Interview with Gunter Nitsch, Author of Weeds Like Us

 Recently I reviewed Weeds Like Us, Gunter Nitsch's story of his family's experience in the immediate aftermath of World War II as they fled their home in East Prussia. It is a gripping story of gritty perseverance and survival written from Gunter's perspective as a young boy.  Gunter now lives in Chicago and was kind enough to respond to my questions about his book.

Dialog International: Why did you write Weeds Like Us?

Gunter Nitsch: If you read about a war in the history books, there comes a point where the war is “over” and one side or the other has won or lost.  But, especially for the civilian population on the losing side, the trauma of war continues long after the peace treaty is signed. Whenever I saw pictures of refugees on the nightly news, it struck me how little the average viewer understands of what it means for a child to be uprooted from his home and to suddenly lack adequate food, shelter, medical care, and schooling. Although I was living comfortably with my family in Scarsdale, New York. I couldn’t forget that I had once been one of those refugees myself. Even though my initial intention was to tell my story so that my sons would understand what my childhood had been like, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to reach a wider audience in the hope that Weeds Like Us would make readers realize what it means for a child to be the “collateral damage” of war.

 DI: Describe the research you undertook for the book.

GN: People have expressed surprise at how vivid my memories from that time still are, although anyone who’s been through a similar experience as a child would understand why. Still there were gaps which needed to be filled in. Strange as it may seem, no one in my family ever talked about the years under the Russians and I wanted to get their input. As far back as twenty years before I began to write the book, I began collecting materials by interviewing my mother in Cologne . Years later I sent questionnaires to my cousins, Ilse and Gerda, who had been with us in Palmnicken and in Goldbach.

 I researched details such as exactly how the guns, uniforms, and planes looked; how many French and Belgian prisoners of war lived on German farms, and even what the weather was like on the night that we crossed the frozen Haff.  For some of the information I needed, I wrote to American, Belgian, French, German, Israeli, Polish and Russian libraries, organizations and museums.

Then, in 1998, to fill in any remaining gaps, I took a trip back to the former “Ostpreussen” (East Prussia), now part of Poland and of Russia, and to Germany, to revisit all the places where I had been between 1939 to 1950 -- Königsberg, Langendorf, Schippenbeil, Heiligenbeil, Pillau, Bieskobnicken, Palmnicken, Goldbach, Berlin, Plötzin, the Magdeburg railroad station, Uelzen, Oldendorf and Bodenteich.  Before leaving , I had placed an ad in “Das Ostpreussenblatt” (which is now called the “Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung”) hoping to locate anyone else who had lived in Palmnicken and Goldbach when my family was there. Five people replied, all of them older than I was, and I was able to interview them during my trip.

 I even managed to locate and interview my old friends Sigrid and Horst from Langendorf; Ruth Egger (the “frog lady”) from Goldbach, and Gudrun Neumark from Plötzin. I found the sister of my friend (and gang leader) Werner Teschner still living in the remnants of the Ammo.Camp. While I was in Bodenteich I stopped by the tidy brick house of my former teacher (and torturer), Mr. Schlemmer whom I found crumpled up in a wooden wheelchair eating cling peaches with his hands.

DI: How did you learn about the massacre at Palmnicken?

  GN: As I wrote in Weeds Like Us the task of disinterring the victims of that massacre destroyed the health and spirit of my Opa.  Everyone at the time talked about the bodies being those of Jewish women. But years later, when I told this story in Germany, people acted as though I must have a wild imagination (…..dass ich “spinne”).

Years later I discovered a book at a German book fair in New York City that had a few pages on the “Palmnicken Massacre”. I also found a book written by Martin Bergau who actually witnessed the massacre as a teenager. In preparation for my trip in 1998, I sent inquiries to the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel, from whom I received English translations of the memos written by officers of the Red Army in Palmnicken in the summer of 1945 describing what had taken place. When I was in Kaliningrad I met with Mr. Bachtin, who was the head of the state archives, in a fruitless effort to locate the Jewish cemetery in Germau which had simply disappeared without a trace.

DI:  How difficult was it to write from the perspective of young child?

 It would have been difficult to write it any other way since that’s the way I experienced it.  I’ve always found it irritating to read books supposedly written from a child’s point of view in which the child “knew” facts he couldn’t possibly have known – details about distant battles, world politics, even what was happening a few miles away.  Other authors were too judgmental, finding everyone on one side good and on the other side evil. I told my story just the way I saw and felt it at the time. 

DI: Much of the book is dialogue. How did you recreate that?

  GN: Some of the dialogue in the book is an exact quote. For example, I’ll never forget the words my father used when he was first reunited with my mother. In other cases, while it might not be word for word, the dialogue captures the gist and the tone of what was said. Of course, writing in English, I couldn’t use the colorful East Prussian insults which my Oma threw at me and I loosely translated “Wasserkopf” as Fat Head, but, for the most part, the conversations were deeply etched in my memory and are as accurate as possible.  

