Transcription

Godhild Adelheid Peter-Habib Interview, March 3, 2019

By Alexandra Perryman

This interview was conducted on my iPhone in person in my Grandmother’s apartment in Ashburn, Virginia. The setting was very quiet and it was just the two of us in her living room. The largest obstacle I faced is my Grandma’s dementia. It can be very challenging for her to get the right words out, and she occasionally switches between German (her native language) and English. She has a good memory of events that happened 40+ years ago though, and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of information she remembered.

Godhild Adelheid Peter was born in Lodz, Poland on February 4, 1941 to Georg and Adelheid Peter, ethnic Germans whose grandparents had immigrated to Poland during the 1800’s to teach the Poles how to do textile work. Godhild, or Godi as she is known to friends and family, does not remember any Polish from her childhood, though she does know that her parents both spoke it as well as German. At the age of 3 or 4 she fled to Germany along with her Mother and younger sister, her father was a Nazi. The family resettled in Rehau in Bavaria, where they were among their fellow Germans. Post-War Small-Town Bavaria was naturally destitutely poor. Eventually the family elevated to middle class during her early teens. She modeled for a little while in Munich when she was in her late teens, and eventually immigrated to the US to be an au pair for a wealthy family in Chicago in the early 60’s. Though she has fond memories of her time with that family, she began to work for American Airlines, and later PanAm as a stewardess to make more money. This also enabled her to visit her family in Germany more often. She moved to New York City, lived in Brooklyn, and met my Grandfather randomly at Jones Beach in Brooklyn. They began to date, but there were obstacles in their way. He was an American, and he was Jewish. She was German, and the daughter of a former Nazi. Both families disapproved of one another for very obvious reasons, resulting in their break up. Her father summoned her back to Germany, but his subsequent accidental death led to their reconciliation.

 

My grandmother remembers little about being a German in Poland, so most of my research was done on ethnic Germans in Poland. One of the sources I found mostly concerned the dispersion of Germans in Poland after the First World War and before the Second World War. For some reason it had completely slipped my mind that there was an entire other war that was fought long before my Grandma’s birth. I learned that the Polish government greatly took advantage of Germany’s destabilization following the war and regained territory that was formerly German called Poznania (Blanke 9). They kept taking territory from former Prussia and by doing so also gained governmental control over hundreds of thousands of Germany citizens. I was never taught this in History class and I don’t believe my family were those whose territory was taken over. It was always my understanding that they went willingly by order of a Prussian king to teach the Poles how to do textile work. I also didn’t know that Hitler had cited the mistreatment of the German minority in Poland as a justification for invading Poland in 1939 (Blanke 207). Some scholars believe that it wasn’t the mistreatment, but rather the mass influx of German Citizen refugees who attempted to leave Poland to be in Germany again that motivated this invasion. It is reported that thousands of Germans that lived in Polish occupied territory following the Treaty of Versailles fled back into the German borders expecting the government to take care of them (Sammartino 97). Germany was a poor country following the First World War and could not afford to help the homeless and jobless refugees that had returned to Germany (Sammartino 97).  In the years leading up to the war German control over the middle class and land owning elite in the towns they inhabited had dwindled, and Hitler’s policymakers used this as evidence for some type of mistreatment (Blanke 208). However, another article I found that was a Census of minorities in Europe in 1930 stated that the ethnic Germans owned both large estates and small farms and worked in businesses in villages and in the arts (Hesse 93). This negates claims that Hitler made about a German minority experiencing any kind of economic injustices. This same article states that my Grandma’s hometown of Lodz had a very rich German population and confirmed the family history that the town was known for textiles (Hesse 93).

 

Reference List

 

101. C. Hesse. “National Minorities in Europe: VII. The Germans in Poland.” The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 16, no. 46, 1937, pp. 93–101. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4203321.

“The Minority in 1939.” Orphans Of Versailles: The Germans in Western Poland, 1918-1939, by RICHARD BLANKE, University Press of Kentucky, 1993, pp. 207–237. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt130j2z1.12.

