My mom is part of the generation of non-complainers. European war-children, having seen and heard more terrible things before the age of 10 than the rest of us might ever see. She has told me stories of how she, as the oldest of 7 living children, was basically in charge. She cooked. She cleaned. She stole coal off the back of the train while her younger siblings ran behind the railcar and gathered it up in messenger bags and aprons. She read to her charges, changed their diapers, and still fulfilled her duty by belonged to the Hitler Youth, all as was required. There was no complaining. Complaining meant death. Simple.
She grew up the daughter of an Austrian father and a Hungarian mother in Vienna. Hungary had already allied itself with the Axis powers and relied heavily on Italy for it's commerce. Austria was not supposed to be allowed to join forces with Germany because of treaties during WWI, but with Italy and Germany in alliance under Hitler and Mussolini, this was and easy dilemma for Germany. This was 1938. My mom was 5. My mom's status quo was one of soldiers and rallies, silence and food rationing, school and Nazi youth programs. No one loved Hitler, but no one had any power to stop him.
When the end of WWII came, and Vienna was liberated, it was a city divided, literally into 4 areas, by the winners. Russia, the US, and the Brits all took a chunk of the city, and gave a piece to France to show some good will, and have a continental Europe foot hold (and expense sharer). This was in the name of "rebuilding" and "de-nazifying". According to my mother this really meant a bunch of uneducated police "peace-keepers" could do anything they damn-well wanted to you or your house. I heard the stories of the hidden jewelry, and the stolen alcohol, and the uniformed men sleeping in the living room and bedrooms while my mother and her siblings squished into the kitchen.
Maybe I should have recognized in that story when my mom said "at least the kitchen had the stove for heat" that she had no choice but to suffer in silence. What else could she do? Had she said something, she could have been beaten, or killed, and the people left behind would have been punished as severely. For my mother, it was how you lived, you didn't know anything else.
I think of Maya Angelou though as I say that. Her quote “You did then what you knew how to do, And when you knew better, You did better.” doesn't seem to apply to my mom. Somehow in the midst of all those trials, and then having survived, my mother didn't leave. Yes, she married and moved to the US, and bought a house, and had a job, but she never thought about what she could have, just what she didn't have. She forgot that her children were going to have it better than her, and we lived in a state of deprivation. Deprivation of some things, like fast food and sleepovers and store bought birthday cakes. Trivial stuff.
But the big deprivation, the big starvation, was that there was not any affection in the things we did have. Yes, I played baseball and had a bicycle. Yes, I had a television and new shoes every year before school started. Yes, we went fishing and I got all my shots. What I didn't get was the right to cry, or yell, or feel sad, or love, or anger. After all, what did I ever have to feel hurt about compared to being beat and silenced by the Russian Army? It was that simple. I did not need anything more than what I had because she had already survived so much more. I knew it from very very young, and never could I ever ask for anything, because asking for anything that wasn't already given was selfish and unnecessary.
There is so much more, but the timing seems harsh, with Mother's Day on Sunday. Maybe it is a present I can give both of us, her and I. Maybe I can work my way though more of this. Tell her story for her, let her grieve for the childhood she didn't have. Maybe I can grieve for the childhood I didn't have, letting her know in a way that is not one more slap to her face, that she forgot to be happy and she passed that on. Maybe I can learn to be happy myself, and not pass any of this legacy on to my children. Maybe this 80 year long journey gets a little hiatus, a little oasis for the weekend. Maybe I will go sit by the stove where it is warm, or maybe I won't, and I will go sit in the sun instead.