DI: There is a moving part of the book where your downstairs neighbors (including children) literally freeze to death. Why do you think your family survived the whole ordeal when so many didn’t?

  GN: The Schmidt family came from a life of ease in the city and weren’t used to physical labor and hardships. They were intellectuals who moped around and spent their time collecting flowers and reading poetry. Years later my mother told me about a number of similar cases where people from the cities who had been transplanted to the Kolkhoz in Goldbach couldn’t cope with the physical work, especially the tree cutting during the winter. And, of course, if anyone got sick, they didn’t get any bread and starved or froze to death. Unlike spunky people like my mother and my cousin Ilse, many of these city dwellers also lacked the nerve to “organize” food on the job during the day or to steal potatoes from the fields and the potato clamps during the night.

All in all, country folks were more successful in surviving than city folks. Take my grandmother, for example.  She was a farmer’s wife with an eighth grade education, a healthy survival instinct, and a fervent trust in God. There wasn’t a single day in Goldbach when I did not hear her singing or humming hymns. My grandmother was a no nonsense sort of person who considered picking flower and reading poetry a waste of time under those circumstances. She demanded that we chop wood and collect stinging nettle, sorrel, chamomile, acorns, berries, mushrooms, and grain. Even more important, she had the practical skills to “make do” with whatever resources were at hand.

DI: How did the idea of coming to America take root? Was it the Care packages?

  GN: Care packages gave me certainly a taste of America in the truest sense of the word. But so did the movies which I saw in the Ammo Camp in Bodenteich and later as a young man in the Cologne area. During that time I also heard stories about Germans who had immigrated to the United States and the good life they had there. In 1958/59 I met American soldiers during maneuvers while serving in the Bundeswehr. In those days I was a “jazz fan” and the ultimate experience was a performance by Count Basie and the jazz singer, Joe William, in the American military canteen in Baumholder near Kaisserslautern which some of my army buddies and I attended together with 2,000 G.I.s.

But if I’m honest, the real impetus for my coming to America was a young woman in Cologne whom I had dated for more than two years.  She was determined to marry me.  Her mother and my parents enthusiastically supported the idea but I just wasn’t ready to settle down. So I boarded a steamship for New York with $400 in my pocket and two suitcases with the intention of staying in America for a year or two.  And here I am still, forty-five years later.

DI:  The Experiences of Germans living in East Prussia were largely unknown – even in West Germany.  Is that finally changing?  Should Germans see themselves as victims (Opfer)?

  GN: There have been many books in German about the expulsion of the civilian population from East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia. The best-known were by writers such as Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, Hans Graf von Lehndorff, Siegfried Lenz and Arno Surminski. In the last few years there have also been several made-for-TV movies on German television about what happened in East Prussia. Günter Grass’ 2002 book Im Krebsgang about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff finally brought to the attention of the entire world the fact that there were also Germans who suffered both during and after the war.

 There are older Germans from the former provinces of East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania who see themselves as victims and who still hope to reclaim those lands from Russia and Poland. Personally, I don’t see anything to be gained by perpetuating a feeling of victimhood. I have never viewed myself as a victim. I just had the bad luck to be seven years old in the wrong place at the wrong time.

DI: What is the status of the German version? Did you also write it?

 GN: 

Yes, I did the German translation which has a working title of Unkraut vergeht nicht. A professor in Germany did the editing.  With the help of a well-known German author I have a contract with a top-notch literary agent in Munich and, hopefully, she will find a publisher for me over there.

 

Comments

[Hattie]

Thanks for this fascinating interview.

[Constance E. Castellon]

Bravo Mr. Nitsch. Weeds Like Us is a moving sensative view of war from the stand point of a young boy with hungry eyes and an inquisitive mind!

[Ephraim]

Does any one has names and adresses of survivors?
My mother survived it and put the "story" in writing.
My E-mail is: [email protected]
Ephraim

[Armando Martinez]

I recently met Gunter and his wife in Natchez and lost the calling card he gave us. Iwould like to contact him to send them some pictures we took and also would like to tell him how much I enjoyed his book. We have several things in common but the mos important is that we were both wasserkopfs.

[David]

Armando, you can e-mail me your contact information. I will pass your message along to Gunter.

[Thomas Jeschke]

Could someone ask Gunter Nitsche
whether he could post any pictures
of himself and his family. After reading Weeds Like Us, I have a strong desire to see the faces of Opa, Oma, Mutti, etc..

[jordan 3]

You cannot appreciate happiness unless you have known sadness too.Do you understand?

