Illa - Part 2

3-Year Old German Girl Remembers the Beginning of WWII

This is a true story hand-written by Ilse and posted by her daughter on Steemit.

Mom thought it a good idea to have me spend some time with other children. Across the hall lived a mother with four children. Their Father was somewhere on the front in France like mine. So, I went to the apartment of this family to play. Although that was the idea, I just never really played with them. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I watched and enjoyed all the commotion around me without saying a word. All that noise was new to me, and I loved it. Mom told me to come home as soon as the family began to eat because we had more food than those five people did. I stayed anyway and just watched as they ate. Boy was my Mother ever wrong. They had more food on the table than I had ever seen on ours. They almost ate a whole loaf of bread in one meal! The next day was a Sunday. What a day it turned out to be. Our main meal on Sundays was always at one o’clock sharp, always. I arrived ten minutes late from spending time with the neighbors’ children and I had a great story to tell.

“Illa, you are late! Wash your hands, sit down and we eat!”
“Mutti, I have to tell you something!”
Mom was not listening. Little children were not to be talking while eating.
“But Mutti, I have something to tell you!”
“You can tell me after we are finished eating.”
“But it is important!”
“Little children should not speak while eating. But what is so important?”
“I have seen the Devil!”
“Oh yes? Where was that; at the neighbors?”
“No, the children from next door took me to this really scary house where the Devil lives.”
“How do you know it was the devil?”
“He wore a long black dress with only some white around his neck.”
“He said he was the Devil”.
“Illa, I think you got something wrong here, we’ll talk about it later. Now eat.”
“Okay, but Mom there was this dead man hanging on the wall, and he looked ugly. He had no clothes on, and had dirty feet.”

Now Mom got interested.

“I know what happened,” She said. “The kids took you with them to Sunday School.”
“No, that was not a school, that was a really scary place and I don’t ever want to go there again.”
“Illa, I’m quite sure, what you call the ‘Devil’ is Father Bergen. His long black dress is a robe. He will not hurt or harm you ever. The man on the wall is Jesus.”
“No!” I cried as I jumped off my chair to get the children’s bible with all the pictures in it, then I pointed at the Christmas story.
“That is Jesus! You told me so. This is a cute little baby and I like him.”
“Yes, but he will grow up and become a man. In the end he went through a lot of pain.”
I thought about that for a moment and exclaimed; “Mom, I like the baby Jesus better!”
Mom thought it would not hurt if I learned some more in Sunday school. She was sure I might even like it. “Go three times more; if you still don’t want to go again, then you don’t have to. I promise”. My Mother always kept her promises, so I said yes.
“Mutti, I’m glad we always take a bath.”
“Why is that? Has this got anything to do with what we were talking about?”
“Yes, because if you are not “bathtized”, the Devil will get you.”
“Is this what Father Bergen told you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say baptized?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Okay dear, we take a bath anyway; also for other reasons.”
I was glad about that!

We could not discuss this any longer because there was a knock at the door. As my Mother went to answer, I ran to my favourite hiding place behind the kitchen door. Through the crack of the opened door, I could see and hear everything that happened in the hallway. Who knows, it could be the Devil calling.

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by @susieisms

https://steemit.com/writing/@susieisms/illa-part-3