Revised Edition

"In the year my brother and I were born German democracy was taking its last gasps while we were taking our first."

Ein Blick Zurück was written and self published by my father to commemorate his 70th birthday in 2002. In its simplest terms A Look Back is a recollection of the 1930's and 1940's when he and his twin brother were boys in Germany. I began the translation not long after that birthday party finishing a rough final version while in Sicily in the summer of 2018. Needless to say I didn't finish it at that time. In my father's last days I read him the translation, I'm not sure how attentive he was but when I read the last words:

"We from those times back then have all become old... and therefore I thought it was appropriate and nice to look back and to remember how it once was."

He replied in a faint voice punctuated by a thick German accent "Vhat a nice stoe-ree." In the pages that follow I did my best to capture some of the humor, joy and sense of loss my father interspersed in the original. The story that unfolds isn't unique -either for its time or in the present. There are experiences that in one form or another we can all relate to even though they occurred so long ago, the legacy of which continues to leave indelible impressions on each of us to this day.

The twins are gone now and as I write this I am sitting on a train on my way to Ainring to pay my respects to my uncle's family, he passed away three weeks ago. I would have come to Germany earlier but the world has been in the grips of the COVID nightmare. The train just stopped in Mannheim, soon I'll be passing by Oberhausen, Phillipsburg, Schwetzingen, Karlsruhe and then Prien, the El Dorado of my father's youth, further along the line.

As the train took off out of the Mannheim Hauptbahnhof I found myself looking around, making connections to the tangible realities that still exist of the story I just finished translating. Though the house still stands, it's a medical practice. Years ago I visited, I didn't go inside as I knew it wouldn't be the same. The iron rail was no longer there...there really isn't that much that still exists from back then other than the rebuilt shell. The town of Mannheim, like many towns in Germany were rebuilt, the Palace, Wasserturm and other stuctures are all reconstructions completed after the war. The old structures that were not destroyed are now blended into the new presence. I just couldn't help thinking of the stark reality as I looked across the cityscape where millions of tons of rubble had to be removed from a city that was decimated by allied bombing, lives were destroyed not only in the moment but for generations yet to come. As difficult as the recent times have been it is almost unfathomable to correlate or understand what it must have been like then. From a future filled with promise and hope to the hellish nightmare of the Third Reich and the war years.

While visiting Ainring I took the train to Prien. I wandered the trails that run between the farmland on the Herrenberg and reflected on my father and uncle's journey through life and my own. It was a beautiful summer day with the sun's warmth abated by a cool breeze. As I stood there looking towards the Kampenwand, Herr Deffner's estate no longer exists, I thought of the cool summers back then - the expanse of life that awaited my father and uncle and the changes the years, decades and new century would bring. I recognized there that soon enough I too would be writing my own version of Ein Blick Zurück, also reflecting back on what an incredible journey life is - until then journey on and enjoy the moments!