[Kristel Elizabeth Westphal]

Dear Mr. Nitsch - Greetings from AZ. I've read Weeds Like Us & Stretch. I thoroughly enjoyed both. Will you follow-up with another book about your life in America? Please think about it. Readers want to know about your life in USA. My husband Erich is a German immigrant who resembles the little boy in boots & cap. Kristel Westphal

[Marianna Stilwell]

Dear Mr. Nitsch, I too thorouoghly enjoyed your book "Weeds Like Us." Please follow-up with another book about your life after you were reunited with your father, and your life in America.

My daughter met you on the elevator train in Chicago, and you gave her a card with the name of your book on it. Thank you so much for the book and the story of your Oma and Opa...and their faith that sustained them and you through all of the trials of your early life. I too had a dear Oma and Opa, who lived their faith before me too. Please let us hear more from you. I could hardly put the book down. God truly has given you a talent as a writer. May God continue to direct and use you.

[David]

Marianna,

Mr. Nitsch did follow up with a sequel to Weeds Like Us.

See my review of Stretch:

http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2011/02/review-gunter-nitschs-stretch-coming-of-age-in-post-war-germany.html

[laura]

David, recently i ,met gunter aand his wife in brasil. He gave me his card but i lost it and i want to write him back by email. He stopped me in the streets and said to me that my little blonde son reminds he wen he was a child..can you give yo him me email? Im laura from argentina de [email protected]

[Ulrich Nitsch]

Dear Gunter, I just finished reading your book "Eine lange Flucht..." in German. And I feel deeply moved. I identified so strongly with you and your family as if I did belong. Of course, my background with my ancestry stemming from OstPreussen contributes. My grandfather Richard Nitsch was born 1875 in Pr Eylau. My father Karl Egon Nitsch 1909-1942 grew up i Königsberg. He fell as a German soldier in Russia. I was born in Leipzig 1938 and grew up in Sweden. The German catastrophy and the loss of my father remains a wound in my heart. In the last few years I have been visiting the place were my father fell and last year I even managed to visit his school in Kaliningrad. Would be nice to get in touch with you.
Warm regards
Ulrich Nitsch
[email protected]

[Katie bowen]

Such a wonderful book. I have read it now five times; each time, I am moved beyond words. Thank you to Mr. Nitsch for writing his memoir, for giving insight into a time and a world that otherwise remains somewhat of a mystery

[yvonne dartnall]

I have just finished reading Weeds Like Us, your moving story of your life experiences. My mother and her family were from Interburg left their home in January 1945. I heard many stories of my families experiences but sadly the family are now all deceased and I am the oldest one left. I am not able to ask anyone now and can only use my memory to pull together the journey my family took. Your book has helped me to understand why my mother was so overprotective of us as children, I recognise some of your Oma and Mutti's Prussian characteristics of strength and a stubbornness to hold their values, and I feel that I am now able to fully recognise my East Prussian heritage. I first went to Koln and Solingen at the age of 6 months (in 1950),and have been so many times since to visit my family all over Germany. My mother came to England to nurse TB patients in about 1949, where she met my father. Thank you for sharing your story, God Bless you.

[James & Yvonne Meischen]

We meet Gunter and his wife on a cruise to Spain. We sat next to them at a local restaurant and watched Fado singers. We truly enjoyed our visit with him. I have read his book and I could not put it down, especially since we had meet him personally. I would like for him to know and maybe stay in contact with him. Thank you

[Carmen Wiesner]

Hallo Herr Nitsch,
meine Vorfahren Fritz Nitsch und Louise, geb. Strietzel hatten folgende Söhne: Ferdinand (mein Urgroßvater) Gustav, Willi und Fritz.
Ferdinand ist am 14.11.83 in Lanskron, ebenfalls Bartenstein geboren.
Haben wir evtl. die gleichen Vorfahren?
Ich hatte meinen Eltern ihr Buch geschenkt. Mein Vater war hellauf begeistert.
Vielen Dank dafür. Meine Email: [email protected]
Einen lieben Gruß
Carmen Wiesner

[Andrzej]

This is an excellent book with so much detail. I couldn't put it down. My father was deported to Siberia and we never knew what he went through. The books lends substance to the fact that the 'them and us' and not Germans vs Russian or vs anybody. There are two sides; the perpetrators and the victims and, although they overlap sometimes. The victims are bound together by their common suffering: the perpetrators of whatever political persuasion are bound by their cynical disregard for life and human values.

[Trudy Keith]

After reading the books from Gunter Nitsch, I realized how lucky I was to have been in the American Zone. I Always heard negative comments about the Refugees from the east when I was a Child. I don't think the people in the west had any idea or compassion for the refugees from the east.
I was happy to meet the first American Gis, that gave us food and Chocolate and Candy Bars. I just loved them. We also got Care package, and we loved the Spam and Corned Beef.
When the first troops came in, I lived in the Heilbronnn area, I thought it was the beginning of hope and I new life. and it was.

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