CHAPTER 14

KERSTLINGERODE Unpaid Farm Worker

After having been on an express train from Hamburg, it was rather a come-down to go on the narrow gauge train from Göttingen to Rittmarshausen, where Onkel Werner lived. This train was a bit of a museum piece. It was called the Gartetal Kleinbahn (Garte Valley Narrow Gauge Train). Its narrow tracks wound along the pretty valley of the Garte creek. It stopped at nine villages: Landwehrschenke, Garteschenke, Diemarden, Klein Lengden, Steinsmühle, Eichenkrug, Benniehausen, Waterloo and Wöllmarshausen, before it reached Rittmarshausen, its terminus. It took about an hour to cover the distance of 19 km and my single trip cost RM1.60. At times the tracks went along the road, at other times it seemed to go through people's back yards. If a cow was standing on the tracks, the train driver would ring his piercing bell, and if he was lucky, the cow would move slowly away. It has happened that the driver or someone else had to chase an animal away before the train could proceed. Arriving at Rittmarshausen, the train would blow its whistle and sound its bell, before it eventually came to a heavy, tired stop, with steam rushing out from the engine, and black smoke billowing through the chimney. The noise was that of a great steam monster, but alas, it was only a very small engine.

The reunion with Onkel Werner, Tante Margaret and cousin Bernd was a very warm one indeed. We had not seen each other since Berlin, where they had visited me once in hospital, before the end of the War. I had not seen Bernd since we had said good-bye to each other in Berlin. We talked and talked. I wanted to know all the details about Horst's last days in Potsdam before he was killed, and how they had escaped from Potsdam, how Bernd had made his escape, and how Onkel Werner eventually came to be discharged from the POW camp. We talked till the early hours in the morning.

Next day was Sunday and Bernd didn't have to catch the 7 am train to Göttingen as usual. He was apprenticed there to become a carpenter. We all had a long sleep and a leisurely breakfast. Then Onkel Werner and I walked to Kerstlingerode, the next village, about one-and-a-half

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