Let me assume that I was born in a hospital in my hometown Nuremberg, Germany. I have a hunch that it was
called the "Martha Maria" because that is the place where where,later on,I had my appendix removed.
I know that we at that time lived in a rented apartment in the middle of town on a street called Faerberstrasse
(Dyer's street)and while I passed it here and then I never went into the house.The whole building was torn down
and became an office building not much later.
The first place to spend my youth was also an appartment on the outskirts of our town and I remember it well.
It was a four story building on a It was on a street called Rankestrasse 38. My dictionary says "ranke is a tendril" but it
could well be the name of a person. It was near the last streetcar stop of that line,called "Luitpoldhain" and
I have no idea who Luitpold was,but it sounds like a nobleman's name.
The house was well kept, but not new and one of the renters was a family whose son,although much older than
I,got me my first job in an export firm. Another resident was the uncle of my best male friend by the name of "Lebeau"
evidently of French extraction. They were very nice people and the parents of two daughters, Erika and Trude.
Erika was my sister's best friend (she later married an Hungarian artist)and therefore, like Alice, nine years older
than I-but Trude was closer to my age.I do recall that the latter often served me something to drink in our backyard
in a toy-china set and we liked each other(and much later visited with her in Germany).Through them I got friendly with
Kurt Lebeau,their cousin who was my age.His younger brother was also an Otto and they both perished in WW II.
We spent many years together as well with a boy who lived next door to us and had a fabulous tin-soldier collection.
I do not knoq how long we lived on Rankestrasse but my dear father bought a beautiful four story house very close by.
The name of the street was Guntherstrasse 61-Gunther being a an old first German name.It was on a corner and in the
back we had a huge garden where I smoked my first cigarette on the sly. There was no house in front of it, it faced the
street with a big,high fence. We had a steady gardener taking care and growing veggies. He loved to drink vinegar.
On the other side next door to us lived a family whose son was also our age and he had a fantastic toy soldier
collection for us to play with-but we were not close.This is where I was able to spend my first dozen years or so and
I fondly remember a large balcony with a fold-up table. I could walk to my first school and then my bicycle took me
for a half hour ride to my "Gymnasium " for six years. It certainly was a home I fondly remember until my dear "Pappa"
lost all his money with the motorcycles and had to sell our fine house. We then were forced to move to another
apartment in town,just the three of us-brother and sister were gone. This was on "Fuertherstrasse 19,it led to the
next little town called Fuerth,reachable by streetcar. (It became an infamous street, five minutes away was the courthouse
were the Nazis were tried.) It was a good move because my place of work was very close by.My dear father then worked
in my uncle's office of the paper factory my father started and then sold to them.We had a nice place to live,the
only drawback that above us lived the son of a family who sported a swastika armband,but he never molested us.
This was my last place to live in Germany and I can truthfully state that I had a blessed youth in great places !
10/5/11