First Trip to the Continent

After the war I read in an Irish magazine a request for a penfriend from a German girl of my age. Ruth Schmiedel had, like me, trained as a teacher, but, because she, like most of the young people of her generation, had been a member of Hitler Youth, she wasn't allowed to practise teaching. She had a job as secretary in a manufacturing company where everyone was working really hard to rebuild Germany. Ruth and I became close friends and we had so much in common. She asked me to visit her so that we could get to know one another in person. In July 1950 I booked my boat and rail ticket to Weinheim, a brave solo undertaking in those days.

The travel agent in Dublin told me I'd have to change trains in Cologne at midnight and wait six hours for a morning train to Weinheim. I would travel from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead and from there by train to Dover to catch a ferry to Ostend and then my train to Cologne. The trains in those days were pretty uncomfortable, especially travelling Third Class on wooden seats! On approaching Cologne my fellow-passengers told me not to leave the train as it was going through Weinheim but I at first didn't believe them. However, on looking out at the bombed deserted station, I took their word for it and they were right. Six hours in a deserted station in a strange country? I shiver even now to think of it. Instead of arriving as expected in Weinheim at midday where Ruth was to meet me I arrived at 6am! The station staff told me how to get to Ruth's so off I set, leaving my bag at the station.

Ruth was fast asleep in bed when I knocked on her door and her stepmother opened it and ran to wake Ruth up. She and I later set off with her 6-year-old stepbrother to collect my bag and on the way home we sat Werner on the bag while Ruth and I took a handle each. He loved it. Ruth had a sister, Anita, too. Her father had fought with the Luftwaffe during the war and her mother was a nurse who had caught gangrene from treating soldiers' wounds and had died. The stepmother was just six years older than Ruth.

Ruth gave me a lovely time. Her boss entertained us one afternoon and opened some vintage wine for us. As we left, we were rather unsteady on our feet and almost fell into the flower beds. We made our way up into some hills to visit her grandmother who was fiercely anti-Nazi and used to listen to English broadcasts. We also went about with a friend of Ruth's called Emma who was living with an American soldier. Weinheim was in the American Zone. On the Sunday friends of Ruth's drove us to the Black Forest and we went to the top of the Sommerberg by cable car and enjoyed a meal in a restaurant served by waiters in formal attire while an orchestra played Viennese waltzes. We passed through a village where a carnival was taking place and another break took us to where we enjoyed a game of clock golf in the sunshine.

Another time Ruth's boss and a friend drove us to Cologne and we set out at 2 am for a fairytale drive along the Rhine, viewing the magical castles and stopping for a rest with a bottle of Rheinwein. The men had business to conduct in Cologne so we spent the day sight-seeing on our own. The day after our return a box of chocolates was delivered to Ruth's house from the men so we decided to disappear into the hills for a few days. We cycled to the foothills of the Odenwald Mountains and then carried the bicycles up the hill to a remote village where the only form of transport was oxen-driven carts. We used to pick wild strawberries in the woods and the guest house owners would serve them at dinner with fresh cream. It was a peaceful break for us and we enjoyed one another's company and sharing stories of our lives. Ruth was engaged to Georg Greulich who worked in a bank in Mannheim. He had, at the age of thirteen, been drafted into the army as a Hitler Youth, given a rifle and told to go defend his country, as Germany faced defeat. His mother had left her gate open, always hoping her husband would walk in, back from the Russian front but he never did.

Ruth's father was a really kind and pleasant man and he would sit on the doorstep each evening and play his accordion and sing German songs to us. Her stepmother was a brilliant cook. Altogether they went out of their ways to give me a wonderful time. Ruth took me to Heidelberg where we climbed to the castle with its wonderful views down over the Rhine and we went shopping in Mannheim.

On the way home I met two young eighteen-year-old Dutch lads on the ferry from Ostend who befriended me when I felt really seasick and miserable and I remember one of them had some connection to the Dutch Royal Family. They gave me their addresses to stay in touch but I never followed it up.

Ruth and Georg married and had a little boy and a girl but sadly Ruth got cancer and died at the age of 31.

Werner wrote to me regularly throughout his teens and some years ago we were on holiday not far from Weinheim so we went there and found Ruth's stepmother, then in her late seventies and with a partner because Ruth's Dad was long dead. Werner was then middle-aged and recovering from a heart attack but they were really excited to see me and they brought me up to date with all the family news. I went to visit Ruth's grave.