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A German Childhood in the First World War by Else Wuergau Item 88
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pressing a wet cold cloth on the injured area. Pain and bleeding soon diminished. No need
then for a doctor. Luckily I was still wearing my weekday dress. I took it off quickly, hid it
and slipped on my Sunday dress with its white lace collar. What a state that would have been
in had I already changed! As if nothing had happened, I went out to meet mother and help her
carry up the sweet-smelling cakes. She did inquire why my hair was wet, but then father
arrived and the accident sank down into the joyful tumult of his welcome. The memory of this
reunion has remained with me all my life – as well as a small scar on my forehead under the
hairline.

 

  Father was worried about grandmother and Aunt Berta in Enzberg. How had they fared
with the hay harvest and all the summer work on the fields? How had they been able to do
without Wilhelm? Had they been able to get somebody to do his work? Mother reported: It
had indeed been extremely difficult and they would not have managed at all had the Enzberg
parson not intervened on grandmother’s behalf and succeeded in having the Polish prisoner of
war with whom they had all got on so well allocated to the farm on a full-time basis. She
praised Aunt Berta too: “She did the work of two men and is only a young girl after all
entitled to go out and enjoy herself.” Now harvest time was coming and Wilhelm would be
missed most sorely. The big holidays had just started. Father did not hesitate. Mother packed
and only a few days later we were in Enzberg.

 

Corn harvest on the hill fields

 

  Once again a man was sitting at the head of the family table in the kitchen, and
grandmother was glad to leave the planning of the work to my father. Yet throughout the
whole harvest, we realised that we could not fill the gap created by Wilhelm’s death. For the
reaping there was now only father, the prisoner of war, Aunt Berta and grandmother. At 4 in
the morning they headed off with their scythes and sickles, climbed up the steep road leading
to the elevation over the Enz valley where our cornfield was. Mother and I prepared the big
food basket and the jugs and set out along the same path as soon as it was time for the
morning break. It was half an hour’s walk. After the meal we remained in the field to help. I
laid out the ropes for the sheaves, placing them at equal distances from each other along the
rows of cut corn. The three women followed me, gathered up the corn with both arms, holding
the sickle in their right hands, taking up just the right amount, and laying it gently on the

 

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