 

“‘We Who Suffered Most’: The Immigration of Germans from Poland.” The Impossible Border: Germany and the East, 1914–1922, by ANNEMARIE H. SAMMARTINO, Cornell University Press, Ithaca; London, 2010, pp. 96–119. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt5hh08d.9.

 

 

Me: Ok so we’re going to start. The date is March 9^th 2019, I always forget the year. Can you state you name and the year you were born?

Godi (In German):  My name is Godhild, and my middle name is Adelheid. That was the name of my mother.

Me: Mhmm (German)

Godi: (German) and my maiden name was Peter

Me: (German) But now it’s Habib.

Godi: (German)Yes that was the last name of my late husband.

Me: (German) Yes.

Me: Ok let’s try and do this in English. (German): Ok let’s mostly do this in English but when you can’t remember a word it’s ok if we slip into German.

Godi: (German) Yeah if I don’t know it or can’t remember.

Me: (German) Then we can do it in German too.

Me: Where were you born in Poland?

Godi: (German) I was…

Me: (German) in English please!

Godi: (laughs) Oh yeah sorry. I was actually born in Poland.Oh you just said Poland

ME: Yes, but which town in Poland?

Godi: Oh Gosh, if I was born there how would I know that? (NOTE: I did my own research and she was born in Lodz, Poland)

Me: Well I don’t know!

Godi: We moved to Germany.

Me: Yeah that’s my next question. So I know the story, but describe to me how you and your family escaped Poland because I think it’s a very interesting story and why you guys needed to go to Germany.

Godi: (German) Yes because the Russians were coming.

Me: Yes, but in English!

Godi: Because the Russians came and everyone ran from the Russians. And they were known not to be nice to the Germans after what Germany had done.

Me: Sorry to interrupt. So the town that you lived in in Poland, there were lots of Germans living there? Because…

Godi: I think so I just don’t remember because I was too little. I have one memory, (laughs) it sounds ridiculous but I was sitting on the pot and my mother had sat me on the pot to you know, use it. And I remember a truck coming by, and saying that mother and children should move west.

Me: Back in to Germany?

Godi: Back into Germany, exactly. And that’s a vivid memory I still have.

Me: So it was you and Kremi? (my aunt)

Godi: No but Kremi wasn’t born yet.

Me: Oh Mechi was born?

Godi: No no. They were all not born yet.

Me: Oh you were an only child at that point?

Godi: Yeah I was the oldest and then the truck that moved west took us and I remember and I also remember people running after the truck left. And screaming “we’ll get you” or “we’ll lynch you” because you know everyone was running west and they wanted to run west too. And they didn’t care who we were, they just wanted to get on that bus. But they weren’t so they were just running and screaming.

Me: I’m sure that was a hectic and scary time to be a three-year-old. Ok well thank you that was interesting. So this one I don’t really know for sure and maybe you don’t really know for sure, but your dad George; was he fighting in the war? Do you know where he was or what his job was? Was he just a foot soldier?

Godi: Yeah he was just a Schutzarsch. (laughs) which means the lowest

Me: Oh yeah arsch. For everyone listening who doesn’t speak German Arsch means ass!

Godi: yeah well anyway. That was what everyone said. And he played, he was in the music umm what did he play? He played Tuba. Which was a huge instrument.

Me: He was a big man so I’m sure he could do that. DO you know where he was, was he in France? In Poland?

Godi: No he was in Russia.

Me: Oh ok, so he was on the Russian front. That was from my knowledge the most brutal one because the winters were so bad. I’m sure he had some stories.

Godi: Yeah.

Me: Do you have any memories from after the war? SO you guys moved to Rehau in Germany after the war, do you have any memories of the war? My understanding was that you guys like everybody was really poor, was that true?

Godi: Yeah. I remember, I have several memories. We ended up in the Red Cross house, the Red Cross took care of a lot of (Refugees) they took care of them. And I remember the day my Dad came and I remember my mom just flying down the stairs, and she was just screaming Geroge, George, my George. And well it was very lucky to have him back. And he worked in the woods like cutting like a lot of (Refugees) would try and do. And that’s what he did too.

