In the 1960’s we lived in the suburb of
Gardens in Cape Town – it is an old area, extending from the boundary of what
used to be known as the Company Gardens and running up to the boundary of
Oranjezicht, on the slope of Table Mountain.
We lived in Sophia Street, which had a
Jewish family on the bottom corner, an English-speaking couple of Afrikaans
origin next; then ourselves; then an English-speaking English family; and then
another Jewish family on the top corner. Across the road were several small
semi-detached houses and two small pre- World War I blocks of flats. The
neighbourhood was humble, very middle-class, and very stable as regards its
occupants – almost no change in occupants in the five years that we lived
there. There were many children however and my brother and I had no shortage of
neighbourhood kids to play with. There was no crime at all, except for the time
that the neighbours across the road went away for a month and their house was
burgled. A policeman was then stationed outside that house, day and night, for
the rest of their absence.
My closest friend by a long shot was a
little red-haired German boy who lived in one of those little flats (let’s just
call him “J”). He was my age. We went to different schools (I to the Jewish
school in Highlands and he to the German school in Tamboerskloof) but we were
inseparable in all other respects. His family were immigrants from Germany. He
had two siblings, a mother who was a housewife and a father who was an
engineer. And in that small flat, they also hosted a mysterious boarder, who
was not part of the family. I don’t know why, but that latter fact was imparted
so emphatically that even as a small boy I found it quite striking. “Uncle
Peter”, I recall. Funny name for a pukka German.
Ja, I might as well talk about Uncle Peter
now. He certainly was a pukka German. In fact, I had never in my little life
(or ever after, come to think of it) met a more pukka German. He was tall, not
young but strong, strikingly handsome, always dressed formally and impeccably,
had a very stern and shall I say, grave, demeanour. In modern terminology I
would definitely say that he was not “warm and fuzzy”. I could imagine him as
The Ice Commander in his Nazi naval uniform on the bridge of a battle cruiser,
standing outside in a brutal storm with not a hair out of place, one hand
resting placidly on the rail, expressionless, watching with his ice-blue eyes
as hundreds of sailors from a sinking enemy ship drowned a hundred metres away.
In other words, not your average Joe.
His English was as impeccable as his suit,
and he spoke it with the dry, whisky-and-cigars accent of an aristocratic
Englishman in the book-lined study of his castle. With a hint of Teutonic
accent of course – but remember, the English aristocracy was never far from the
Hapsburg Empire… God knows where he slept in that small flat, but he probably
occupied half of it (and at least half the conjugal rights to Fraulein X, who would
get weak in the knees, lose her breath and bristle and shiver with anticipation
whenever he stood close to her).
OK, that’s enough of that. We’re off
course. Stop it!
I’ll never forget the time we were descending
after a walk on Table Mountain and I was talking to “J” and I used the
expression “You and me” and Uncle Peter, who I did not realise was listening to
our conversation, broke in and said, “You and I!”
“What?” I said
“You said, ‘you and me’, he explained.
“That’s wrong. It’s ‘’You and I”
Even my little five- or six-year-old self
was inwardly outraged that this bloody foreigner was trying to teach me to
speak my language but I was evidently more diplomatic then than I would be
today so I obediently repeated “you and I”, the moment passed and we walked on.
Today, I would really screw that up!
“J” was a very lucky little boy, having a
father who was a dedicated and innovative engineer and who really loved his
children and spent a lot of time with them. He set up an electric train set for
“J” – the most spectacular, stupendous, outrageous electric train set of the
Marklin HB kind (the very best toy train set in the world and made in Germany).
Everything worked, down to the most minute detail. The steam engines even produced
actual smoke. His train set took up half a room. It was fixed to an enormous
board which was attached to a wall and could be raised and lowered like a
drawbridge. It had multiple divergent and convergent tracks, with remote
controlled points and working lights and robot signals, scale-model houses,
factories, shops and railway stations. The lights in the little buildings could
be switched on and off. Each train was individually controlled by remote
control. There were mountains, verdant valleys and clear rivers. There was no
end to this train set.
But Papa’s genius did not end there. In his
garage, he was building a Horch – the car favoured by Hermann Gohring. I got a
few glimpses of it – it was huge, black, and quite formidable. He was very proud
of it. I wonder what happened to that car.
