These notes are taken from the manuscript “Denk Ich am Sonneberg” written by Renate Kehrein (née Schellhorn) in 1981, covering the period from 1939 to the end of the war, 1945. The significance of the year of authorship is that the Iron Curtain was still in place, meaning it was very difficult to cross over from the West to the East Zone. My grandmother tried to cross over about the same time, but was not permitted by East German Authorities.

Renate was born July 15, 1932 in Unterkochen, Baden-Württenberg, Germany. Her father was Otto Schellhorn, and mother Elsa Schellhorn (née Gmur). Walter was Otto’s brother, and thus Renate’s uncle, and Dickie was Walter’s second wife.

It is important to keep in mind that these stories were written by a middle-aged woman, recalling the memories encoded through the eyes of a young girl (aged between 7 and 13). Her stated motivation for writing down these stories was to explain to her children, who were learning about Germany’s actions in the War, naturally wondered about the complicity of their parents. It’s complicated.

There is a tension in these stories, which might be drawn from the guilt of her failure to act against horrors committed by the German people. Yet she was a child at the time and in that position the actions of adults are easily viewed as the normal and thus acceptable.

In conversation she did say they didn’t know what was going on, and as a child, I’m sure that was true; but less so for her parents. I do recall her saying her father had told her to stay away from the train station and even in her stories she recalls a class-mate who disappeared one day. Renate is conscious of these issues and does say she tries to avoid white-washing or playing the victim card.

I do not want to whitewash myself with these claims. Nor do I have any intention of boasting about false ideas of resistance. During Hitler’s time, I was simply a growing, very enthusiastic child who was initially completely swept along by the Nazi regime’s youth programs, only slowly began to doubt Hitler after my own bitter experiences during the war, and much later realized the disaster that the German wars of aggression had brought upon the entire world.

Finally, the original text is in German, and my German is insufficient to fully translate. As a result I have drawn on automation to perform the heavy lifting.