On
November 28th 1976, shortly after 11 a.m., we
stepped onto the ground of our new Heimat at
Frankfurt airport. We had already wondered what
to expect and now we stood with beating hearts
in this great open country. But three sisters
from the Red Cross appeared immediately,
welcomed us and took us to reception. They
escorted us to seats in the airport and said
that a bus would take us to the reception centre
in Nuremberg. Our first surprise was the size
of Frankfurt airport - that really opened our
eyes! As it was Sunday, we had to wait until one
o’clock for the bus so we had time to wander
around in amazement at everything. When people
passed by, it was like a fashion show and the
fashion here was quite different to the one we
knew back home. The windows were dressed so
beautifully you could stare at them for hours.
The use of a lot of steel, aluminium and glass
didn’t fail to impress either. We were struck at
how easy the explicit directions made everything
to find in the huge building. We’d never seen a
conveyor belt for suitcases before either. We
looked at all the different automatic machines
and thought, ‘they’ve got a lot to catch up on
where we’ve just come from!’. When each of us
received a welcoming sum of 3.5 DM in order to
buy something to eat, we guarded the 10.5 DM as
though it were a fortune and let lunch pass by.
Our first stop on the journey boasted an ultra
modern church in a beautiful setting. We made
rapid progress on the motorway. At 4 p.m. we
arrived at the reception centre in
Berta-von-Suttner Strasse in Nuremberg. There we
were once again welcomed by sisters from the Red
Cross. One of the older ones shouted her
instructions in a peremptory tone. She would not
let a mother, who hadn’t seen her two small
children for two years, see them, but instead
ordered her husband to first fill out the forms.
She treated us as though we were in the army but
no-one dared say anything. Luckily, she was the
only one who treated us like this. The
allocation of rooms, handing out of meal parcels
and money for meals for the next two days (24 DM
for three people) all went smoothly. What we did
wonder about was the dark wholemeal bread, which
we were not used to. Our apartment was fitted
out better than the hotel room in Bucharest. We
found everything necessary in the room, plus
also a fully fitted kitchen. We shared the
kitchen and washroom with two other immigrant
families, who were put up in the other two rooms
for two days. As it was the season of Advent,
there were brightly coloured lights in the town
and also tall Christmas trees all lit up. The
shop windows glittered in all their splendour.
Our neighbours had explained to us how to get to
the Christkind market. The first thing we did
was spend 4.8 DM on a telegram to
Alexanderhausen to say that we had not flown to
the USA but were staying in Germany. The biggest
surprise came when we had to fork out 5.4 DM for
the return journey on the tram. Had we known
this before we wouldn’t have got on the tram
even though it was quite a distance to the camp
(in the old Heimat public transport was cheap).
We had a lot to learn and this was only the
beginning. On Monday we had to go to twelve
various places. All our Banat villages have
various names, e.g. Alexanderhausen, Sandorhaza,
Sandra. Talk also came around as to how we had
actually been given exit visas to the USA. But
there was no problem as we had valid entry
permits for Germany. For the entry permits we
had had to give details going right back to our
grandparents, and these details were asked for
again, but all our ancestors were German. On the
second day there was enough time left for us all
to receive some presents. We were thrilled with
these. Everyone received a bag with soap,
handtowel, toothpaste and toothbrush. Armin also
received an anorak, pyjamas, underwear and even
a little toy car. Hans was given pyjamas and I
had slippers and a nightshirt. These were our
first Christmas presents in Germany. Later I was
to find out that even though these lovely little
gestures of small presents were taken out of
taxes paid by us, many people begrudged them. We
were very surprised when we received 515 DM
which had to tide us over for two weeks (three
people). We just couldn’t believe that the cost
of living was so high here as we had always
reckoned 13 Lei to one DM, which was wrong for
we hadn’t compared the purchasing power. On
Wednesday December 1st at 7 a.m., after handing
in our cutlery and hand towels, we were taken to
the railway station and off we went to the
transitory camp in Rastatt. We were collected at
the station and soon arrived at the new place.
There, our particulars were registered once
again for the State of Baden-Württemberg. We
were very satisfied with the accommodation and
it was nice that my cousin had just called us at
the administration office so we didn’t feel as
forlorn any more. On the fourth day in our new
Heimat we had to apply for unemployment benefit
and two weeks later we received our first
benefit money. We liked the town of Rastatt very
much. For the majority of us who came to
Baden-Württemberg, this lovely town was to be
our new home for a few days. The following day
we went to the town hall and to our luck (the
data protection laws were not so strict then),
we were willingly given the address of Sepp
Kilcher’s family from Alexanderhausen. We hadn’t
dared to ask anything about Germany in case it
aroused suspicion that we might not be going to
America so we only knew that some fellow
countrymen lived in Rastatt. We were received
very well for which we are eternally grateful. I
can still remember that ‘Biene Maya’ (Maya the
Bee) was on television and to see this in colour
was something quite special for our 12-year old
son. The family also gave us several important
tips so we began to feel more cheerful already.
