The rainbow never sets

hard to leave the group, but before we all departed we promised to meet again the following year.

Coming back to farm work after such a wonderful weekend was bad enough, but the worst type of job was awaiting me there. Herr Hoffmeister called me to help with the most unpleasant job of emptying the toilet pit. He would always be present personally, so no one could complain. The slop was ladled into a carry trough. When it was full, Heinz and I had to carry it for about 50 meters and empty it over the compost heap. We had to carry about five or six of those filled troughs before the pit was empty. The smell was horrible, and I disliked the job most intensely, but it had to be done.

A much more pleasant job was to watch over a sow who was to give birth. It usually happened at night, and I spent a few nights up playing the role of a midwife to the sow. I had to make sure that there was enough dry, clean straw in the pen. When the first piglet was about to be born, I had to get ready to catch it with my hands and immediately transfer it into the pen next door. The sow could easily crush it while giving birth to the next piglet. There were about 8 or 9 piglets to one litter. These had firm bodies, were beautifully pink, and looked rather sweet. When the afterbirth had came out I knew that this was the end. I removed it and then I could go to bed. The little piglets were brought to the mother only the next morning. I had to watch again that she would accept them. When they were all sucking happily, I could leave them alone. Although I had spent half the night with the sow, this did not mean that I could sleep in next morning. I had to go back to work as usual.

When the piglets had been weaned, the local vet came to castrate the males. He asked me to hold the piglet on its hind legs, face down. When he produced his scalpel and started cutting into the scrotum, I suddenly felt faint. I had to hand the piglet to Heinz and sit down. They all laughed at my squeamishness and thought that I was a sissy. I had never been able to watch operations or see blood, animal or human.

Another night job was cooking syrup from sugar beets. The sugar beets were shredded and put in a press to get the juice out. Then the juice was placed into the copper of the laundry, a fire lit and the juice brought to boil. It had to be stirred frequently so that it would not burn at the bottom. It took often eight to nine hours until the syrup was finished. The girls, Heinz and I would spend all night watching the fire and stirring the syrup. Sometimes we skylarked a bit to while away the boredom. By the time it was finished it was daylight and time to go back to work, without any sleep at all. Was that to toughen us up? I could not stand too much of this. The following afternoon, especially if riding in the ox cart, I would invariably nod off to sleep and let the oxen go their own way. It was a miracle that we didn't end up in a gully and kill ourselves.

In June 1948 the military administration of what was by then known as West Germany, ordered the devaluation of the Reichsmark, the old

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