Excerpts from

In Lieu of Flowers
by Louis Maier

Louis Maier, age ten (1933), stands in front of the family's stable [right] and outhouse [left].

Running A Railroad

In the fall of 1933 a new student named Horst came to our third grade class and was seated at a desk across the isle from me. Horst had recently moved to our village. He lived in a duplex in a newer area, nothing like our homes which were old farmhouses. Horst was different. He didn't talk in the local dialect, he was Protestant, his father was a railroad official who had been transferred to our local station. In many ways his behavior and language were foreign to me. He dressed differently, wearing Bavarian lederhosen while I wore corduroy kneelength pants. His name, Horst, seemed very Germanic to me. Nobody else had his name; most boys were named after saints of the Catholic church. Anyway, we both were a bit different from the rest of the class. Since he was Protestant and I Jewish, we didn't attend the Catholic religious instruction session with the rest of our grade. Both of us were good students and I was comfortable with his stilted language, which was a bit like my mother's. When we talked, he told me about his miniature railroad and I was quite curious. My friend Oswald had a beautiful wooden rockinghorse and I the largest selection of building blocks in the neighborhood, but here was a fancy toy which none of us could afford and I hoped I would get a chance to play with it.

One Saturday morning at school Horst said: "Ludwig, do you want to come over to my house after lunch and play with my railroad?"

"I would like that," I answered in the fanciest German I could muster.

I rushed home and asked my parents. They weren't too eager to let me off to play railroad on a Sabbath afternoon, but finally I convinced them to let me go.

After lunch I was off to Horst's house. When I got there, his parents were just about to leave. He indroduced me and then took me to his room where he kept his "rolling stock."

I was very impressed by this truly magnificent toy railroad. There was extensive track with many switches. It was battery operated and the engines and trains were impressive. There were freight cars, coal tenders, tanker and passenger cars and an engine that could be set to run forward or backward. Horst even had the station, semifores, lights and tunnels that are a part of a "real" railroad. We had the apartment to ourselves and spent several hours laying track: from the kitchen to the living room onto the dining room and back with many options through the operation of the switches. It was an exhilarating experience and it meant a lot to me to be there. We made railroad noises and set up for two trains passing each other. Time passed rapidly and we were surprised when Horst's parents returned and I had to go home. They noticed that we had a great time and suggested that I come back on other Saturdays when we could play all afternoon.

I looked forward to going to Horst's place. His railroad was unique and we were well suited to each other in our railroading efforts. I designed the layout of the track, the loops, the places for switching, the composition of the trains. My playmate was the technical expert and engineer.

One afternoon as I was ready to leave, Horst said: "Ludwig, I have a present for you." He handed me a small paper flag, the type used by spectators at parades. I was embarrassed by the swastika on it. It was the first year of Hitler's rise to power and I hadn't learned yet how to handle this kind of situation, but I knew it wasn't fitting for me to have this Nazi Faehnlein. I certainly didn't want to walk down the street holding a swastika flag, even if it was small. As I was leaving the house I stopped at the downstairs vestibule, rolled up the little paper flag and hid it up my sleeve. When I got home I tossed it down the hole in our outhouse toilet. I didn't tell my parents, but I never played with Horst again.

The Dorfschule [The Village school]

. . . Since our village was overwhelmingly Catholic there was a crucifix on the wall and religious instruction [during first grade] was given by a priest. I liked this class because he told stories from the old testament, and since I heard them before in my Jewish religion classes I was one of his best students. I was happy to get many of the little pictures of saints which he gave as rewards. Shortly after the rise of Hitler the priest stopped coming to class and religious instruction was confined to church and synagogue. A picture of Hitler also was placed on the wall. Initially it was below the crucifix, but soon it was hanging above. Not long after, the cross had disappeared altogether.

. . .I don't know if it was part of the curriculum, [in fourth grade] Bock taught us Nazi ideology . . . Bock asked our class: "Who loves the Fuehrer?" All had raised their hands, except me. Bock then asked: "Maier, you don't raise your hand, don't you love the Fuehrer? Why don't you love the Fuehrer?" I responded to the challenge with: "Because he doesn't love me."

Seventh grade class in the Jewish School in Karlsruhe (Spring, 1938). The author is in the top row, second from the left.

The Jewish School

In the fall of 1936 I entered the Judeische Volksschule in Karlsruhe. Most of us, students and faculty, had been expelled from the German school system. There were students who came from elementary schools while others, like myself, had previously studied at a realschule or gymnasium which were college preparatory schools. Like the students, the teachers had also been expelled from elementary and high school systems. Since the school served all students, rather than a select group bound for advanced degrees, the staff had to adjust to a wide range of intellectual capacity and interest. A redeeming aspect of the new arrangement was that it could emphasize the special education needs of students bound for foreign lands and a better undertanding of our Jewish history and culture. . . we computed dollars and British pounds and learned about the history of the countries to which we might emigrate. We even performed plays of special significance to Jews. One of these was: "The Jews" by the great German playwright Gotthold E. Lessing. Another play was by Richard Ber Hoffman whose writings we liked.

. . .The census of the student body varied. Additional students expelled from German schools would join, while others were leaving for foreign lands. This transitory state became a hallmark of the school and we spent a lot of time discussing legal and illegal means of emigration to many lands.

. . . Despite the turmoil, the school seemed a safe haven providing reassurance, learning and comradeship. This was important because our sense of self-worth was under continuous attack. The newspapers maligned and caricatured the Jews. Our people were excluded more and more from the cultural life of Germany and newspapers and radio called us parasites, perverts, weaklings and traitors. The teachers had to be careful not to attack the party line; there was no such thing as academic freedom even in this separate school. But here I experienced a renewed sense of security and pride.

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