Papa also built remote-controlled aeroplanes
powered by real little petrol engines and they were reputed to fly at about 80
mph. They were detailed and accurate scale models, generally two to three
metres in length. I remember a Stuka and a Junkers, but there were more. They
were done out in Nazi Airforce Grey (turtledove blue), fully kitted out with
Swastika decals and serial numbers (I presume that the guns didn’t work, but
I’m not going to promise that). There were scale models of pilots, co-pilots
and crew inside. He took us boys out to a scale model airfield which still
exists, opposite Sunset Beach between Milnerton and Table View – and there we
met dozens of enthusiasts with their remote-controlled planes. We weren’t
allowed to touch anything but it was a fascinating spectacle. Looking back I’m
amazed that no-one seemed to bat an eyelid at those markings on his planes. Who
were those people?
I was told that Papa built tanks for the
Germans during the war and I could well believe it. I just hope that he didn’t
build execution chambers ….
One day, while “J” and I were playing with
the train set, I was told that the day was some kind of German holiday. Through
the door I could see into the kitchen, and it was clear that Frau X was baking
cookies and when we were done playing, we wandered through to the kitchen and
“J” asked for a cookie, but something about the situation struck me as off: his
mother didn’t give me one, or there was some hesitation, and “J” said something
and then in a strangely reluctant way, she gave me a cookie. Then she left the
kitchen momentarily and as boys are, “J” then grabbed two more cookies – one
for each of us – and then we escaped, giggling madly at our prank. We both ate our
first cookie and pocketed the second one for later.
But I forgot about the second cookie and it
came home in my pocket with me. I didn’t know that I was carrying the cultural
equivalent of a hand grenade. To me, it resembled an eight-pointed star with
hollow squares in it. I just happened to remember that cookie when I was
standing in our kitchen back at home. Mom was washing the dishes and dad was
drying and packing away. And out came this cookie. It was a delicious, spicy
little swastika – which makes sense because although I didn’t know it at the
time, this was Hitler’s birthday …
I wasn’t punished. At least, not in any
comprehensible way. That would have been much, much easier to bear. The pain,
and the grief, and the metaphorical beating beating-of-breasts, the horror, the
tears, followed by terrible sighs, quiet sobs punctuating the silence of the
tomb … it is a frightening thing for a small boy to see his father cry, because
if he and ma are not in control, then who the hell is?
I was taken to bed by a soulless robot who
could not speak, pale and mechanical and without a shred of emotion, a feeble
creature, a skeleton, a wraith. There were two of them in fact. The other one
stood back, as if afraid to approach but at the same time full of longing and sorrow.
Their eyes were lifeless, their gestures were empty. I was too terrified to
speak. How could I speak, having brought this terrible thing upon my own family.
Is the world over now? Will I wake up in the morning – and if I do, will there
be anything left of my family, of this world? For the first time in my memory,
I said no prayers. There were no prayers to say, nothing, and no-one urged me
to say anything. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. For hours I couldn’t sleep – I
just lay there, too afraid to call out to my parents – what if they weren’t
there anymore, what if the world was empty now? I could not have known that
they were lying silent and sleepless in their own room. What terrible, evil
thing had befallen us?
As I got older and more engaged with the
culture of South African Jews, I learned a lot more about WWII and the
Holocaust and I came to view Germans in general with a jaundiced eye – and then
we moved away from Sophia Street and I lost contact with “J” and our paths
never crossed again. My father forbade all contact with “J” and the friendship ended
that day.
People generally do not understand the
Jewish view of the Nazis: they cannot understand the passion with which Jews
regard the history of the Reich and the phenomenon of institutionalised
anti-Semitism and its warped beliefs. I constantly encounter that evil on
Twitter, Facebook and the like (not to mention the face-to-face confrontations
which can be both toxic and physically dangerous). You can’t argue with these
people. They argue in circular ways where each assertion supports the next. It
looks logical but you can break it down, given time, effort and knowledge but
generally its not worth it. My father-in-law, who was a lawyer and therefore
spent his life in argument, used to say, “You cannot ague with a fool – he has
his own system of logic” – and for that reason, I often walk away…
_____________________________________________________________________
HARRY FRIEDLAND
MARIMBA
2023 01 19