We also visited our other fellow countrymen:
Thierjung, Racher, Kutschera, Müller and
Wittmann and we were amazed at how much they had
achieved in their ten years there. Someone
thought that the transit camp in
Bietigheim-Bissingen (which would have been
close to my cousin) would be difficult to get to
as it was outside the town and was in bad repair
(we imagined like a refugee camp). Considering
our jobs, we decided on Karlsruhe and the
following week it was agreed to by the
commission. But we had to wait for another week
until there was room. Meanwhile, my cousin and
his wife had already visited us in Rastatt. I
only got to know them when I was 39 years old as
I was too young to remember them on our visit
before the war and he had been evacuated with
his high school from Serbia to Germany in 1944.
I will speak my mind here: It would have been
better for us if Romania had deported us too; as
it is, our fellow countrymen must still fight
for their emigration even today (written 1986).
We too had had careers for 20 years and now had
to start all over again. As we were used to
always working, this felt like a holiday to us.
Luckily, there were at least newspapers in the
waiting room and we could keep up with the news
(to spend one DM on a newspaper seemed very
expensive to us). While we were still in
Rastatt we received an invitation and travel
tickets for all three of us to go to Stuttgart.
This was our first independent journey in our
new Heimat. We had to go to the Home Office. My
husband and I were asked what we did in Romania.
My interview was soon over and I could go and
look at the lovely Christmas market with Armin.
For Hans, the questioning went on for a whole
day. He was interrogated by two railway experts
who had come from Munich about the Temeschburg
railway station and the Romanian railways in
general. Not that we could have told them
anything they didn’t already know, but we were
probably being tested. I find this all quite
acceptable; unfortunately, too little is checked
in general. On December 16th 1976 we arrived
in Karlsruhe. It was an old transitory
residential home (we call it ‘camp’ for short)
and was not very clean. The walls could have
done with a lick of paint. The first thing I did
was to start cleaning and the boys went to fetch
coal. We set up two metal framed beds above each
other and as our trunks had already arrived I
covered the lower bed with curtains so Armin
could sleep if the light was still on. I also
hung up the net curtains we had brought with us.
The third bed served as a sofa at the same time.
There were even two cupboards, a table and three
chairs and on the floor there was a threadbare
carpet. But we were glad that we had anywhere to
stay at all. The room was about 4 x 3.5m (13’ x
11’). The previous tenants had left an old
fridge and the camp administrator had sold it to
us for 5 DM. It was our first, and very
important, piece of property in Germany as it
symbolized our food store. The apartment had
three rooms. In one of them was a single 82-year
old German woman from the Serbian Banat and in
the other a Romanian woman with a 7-year old
child who was almost blind. We arranged the
cooking and eating in the kitchen so that none
of us would ever disturb each other. We had just
enough room for all three of us to sit at the
table. We cooked by gas by inserting money into
the gas meter. The wash basin and WC were also
communal. In the cellar there were 1 - 3 washing
machines for each staircase, also metered, and
there was a separate cellar with showers. There
were asylum seekers from Asia, Africa and Europe
in the same camp too, but I don’t know of any
great problems that arose between them and us.
But they did tend to quarrel amongst themselves
now and then. Those of us who had them as
neighbours did have to suffer. Now we had to
start with all the paperwork. I have to say that
the authorities we dealt with were very
approachable and also helped us with advice.
Unfortunately, we also learned that you had to
fight for your rights and had to prove
everything, even though this was often
impossible. So, for example, I learned from a
much younger colleague a lot later, and quite by
accident, that my unemployment benefit had been
calculated for a technician and not an
academically trained engineer (she received a
lot more). There was of course no comparison to
salaries here. In Rastatt we were given several
lectures to make things easier for us to find
our war around and not to fall prey to
swindlers. As for health care, this was
unfortunately not mentioned. I’ll never forget
how kind the people at an insurance office were
in trying to help me. I had terrible toothache
and I was given painkillers and told that I had
to get a certificate from the AOK and make an
appointment at the dentist, and all this just
before Christmas. We had to learn everything. So
I caught a tram and then wondered why I couldn’t
get off. At the next stop I understood why - you
had to press the button to dismount! Many a
person has had to pay dearly for their
apprenticeship. Now our first Christmas was
before us. For us newcomers in the camp it was a
lovely gesture to be invited for coffee and cake
in a festively decorated hall and all the
children received a Christmas present. The
children also performed something on the stage.
We will never forget all the things our quiet
helpers did for us. We were very worried about
the future regarding work. The railways had
stopped recruiting and I didn’t understand the
terms used here in my profession. People tried
to help us in the camp as much as they could.
After the Christmas holiday our son had to go to
school. So an appointment was arranged at the
district education authority. As the school
system here was different to that in Romania, we
didn’t know which school we should send our son
to. The children in the camp, who didn’t come
from Romania, had to first learn proper German,
but our children came from German schools. We
had a very pleasant and informative
conversation. The last question, however,
stunned me: Where had I learned to speak German
so well? (even though I had been announced as a
German from Romania!). I didn’t feel it
necessary to elaborate further, that this was
our mother tongue and many of our parents had
only ever spoken this one language during their
lifetime. And this was supposed to be a high
cultural office! At school, they then realised
what the situation was and apart from general
adaptation problems there were no difficulties
for our son, not even with his fellow pupils,
which was not always the case with other
immigrant children. For our naturalization, a
family book was immediately produced and
although we had translated our documents
ourselves, the registrar found our Christian
names straight away. A colleague, also named
Helene (Romanian: Elena), had difficulties with
this in Aschaffenburg. One would sometimes think
that certain people wanted to deny us our German
heritage and they did not understand that we had
managed to keep this despite Magyarisation (e.g.
