The Shame of Survival: Working Through a Nazi Childhood

378 Pages·2009·2.02 MB·English

by  Ursula Mahlendorf

The Shame of Survival
Working Through a Nazi Childhood
Ursula Mahlendorf
The Shame of Survival

ursula mahlendorf
The Shame of Survival
Working Through a Nazi Childhood
the pennsylvania state university press
university park, pennsylvania
library of congress
cataloging-in-publication data
Mahlendorf, Ursula R.
The shame of survival : working through a Nazi childhood / Ursula Mahlendorf.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “An autobiographical account of the author’s childhood and young adulthood
in Nazi Germany, the postwar occupation, and her eventual relocation to the West.
Contributes to current debates on history and memory, and on everyday and women’s
history from a feminist, psychoanalytically informed perspective”
—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-271-03447-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Mahlendorf, Ursula R.—Childhood and youth.
2. World War, 1939–1945—Personal narratives, German.
3. College teachers—California—Santa Barbara—Biography.
I. Title.
D811.5.M25165 2009
943.086092—dc22
[B]
2008034248
Copyright © 2009 The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802-1003
The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the
Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of
The Pennsylvania State University Press
to use acid-free paper. This book is printed on Natures Manual, containing
50% post-consumer waste, and meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material,
ansi z39.48–1992.
Contents
list of illustrations  vii
acknowledgments  ix
introduction  1
one | My Family and the Nazis, 1929–1936  12
two | A Small Quarry Town, 1936–1938  36
three | Kristallnacht and the Beginning of World War II, 1938–1940  60
four | Today Germany Belongs to Us—Tomorrow,
the Whole World, 1940–1941  90
five | You Are the Future Leadership of the Hitler Youth, 1941–1942  112
six | Between Conformity and Rebellion, 1942–1944  134
seven | In the Belly of the Beast: The Teacher Seminary, 1944–1945  161
eight | The Big Wheels Are Leaving for the West, January–March 1945  185
nine | We Don’t Kill, We Heal: The Russian Invasion, 1945  201
ten | My Hometown Becomes Polish, 1945–1946  235
eleven | Refugee in the Promised Land of the West:
Return to School, 1946–1948  269
twelve | Finding an Intellectual Home: University, 1949–1954  305
Epilogue  333
books consulted  345
index  347

Illustrations
Jochen and me at ages four and three 18
The Baronie from memory, drawing by author 28
Map of Promenade Street neighborhood, drawing by Annette Mahlendorf 31
Strehlen map, reconstructed from memory by Ursula and Jochen Mahlendorf,
drawing by Annette Mahlendorf 37
Oma, marble sculpture, 1985, by author 54
Boy soccer player, oil-based clay sculpture, 1993, by author 57
The author at age twelve, passport photo 137
Map of Germany and Silesia, January 1945, showing Russian advance, copied
from Der Spiegel. Copyright, Der Spiegel, drawing by Annette Mahlendorf 186
Zopten Mountain, drawing by author 224
Ellen about to run from soldiers, bronze sculpture, 1995, by author 232
Map of Germany, September 1945, showing territories under Polish adminis-
tration and the Occupation Zones, IEG Maps, Institute of European History,
Mainz. Copyright A. Kunz, 2005 236
Map of Occupation Zones, IEG Maps. Copyright A. Kunz, 2005 270
The author at age sixteen, passport photo 283

Acknowledgments
Many people have had a role in my writing this book. First and foremost are
the generations of undergraduate students I taught over a teaching career
spanning more than forty years. They allowed me through their interest to
study this period of German history and my own involvement in it. Over al-
most my entire adulthood, my close friends Jack Carleton, Alice Aspinwall,
and Isabelle Greene cajoled me to write down what I had experienced dur-
ing my first twenty years. The actual writing, however, would never have
proceeded beyond the first few pages without the constant and enthusiastic
encouragement of my first readers: in Santa Barbara, Muriel Zimmerman
and David Sprecher; in San Diego, Gay Parnell; in Washington, D.C., Sharon
Alperovitz. Each of them read the manuscript in its several versions and each
responded to it in uniquely helpful ways. My “New Directions in Psycho-
analysis” long-term writing group, Judith Stein, Sheila Resnik, Peter Shaft,
and Michael Bieber, provided commentary and sustaining emotional support.
My first three editors, Sara Lippincott, Leonard Tourney, and Kathie Hepler
taught me where I needed to cut and where to add. The manuscript would
have lapsed in a last revision if Sandy Thatcher, editor-in-chief of Penn State
Press, had not expressed his faith in its importance so unfailingly. Suzanne
Wolk, copyeditor for the Press, gave the manuscript its final polish. My brother
Hans-Joachim Mahlendorf was always available with a perspective different
from mine on the events of our early years and with information on names of
persons, streets, and localities. My niece, Annette Mahlendorf, redrew and let-
tered more clearly the maps of our town that my brother and I constructed.
David Sprecher photographed my sculptures, as well as our maps. To all of
them I owe thanks.