A Personal Wisdom Story

The First Christmas of Peace
by Simone Feldman

Board Member, Wisdom Factors International

This story will be the concluding chapter of soon-to-be-published Voices from a Vanished Past: Memories of a Childhood in Hitler's Germany, which is the author's personal account of her experiences during World War II.  It was originally published as “The Christmas That Found Peace” in the December 25, 1995 Sunday Minneapolis Star-Tribune to honor the 50th anniversary of the first Christmas after World War II.  Illustration is by Eddie Thomas.

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Thank you, and blessings of the season!

When I look back on the many blessed, fun-filled Christmases of my childhood and adult life, one will always be the most memorable: Christmas Eve 1945. The first Christmas of Peace.

Our small family—Vati, Mutti, Oma Lina, my sister Gerda, Baby Olaf, and I—had survived the inferno of war. We had fled from the easternmost corner of the Third Reich with only hand luggage and, after harrowing trips, had found refuge in January 1945 in the resort village of Gruenwald, fourteen miles south of the Bavarian capital, Munich.

After months of uncertainty, food shortages, and curfews that followed the unconditional surrender of Germany, life started to become a little more organized and normal. In November 1945, schools reopened their doors, and public transportation was restored amid the rubble of our badly damaged cities. To our great relief and joy, Vati was installed on November 1 by the American Military Government as the principal of the Gruenwald village school. (Mutti had had the presence of mind to pack the papers from a lawsuit against him for refusing as a school official to join the Nazi Party.) At last there was a steady family income to look forward to. On December 1, the beginning of Advent that year, we left our small apartment and moved into the spacious principal’s quarters in the school building.

There we were with our meager belongings: a few suitcases and flowerpots but no furniture. In those days you could not buy anything like that; you could only “organize,” or exchange, goods. Unfortunately, we had nothing to exchange. So we moved in with our five cots, straw mattresses, and a few army blankets. In the living room there was a little iron stove with an exhaust funnel that went out the window. This device had been installed by the caretaker, because the school’s heating system had been damaged in an air raid. This little oven had to heat the entire three-bedroom apartment.

Our initial luxuries were an electric oven and an old kitchen table. One day, however, the mayor’s office called to inform us that we could purchase German Army surplus furniture very cheaply. Soon better beds, an old sofa, a few bookshelves, and even pictures for the walls were moved in. Above all, there was a big oak desk for Vati. It remained his proud possession until his death in 1964. Finally, a week before Christmas in that year of 1945, the bare living-room windows were decorated with long, russet-colored paper curtains which Gerda had “organized’ from somewhere and which looked like real material.

So we were all set for the Christmas celebration. Only good food, Christmas cookies, the tree, and the candles to go with it were missing. But on the last day of school, Vati’s students presented him with a four-foot pine tree, some clip-on candleholders complete with white wax candles, and a little bit of tinsel. I shall never forget Vati’s face, beaming with joy, as he brought these treasures into the living room. What a wonderful gift! No one had expected any Christmas decorations this year.

My mother had saved all the meat coupons from the week so that on Christmas Eve we might enjoy one hotdog each with potatoes, a little cabbage, and a cup of peppermint tea. The lights were lit, and Vati read the Christmas story from Luke’s Gospel as he had done for so many years. Then, with lumps in our throats and wet eyes, we tried to sing all the old Christmas carols. We were grateful for so many things—our lives, being together as a family with our bodies still intact, our new home, Vati’s job—things which nowadays people take for granted but which at that time seemed like a miracle to us.

Our hearts were sad, however, as we remembered our lost homeland, East Prussia, and the friends and relatives who had died there under the most terrible circumstances. These civilians were used as scapegoats by the conquering Red Army to pay for the crimes of the Nazis. Very few of the remaining German population were left alive, while the largest share of those who fled ended up in what became Communist East Germany. Moreover, East Prussia itself did not survive but was divided up between Russia, which got the northern part including the harbor city of Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad) and Poland, which annexed the southern portion, where I was born and grew up. We were truly lucky to be alive.

So, after our family celebration, we decided to go to midnight Mass in the village’s little Catholic church overlooking the Isar River valley. This church was only a ten-minute walk from the schoolhouse, while our Lutheran church was out of reach, since
the trolleys stopped running at 10 p.m. In honor of the Holiday, the occupation government had lifted the curfew.

I’ve never seen such a crowded church, before or since. Waiting to get in, we and many others lined up outside in the bitter 10-degree-Fahrenheit cold. The people who came that night were from all over Germany and even other parts of Europe. Many had been stranded in the Munich area at the end of the War. And never have I witnessed such an eager, sincere, humble group worshiping together in complete surrender and harmony. Even though we represented different countries and denominations—Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox—it didn’t seem to matter.

As we entered the big front door, we saw the simple wooden manger with life-size figures of the Holy Family and the Three Kings aglow in warm candlelight. Powerful organ music filled the church along with clouds of incense and the aroma of fresh-cut pine branches. As I looked around, I noticed many women with drawn, lined faces making them look older than they probably were. All were dressed in black, with black hats, veils, or kerchiefs. Tears rolled down their cheeks as their lips moved in silent prayer. The Mass itself was sung by stars from the Munich Opera. To me, a child of fourteen, it seemed as if a choir of angels had descended from heaven that Christmas Eve. And when “Silent Night” echoed through the church, not a single eye remained dry.

Afterward, we walked home through a moonless night under sparkling stars. The snow made crackling sounds beneath our shoes. We especially enjoyed all the flickering candles in the windows, a sight we had missed so much during the long, dark nights of war, when total blackouts were required.

Our hearts filled with hope for a better future and a new beginning. We held on tightly to one another as the wind blew briskly through our torn coats. Yet the Star of Bethlehem had become a new reality for us that Christmas Eve and seemed to warm our entire being.

A German proverb says, “Except for the night, we could never know the stars.” Now we had peace, peace at last!