Foosz instead of Foss) and Romanisation (Ioan
instead of Johann). We also came across some
nice people from Alexanderhausen in Karlsruhe (Bewi
and Hans Ihm) who told us about some of their
experiences. The doctor’s family, Reinert - he
had been a high school friend of Hans - also
made us feel at home. Right at the beginning
of the year we were advised to attend German
courses so we could use our time in getting to
know conditions in Germany, and so we received
maintenance instead of unemployment benefit. As
our son was only 12 years old and my course was
in Frankfurt, Hans could stay at home while I
lived part-time in Frankfurt or else travelled
to and fro some days. Our first trip to the
old Heimat was during the Easter holidays in
1977. Late in the evening there was a happy
reunion and we could tell people something about
our new lives. Hans’s cousin, who had made so
many trips to Bucharest in the late 1960s, now
saw no chance of getting away as the main way of
getting out of the country was through the
buying off industry. There was a joke which went
something like this: Better to breed Swabians
than livestock because you get more money for
them! The cost per head had risen from 5,000 DM
to 8,000 DM and for university graduates it was
about three times as much. Those who had no
parents or siblings in Germany saw no prospect -
the most you could hope for was to buy a visit
to Germany, stay there and then years later buy
off the family. We were given so many pieces
of advice, but when it came to it, there was
always one piece missing. So I was strongly
convinced that I must first complete the course
and only then would I apply for a job. No-one
had mentioned that I would have to write 30 - 50
job applications so I was very disappointed when
the 3 - 5 job applications I made in Karlsruhe
didn’t end up in a position being offered. As I
hadn’t thought of accepting a post near
Stuttgart I didn’t take much notice of the
starting salary when discussing jobs. We hadn’t
been given any advice in this area either, nor
did we know that some companies had additional
pension insurance for their employees. All these
important points we only learned about much
later by coincidence. As I was feeling
disheartened after six unsuccessful job
applications, I accepted the job in Stuttgart
after all and later learned that my salary was
that of a beginner even though I had worked in
this field for six years. Also, the State paid a
large part of the salary as integration aid, so
the personnel department made savings at our
cost. Anyway, the working atmosphere was
excellent and the top boss turned out to be a
Saxon from Siebenbürgen (Transylvania), who had
come here already before the war. I must add
that, being an immigrant, I was the first female
in the department. Only a year later did we get
a secretary. Meanwhile, Hans had begun a
business course in Bamberg and our approval for
a camp in Stuttgart had to wait. So now our
13-year old son was alone all day long and I
travelled from Karlsruhe to Stuttgart and then
another 45 minutes to my job, for three months
and from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., and then I had to
cook etc. Just as well we had a sensible son who
didn’t give us any problems. But we were
thankful that we had somewhere to stay and that
I, at least, had a job. Meanwhile, we had been
at the camp for a year and now had to move on to
another one. As we didn’t know where Hans would
find work we were glad to be able to stay in a
camp at all. In the Park settlement in the town
of Ostfildern/Nellingen we had an even smaller
room. One of our trunks fitted in perfectly in
front of the window between the beds and could
now be used as a chest. We had already learned
how to make a fire in the coal burning stove,
but it was sad that our son once again had to
change schools and lose his friends from
Karlsruhe. So many of our compatriots,
especially the older ones, had problems
integrating. When asked if we were homesick we
answered with a straightforward ‘no’. We had
already applied in Karlsruhe for financial
compensation for our losses in the old Heimat
and we had already been more or less talked into
a savings scheme with a building society and
every penny was saved. We had always been used
to doing this anyway. A second-hand car, a small
television and a tent completed our list of
possessions. We didn’t own any chairs at this
point - we wouldn’t have had room for any. After
20 months, when Hans had found as soon as he had
finished his course, we could move to a State
subsidized apartment in Stuttgart. The hardest
thing for us was to re-adapt, for we had come
from another world where people helped each
other more and where one knew one’s neighbours
well, even in the big towns. It was harder for
our son as he had to change schools four times
in four years until we finally found a proper
place to stay, and that was in the town we had
first started off in the camp (the world is
round!). The biggest gain for us is the freedom
and the possibility to travel. Today we can see
more in one year than we could in several years
before, let alone the fact that certain
destinations didn’t come into question for
Germans as it was always assumed that we would
never go back. Now we are approaching
retirement and I must say that we have had to
save during our whole life, but could always
live modestly and contentedly. I would also
mention that our ancestors could invest their
savings in a new future, but as emigrants we had
to leave everything behind and most people
accrued large debts in hard currency in order to
buy themselves off. Progress is underestimated.
We have described everything in such detail in
order for
people to be able to comprehend the difficulties which every
emigrant had to endure.