Vignettes #27

My German grandfather was born in a small town in the Bavarian Forest. He had 7 seven brothers and sisters, and they became orphans at a very early age, both parents died in a short time after each other. The siblings were all separated growing up in orphanages, with foster families or neighbors or friend, one grew up with nuns.

I have met them all, although Uncle Mark died at an early age, so that my memory of him was very vague. All of them were lovable, good-hearted people with one exception: Aunt Tilde.

As I was told Aunt Tilde was a fanatic Nazi during the Third Reich, and all of the family was in terror when she visited, since she would snitch to the Gestapo, if you said anything 'wrong'. I think she actually did so with one of her sisters, but that's a family secret nobody is willing to talk about. During the Third Reich she was a school teacher, and I always have imagined her of being one of those tough and mean educators indoctrinating the kids with their filthy ideology.

After the war she ostentatiously changed her attitude and became a poet of the Bavarian Forest of some renown. Her poems were conservative hymns to nature of the woods and hills and the simplicity and religiosity of the common farm people who live there, and this although she was formerly a militant atheist. If you had asked her, she probably would have denied ever having been a Nazi, even quite contrary, she'd start accusing her brothers and sisters of being Nazis themselves.

She remained to be a terrifying person, not only feared by us kids, but also not quite welcome with my parents, grandparents or anyone else in the family. As a guest she'd do all the talking sermonizing on any given topic and heating herself up into a terrible rage.

I myself never found any clue to her fascist ideas. I remember quite clearly one occasion, when she was talking about WWII and her work as a teacher. For some reason the school kids were outside, maybe it was just a break, and a large troop of soldiers were marching by. At the corner of the street, she told us, there was a small statue of Holy Mary, as you can find them everywhere in Bavaria. One soldier stepped out of line, fell on his knees and started praying to the statue.

Aunt Tilde got herself into a rage, and I see her clearly spitting her venom while screaming about how disgusting it is that a soldier, who's job it is to kill people, would seek the aid of God. Is he asking for spiritual guidance to rape and kill women and children? What blasphemy! Till then we hadn't heard that she had become a pacifist, but she clearly declared herself to be one.

Today, years after her death, there is a monument for her as the local poet in the small town in the Bavarian Forest.