels, from which we
removed the white lining. Even though it tasted bitter, I liked it very much because it seemed so "exotic" and
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11/5/2011