peter and walter : yes, we went to the "klosterschule". however, the school had been allocated to house several classes from a hamburg school (this was in the summer of 1944; all schools in hamburg had been been closed since the summer of 1943). we stayed until october of 1944, at which time the school was taken over by the munich school-district and we were (unceremoniously) shipped of to "babylon" between "furth (im wald ?)" and "taus ( now again "domazlice"). i believe babylon resided on a narrow strip of land that germany had annexed from czechoslovakia (i don't believe it was part of the sudetenland, but i could be wrong here). of course, when the war ended we were suddenly inside czechoslowakia ! to get back to metten; we were very well cared for by the nuns. despite a general shortage of food, the sisters made sure we always had plenty to eat. we lived like "maden im speck" ! when we arrived in babtylon, we were put up in a somewhat rundown hotel. there were several "summer-hotels" along a lakefront and we enjoyed being bunked six boys to a hotelroom, whereas in metten we had two huge "schlafsaele" (dormatories) to house probably 200 boys. but the food was not up to the standards we were accustomed to ! we were pretty disappointed to be fed rations for "normalverbraucher" - how we longed to be back with the sisters ! i guess we were a typical bunch of wild hamburger jungs. yes, indeed it was the KLV = kinderlandverschickung; except we hated to be classed as "kinder" (children) and caused our teachers plenty of trouble. those teachers were really quite special; they had a couple of hundred boys to look after, make sure they received adequate schooling, were reasonably well fed and they were responsible for getting them through the war unharmed - which they did !
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"hopfenzupfen" : it must have been in august 1944 that we were shipped off for two weeks to "win the war" by helping out in the hop-picking. i still have some old photographs from that time , should dig them up again. i wonder how much our effort was really worth; i don't think the farmers were very much impressed with our efforts ! i believe we were paid 50 pfennig for every bushel we picked. we certainly were not in it for the money but to get away from school. when we have our class-reunions, we somehow seem to be able to look back on that time with a great deal of nostalgia - it certainly created a very strong bond that has persisted for well over 50 years.
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i'll leave you with two famous "tisch-sprueche" that expressed our deep appreciation for what the cooks did for us (chuckle, chuckle). 1) "wenig essen die chinesen, eine handvoll reis am tag genau, was koennen wir dagegen essen, bei uns in der KLV" 2) "trocken brot und drahtverhau, junge, junge, ick war flau " ("drahtverhau" referred to the dried vegetables that were used to boil up some vile stew ... i apologize to anyone who doesn't know german, but i find it pretty well impossible to translate this "poetry". ...
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well, here we are more than 50 years later and somehow we seem to have survived . is it a miracle ? hbg
deutsch anyone ?
did a google check and found that babylon has become quite a modern spa ! you can visit it here (i'm NOT in the picture !) >>>
BABYLON AQUAPARK ..... how the times are changing ! hbg
Thank you hbg for your detailed report and funny poetry. Peter S.
Hamburger
Fascinating personal insights. Thanks.
KP
Noch jemand hier von denen die auch deutsch sprechen?
Ja, ich spreche auch Deutsch obwohl ich seit 53 Jahren in Kanada lebe.
Bin vor einigen Tagen in Wien gewesen, sehr schoene Stadt.
gruess gott, vitano ! and welcome at able2know ! visited vienna three years ago for an extented holiday; we spent three weeks in vienna and a lot of old memories came back. we think vienna is a really wonderful city and also very welcoming to all people. hbg.
Die deutsche Sprache wird in Hunderten von Dialekten gesprochen; nicht alle sind angenehm fuer's Ohr.
Ich finde den oesterreichischen Dialekt sehr warm und angenehm.
Man koennte ihn vergleichen mit einem Wiener Walzer. Kein Symphonie Orchester spielt ihn so wunderbar wie das Wiener Orchester.
Dies Kompliment wird meine Wiener Verwandschaft aber freuen! :wink:
Wiener Schmää ????? In my opinion Bavarian sounds better.
Peter S. wrote:Wiener Schmää ????? In my opinion Bavarian sounds better.
Der Klang von Masse in einem Bayerischen Bierkeller ist noch besser!
Ein, Zwei, Sueffe!
Wein und Bier in Wien sind nicht schlecht und die Schnitzel sind wunderbar.
Wine and Beer in Vienna are not bad and the Schnitzel are wonderful.
Und die Wiener sind freundlich; the Viennese are friendly.
Ich bin sehr beeindruckt von der Wiener Werkstaette, I am very impressed with the "Vienna Workshop".
You saw the exhibition of pieces by the 'Wiener Werkstätte' in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst (MAK) (Museum of Applied Art) or do you mean the "Neue Wiener Werkstätte", [which produces furniture in 'classic modern style' and reproductions of the originallly produced "Viennese Jugendstil"]?
Und was war jetzt mit Deutsch? Totally english now, if y'all ask me!
BTW, walter, ich mag dein sig-line! Wir haben genau so'nen Wetter gerade jetzt!
Und ich weiss nicht was BTW auf deutsch heisst ;-) , aber das macht ja auch nix, oder?
BTW (eng.) = n.b. (deutsch: 'nebenbei bemerkt', apropos)
Ach, NB kenne ich nur als nota bene= wohl bemerkt...
Klar, im Englischem, zudem gibt's auch noch andere Bedeutungen in Spezialgebieten :wink:
Walter, weisst Du was die drei Streifen auf Deinem Kragen bedeuten?
