Lent is approaching and many of us are considering what penance we will do during this seemingly long six weeks. Often, we forget that we are working towards something and not just 'suffering' in the moment. Some people have experienced a Lent that cover years while we inwardly groan about a month and a half. We may fast but we always know there is a meal in our future. We may have to give up meat but the next day will see it back on the dinner table. Lent always seems to bring to mind the many stories my mother shared about her trials and tribulations during World War II. Our current economic troubles might mean putting off the purchase of a desired tech gadget. I don't think many of us are facing true uncertainty and starvation.
World War II, for most people, started in 1940 when the United States entered the war in Europe. If you lived in Germany, World War II probably seemed more like an extension of World War I.
My mother was born and raised in Germany. She was a young girl during World II. In Germany, however, the hard times didn't begin in 1940 and abruptly end when the war was over. Germany was in economic straights after World War I. Although we could go into the politics of life at that time, the governing problems are not being addressed right now. Suffice to say that many things contributed to poverty and hardship and it didn't begin with the events of 1940. My mother was born in 1925. Her father died the same year of a lung wound received in the First World War. He spent a good portion of the first war in a French prisoner of war camp with his unattended injury. When he came home, irrevocable damage had already been done.
By the time the war was in full force, rationing had long been an ever-present reality in Germany. Rationing in Europe was much different than the rationing in America during the war years. In America there were items to ration. In wartime Germany, ration books were often useless bits of paper. By the middle of the war in Germany, it was unusual to see litter in the streets as every scrap of paper and cardboard was put to use. Having a piece of cardboard to line worn shoes was a blessing. You thanked God if there was black cabbage and rotten potatoes to eat.
When the war was finally winding down, relief was tempered by empty stomachs. Somehow, in the midst of all this, my resourceful grandmother acquired a small bag of wheat grain. It was old, hard stuff but could be pounded down enough to bake into almost equally tough bits of ‘bread'. Naturally, there was no butter or fat available but just the chewing of these almost unyielding breads kept my mother and grandmother hopeful of survival.
With the advance of the American and Russian armies, there were many refugees passing through my mother's little hometown. Some of them were German soldiers fleeing the defeated army and desperate to locate their families. Many were displaced people searching for a place to settle down and await the final outcome. All were hungry.
As you would expect, there was many a knock on my grandmother's door by these homeless, searching people. Even though the wheat kernels were the only food in the house, no one left my grandmother's doorstep without a handful or two of this precious food. The final episodes of the war took time and it was a matter of weeks before food was brought in to feed the starving people.
My mother was glad to see an end to the war. Being the only Catholic in a Protestant town during a Nazi reign doesn't have many perks. It was only when the first tanks and trucks of the American forces came in, however, that my mother and grandmother realized that the small bag of wheat had lasted them. No matter how much they had given freely away, the wheat had not run out until the day needed supplies arrived.
