End of World War II

1945 was a tumultuous year.  I remember the excitement of VE day.  I guess it was a big deal to me because of the reaction of the adults, more than for what it was.  VJ day was another thing.  It became a community celebration.  The volunteer fireman drove the fire engines through the streets, with sirens blaring and bells ringing.  People joined in an impromptu parade.  Many more stood along the streets cheering.  Teenage boys were throwing rolls of toilet paper over the telephone wires creating streamers.  The mothers stood by scolding, (toilet paper was rationed and in very short supply) and hoping they hadn’t thrown out the Sears catalog.

My brother Emil and I would play soldier.  If we were lucky, one Christmas toy would be a playgun.  If not, a stick sufficed.  In the spring, the clumps of soil in the overturned garden made great hand grenades.  We would hold one up to our mouth, pull the pin, and hurl it across the garden.  On a dry day the puff of dry soil could easily be imagined to be an explosion.

At night we would have blackout drills.  The air raid wardens would come by to check and see that no light was coming from the house.  Dad said it wasn’t real; there were no planes that could get that far from Germany or Japan.  He would light a fire in the fireplace and we would sit, listening to the radio.  It was much like many nights, except someone would be outside tapping on a window or knocking at the door, if he saw some light.

One other wartime duty was sleeping at Baba’s.  When Uncle Joe left for the Navy, it left Baba alone.  She was in her late 60s and Dad felt it best that she not be alone overnight.  I always thought it kind of funny that this woman who could terrorize not only grown men but teenagers as well, needed someone to be there overnight.  Especially a 9 year old with his 7 year old little brother.  But, on designated days, we would walk the 147 steps and sleep in Uncle Joe’s room.  One major benefit was breakfast.  Our mother provided a good breakfast; cereal, hot in the winter, cold the rest of the year.  Baba made eggs for breakfast.  Fresh eggs from the chicken coop, often gathered by Emil and me.  She would cook the eggs on an old coal stove in the basement.  Her son had long ago bought her a gas stove for the kitchen, but she kept the old coal stove in the basement.  I really liked that basement, except when she was butchering chickens.

So, the war had seemingly little direct effect on me.  We followed its progress.  I specifically remember the last months of the war in the Pacific.  Uncle Joe was on a cruiser, and the family was worried by reports of heavy damage being caused by the kamikaze attacks.  (We were later to learn that Joe’s ship had been hit by a kamikaze during the battle of Okinawa.  He was below decks in the engine room and was unhurt.) 

There was concern for those in the services, and hope that the war could be ended soon.  When the war ended, surprisingly, with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was a relief.  I do not remember, then or later, anyone feeling regret over the dropping of the A-bombs.  It meant that friends and relatives in danger, were now out of danger, and would be coming home.

As the end of 1945 neared, we were back together again.  The Christmas ritual of putting up the electric train layout had begun.  Things were returning to normal for us and for our extended family.  A pattern of life that was to see me and four of my siblings to adulthood was established.  We were back on the street where my grandfather had chosen to live.  I, for one, have always been grateful to him for that.

In 1953 my sister Donna was born, and two years later my brother Dan.  They were the only members of my family born in a hospital.  We were, in many ways like three families.  The three oldest all within four years of one another.  The next two, four years later,  three years apart.  Then, after eight more years, Donna and Dan, two years apart.  We three oldest referred to the middle two, Mitzi and Rene, as “the kids.”  The name stuck, and even Donna and Dan would occasionally refer to them as “the kids.”