The Schimpfs and the Fazis: Grew up in Nazi Germany
World War II in Germany was truly a disaster. Four native Germans, and all from different sectors of Germany, share their knowledge and memories.
Hans Schimpf was born on October 20, 1929, in Darmstadt, Germany. His family owned a bakery throughout his early childhood and into war time. When Hans turned 10 years old, he was sent to join the Hitler Youth. His experience with the Hitler Youth was more like a summer camp rather than a recruitment force. Hans even stated that violence between boys was not tolerated, and the aggressive nature of the Nazi party was not influential at all to his friends and he. Mr. Schimpf's first memory of the war was on September 11, 1944, the first of many bombings on his home town. He described how he and his family hid in a bunker at night, and when the morning came and the bombs had stopped, Hans and his family came out to discover the ruins and annihilation of their once beautiful city. Mr. Schimpf described Kristallnacht, as a violent and abrupt ransacking and pillaging of places where people whom spoke outwardly against Hitler. Saying that it was always the synagogues, banks, and shops for the wealthy, that were broken into, all of the places owned or congregated at by Jewish peoples would disappear and never be seen again. The bombings continued, and soon after, the Americans came to occupy Darmstadt.
Gisele Schimpf was born on February 13, 1932, in Bingen, Germany. Gisele's family did not have a lot of money, similar to other families of that time. Food was very scarce. Gisele and her siblings even resorted to scrounging around in the piles of potatoes that had been rejected by the farmers in her area. Gisele's first memory was a time from before the war. She went to a beautiful brand new school with a swimming pool and a gym, and was excited about her education. Especially in school, there were no Missus and Mister, only “Heil Hitler!” was used as a greeting. If anyone refused to salute, they would disappear indefinitely. A little less than a year after the school opened, it was taken and turned into barracks for soldiers used for the Nazi party. Mrs. Schimpf remembered Kristallnacht as a time in which the windows would be smashed to pieces and the doors would be broken in, and that the people who had lived there, specifically the butcher and the banker, who were Jews, would be gone, disappeared and never to be seen again. Gisele was also involved in the Hitler Youth and her experience was very similar to her husband's, pleasant despite it was required. Bingen was about 50 miles from Darmstadt, and the Americans also occupied that sector of Germany. After the war, Gisele stated that she was afraid of what was to come, but with the American occupation, the quality of life in Bingen began to improve.
Louise Fazis was born on December 18, 1938 in Passau, Germany. Born into a family with six older brothers, Louise was the youngest. Louise's first memory of the war is the amount of airplanes that flew over her rural town. She remembered running to the bunker in the mountains, and down in the bunkers they would play games. Sometimes when the planes would fly over her town, Louise and the other kids would hide in the haystacks for fun. Food was scarce, but more specifically, there was a lack of fruit. Louise remembered that there were tanks coming into her town and it was the Americans. With the Americans came food, especially chocolate, which as a kid, made Louise immensely happy. Mrs. Fazis remembered that there was a priest in her town that was very outspoken about against Hitler and Hitler's actions. One day, Louise and her family went to visit church, and the priest had disappeared. The townspeople knew that the priest had been taken away because of his nonconformity, but they later came to learn that he'd been sent to go work in a concentration camp. There was an American base nearby her town and Mrs. Fazis remembered that American soldiers would marry German ladies and take the ladies back to American with them after the war. Louise would stay in Germany and years later, meet her future husband Artur. Artur Fazis was born on September 16, 1934 in Schramberg, Germany which would later become a French sector. Artur’s first memory of the war was in 1943 when airplanes flew over his home town. Like many people at the time, his family was poor and they lived off of scraps. Potatoes were cheap and Artur remembered eating them in every cooking style imaginable and for every meal. On April 24, 1945, three
things happened, two of which were prosperous for Artur personally. One, it was Hitler's birthday. Two, the French marched into Mr. Fazis' hometown. Three, he was kept from going into the Hitler Youth by the French invading Germany. French and Moroccan troops invaded Schramberg, and Mr. Fazis did not speak favorably of the Moroccans, even stating that the Moroccans would come into his town and rape the women and girls. Not all was as dreary for Artur, his family quartered a French soldier and provided him with food, a place to stay, and company. Artur even considered this soldier his friend. Unlike with American occupation where food was plentiful after the war, with French occupation kids were only fed well if they looked as though they were starving. Artur looked well fed and did not starve, years later after the war, he met his wife Louise while working in a watch factory.
All of the interviewees had one thing in common, they all had no clue what horrible and very real things were happening to the Jewish people. The German public was kept in the dark, and Hitler never allowed the people to discover the truth. Hitler was aware his extremist ideals created opposition, and his country's people would all find out about the persecution and murdering of millions of Jews, simply because they were not the ideal blonde haired blue-eyed Germans. Thus, the heinous actions of Hitler were withheld from the public, and instead propagandized to make everything occurring in Germany seem normal. The Jewish people were killed off, and their “race” could have been annihilated, but the German people certainly had no clue as to the abominable crimes living and occurring in their country.
Sharing his feelings towards Hitler with the utmost honesty, Mr. Schimpf told a story about his sister. While under Hitler's reign, his sister had been forced to go work in a factory, where eventually the fingers on one of her hands was cut off. Hans' mother, being outraged, outwardly blamed Hitler for her daughter's accident. This accusation did not sit well with the community, and Officers were sent to his home to take his mother away. The only other option was for Mr. Schimpf's father to join the Nazi regime. His father chose to join the Nazi regime to save his wife and his family from the unmentionable.
Mrs. Schimpf shared a story about American occupation. The Americans would pile up their garbage and put it all on a hill. Gisele and her friends who were starving would go and scavenge these trash remains. One day, the the police came and she and her friends managed to escape. The next day, she and her friends went back and the police had them surrounded, an officer told them to come back the next day. Gisele expressed how terrified she was, having spoke very little English at the time. She and her friends came back the next day, and the police were there with bags, filled with bread, oranges, and cigarettes. Cigarettes at the time were considered better currency than the actual currency, and could be traded for a plethora of different foods or services.
Mrs. Fazis shared a thought-provoking story about just how hungry and starved she was for food. One day her friend had a beautiful large apple and was saving it to eat later. A bomb warning came in, and in the midst of everyone fleeing for the bunkers, Louise's friend threw her perfect apple into the river. Louise was so hungry that she dove into the river and retrieved the apple even though a bomb warning had been ordered in the area. Mrs. Fazis ate the apple, and stated that it was the sweetest and best thing that she has eaten, even to this day.
Mr. Fazis shared a story about an airplane flying over his town that ended up getting shot down. The plane was overturned, and the townspeople tried to help fix the plane, and help the men inside of it. It was too late; four of the five men in the crash were dead. The one man alive the people helped out and took as a Prisoner of War (POW). Schramberg paraded the lucky yet unlucky prisoner through the streets of their town, yelling and throwing things at the severely wounded soldier whom had survived the fateful crash. The man was alive, but being a POW, he would soon wish not to be.