Me: I don’t think I knew any of that. Umm so now we are kind of transitioning to when you came to America. So obviously this is like, do you remember how old you were when you came to America?

Godi: Yeah I was 20.

Me: Oh wow so you were exactly my age.

Godi: And I applied for a VISA in Munich, how di that go? I’m trying to remember. Because I had to go to Munich to apply.

Me: SO Your first job you were a nanny for that family in Chicago, how was that? Did you like that job?

Godi: Yes, I did. They were actually, the kids actually weren’t that small they were older already. I took care of the kids mostly. I made meals for them and that kind of thing. And I remember Mr.…. what was the name? Landman. And he would always sit there and read his paper and spread it all over the place. Umm and you know I visited them many years later which is kind of funny. And I was already married to Mike and I visited them and Mrs. Landman said, I knew you’d… you’d..

Me: Marry well?

Godi: (laughs) Yeah marry well.

Me: that’s nice.

Godi: And I already had.. I don’t know I think I had two kids.

Me: It would have been the seventies then because mom was born in 1968 and Eric is ’69, only a year later. SO maybe you did before Kirsten was born. I don’t think I knew that either. But um so I guess I don’t know if you experienced this. But did you have to learn English in Chicago or before Chicago? Like did you go to a school and learn it in Germany or kind of have to pick it up?

Godi: No I went to night school. And I knew some English but not really well I didn’t know it well.

ME: Right. SO you came in 1961, was there any anti-German sentiments? Like were people anti-German because it had only been about 15 years after the war.

Godi: No not really. Not towards me anyway, but I didn’t experience any of that at all. That was a long time ago.

ME: So this next part. You were a stewardess for American first and then PanAm umm so just talk a little about that. Did you enjoy it?

Godi: Oh yeah I did! Yeah the funny thing was too was that we were told we shouldn’t apply (to PanAM) because a lot of the girls (stewardesses) were European also wanted to go back and be able to visit their families in Europe, and I was one of them. So we were told not to switch to PanAm because that was the airline that flew internationally. But that was so typical you know. And obviously I transferred to PanAm like everyone else.

Me: You were like whatever I want to be able to go see my family. That’s funny. What was your favorite memory or your favorite place you traveled to? You went all over the place.

Godi: Ummm

Me: You can include this later, doesn’t have to be when you were a stewardess because you traveled a lot when you were married to grandpa too. In general,.

Godi: Oh that’s a whole different subject. Yeah umm I’m thinking. I’m switching from an airline…

Me: it could be one you went to as a stewardess

Godi: You know I enjoyed it a lot though because those long night flights, most people tried to sleep and a lot of people managed to sleep. And we took turns because we had to stay on duty. I was on duty. And I remember really well speaking to an old lady, and she had a really, I don’t remember exactly why I found her life so… she was flying to umm the Middle East and uh and I talked to her like sometimes we would be up at night. And then we whispered because the flight was usually pretty full. And she…. I’m trying to remember why she went to the middle east but it was a religious thing.

Me: Maybe she was going to Bethlehem? Could’ve been a pilgrimage sort of thing.

Godi: Yeah right. Yeah.

Me: Ok now we’re transitioning into talking about meeting Grandpa um so just kind of break down, I know that his family wasn’t too happy and your family wasn’t too happy, so can you just explain that.

1. I felt that the interview went well and that I learned more than I had intended to learn about my family’s history and my Grandma’s personal experiences. I definitely feel like it was more of a conversation than an interview, but I think that’s likely due to the fact that we are very familiar with one another and that I have to sort of egg her on at times to get an answer out of her due to her dementia. Sometimes we would get a little off track and it would be difficult to get back on the subject we were talking about, and I really did not expect her to openly talk about the first time she meant my Grandpa, as that is typically too emotional for her. However, I feel that her talking about their story added an authenticity to her memories and would probably make it easier for a listener to understand their different backgrounds.

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