When Kennedy Went To Berlin

Chapter 8 — Finding His Father

Klaus sat with his Oma as she lay dying. Cancer all but consumed her robust figure. He stared out the window as the sun came up over the horizon, studying the branches on the overgrown trees. He imagined his family tree and the multiple components that spread out in myriad directions.

He stared at his Oma, her face worn and weathered. He recalled a time when she was vibrant and playful.

Before the days of cancer, she sang German songs as she cooked elaborate meals, his favorite being goulash and spaetzle, a noodle made of egg and flour with a pinch of salt. He loved watching her put the mixture through a colander and forcing the batter into a boiling copper pot, whistling as she worked.

The sun crept onto the wall above Oma’s headboard. It gradually worked its way from the tip of her hair to the base of her chin. The warmth and the immediate flood of light awakened her from a restful nap. She opened her eyes, gathering her bearings.

“Are you wondering about our history, little Klaus?”

It seemed an oddly abrupt question that leaped forth out of her slumber. Klaus wondered how she knew what he was thinking? Was his Oma a psychic like his mother? He was only beginning to understand the power of Extra Sensory Perception, which seemed to run in his family as his mother often knew what he was thinking, which freaked him out.

“How did you know, Oma?” he asked.

“Sometimes, we just sense things.”

Oma was a writer. She kept a handwritten book by her bed with all of her stories. Each night before retiring, Oma would write in the book. At times she would read to Klaus in the evenings when his family came over for supper. In these shared moments, he learned about his ancestors for the stories were mostly about his family.

“Have we read the one about your papa?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Klaus.

Given that Klaus and his father had been at odds of late, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear about his father. However, if it made his Oma happy in her time of discomfort and pain, he decided to acquiesce.

“I’d like to hear it, Oma.”

“How about you read it to me, Klaus? Oma is feeling a bit tired.”

When Oma asked him to read, he was very excited. Klaus wasn’t good at arithmetic or writing; however, he was an excellent reader who loved the sound of words and playing with them as they rolled off his tongue. He grabbed the book from the nightstand next to the bed and held it in his hands before he opened it. The book was given to his grandmother by her father after the turn of the century, when she was a little girl. It survived World War 1, World War 2, and a trip across the ocean to America. Although he treated his toys with little regard, he held Oma’s book in reverence.

“Where would you like me to start, Oma?”

“Look in the middle of the book. There is a section with the title Josef and the Rabbits.”

Klaus turned to the section and began reading.

Little Schneeball scurred through the hole in the fence where Josef tended the Angora rabbits who were raised primarily to sustain the family through the grueling winter. He gathered up his little friend and tucked him in his pocket for safekeeping. Josef despised the chore that would see birth to death in such a short period.

“Don’t become attached,” his Papa would say.

“They are no more than supper on the table.”

But Josef didn’t see them as such. To him, they were warm and cuddly- each with personalities. He gave them names, which probably wasn’t the best of decisions given their inevitable demise. Finally, however, Josef reconciled that none of us are long for this world, and therefore why not entertain with a suitable nomenclature?

He would watch as the rabbits frolicked about in the farmyard surrounded by cherry and gooseberry trees. He marveled at how they could stand so still, seemingly for hours on end. Occasionally, when one would freeze, Josef would strike a pose near the furry cuddly and freeze as well. He would stand motionless playing a game of chicken with the Angora to see who would flinch first. The rabbits always won, but Josef honed a skill that would serve him well in the ancient forests outside of Zagreb.

Josef was thirteen. It was the winter of 1942, and Josef would soon be conscripted into the Hitlerjungend. He had no aspirations to be involved in war games. He was slight and genteel and had no affinity for weapons or being part of any regiment. His friend Olaf, already in the Hitler youth, wrote letters to him of the demanding discipline and the treatment of Jews and the like. Olaf seemed to revel in the anecdotes. Josef went to school with Jewish boys and befriended several. So, when he was told by Olaf that “Jews were monsters and they eat little children for supper,” Josef was suspect. He asked one of his friends Issac in class, “Does your family eat children?” and Issac laughed until he fell to the floor and was scolded by the schoolmaster.

Besides taking care of the rabbits, Josef had to help his mother with the chickens. Chickens were raised for eggs and food. Gathering the eggs was a pleasure because no harm came to the hens, but plucking up the other capons and watching his mother ring the innocent necks was traumatic, and on another level humane. His mother’s expertise was extraordinary. After the chicken experienced the trauma of being swept up by its legs and upended to flap and squawk, his mother would flip the hen over onto its shank, gently pat it into a solemn meditative state, and then snap its neck. When Josef described this merciful approach to Olaf, Olaf quipped back with, “Yes, that’s what we will do to the Partisans when it comes time.”

Klaus closed the book, proud of his reading ability. He looked up and saw his Oma with a tear in her eye.

“Why are you crying, Oma?”

“You read so well, little Klaus.”

“What happened to Josef after that, Oma?”

“You’ll have to ask him yourself, little Klaus. Oma is very tired now. I’m going to go to sleep. Please go outside and play. When you are young, you should play.”

Oma lasted only one more week. Klaus nearly fell apart. She was a cultural connection to the land of his birth. Klaus never saw her after he read to her on that sunny afternoon in July. Years would pass and he never remembered if he attended her funeral. However, he never forgot having read to her.

Reading the story was a turning point in the relationship Klaus had with his father. It would take several years before Klaus would brooch the subject of the war with Josef. When he did, it added another dimension to Klaus’ perception of his dad. For Klaus realized Josef had once been a boy.