Lebkuchen and Love

from an immigrant's daughter

When I was in third grade, I attended Turtle Rock Elementary School, in Irvine California. I got super excited for the show and tell right before Christmas break. I couldn’t wait to tell my classmates about “German Christmas.”

I explained to everyone that I am half German (the other half, I still like to joke, is Californian.) I told my classmates about St. Nikolaus Day, when I got to put my shoes outside my bedroom door, and if I’d been good, he would bring me Lebkuchen and other German treats. (If I wasn’t good I’d get coal, but naturally that never happened.)

I told everyone about Advent calendars and Adventskranz, and how we opened presents on Christmas Eve instead of the following morning. And I described the delicious Christmas bread called Stollen, which often contained marzipan—my favorite!

That show and tell marks the first time I can remember understanding my family history and traditions were not the same as those of my classmates. But this was a good thing. I was proud of my German heritage and excited to share German Christmas with everyone. Growing up in Southern California, I had friends from all walks of life, from many different parts of the world, and I believe this has made me an moreunderstanding, respectful, inclusive human being.

When I was done with my presentation, a classmate asked me if I was a Nazi. He must’ve thought since I was German, it was likely. After all, in the 1970s, Germans—Nazis—were the bad guys in all the movies.

I was surprised, and while maybe I didn’t know exactly what that question implied (I’m pretty sure the kid who asked it also didn’t know), it caught me off guard. I obviously hadn’t thought about it.

So maybe differences aren’t good? It sort of depends, doesn’t it. I’ve struggled with figuring out the distinctions ever since.

My mom did too. About a year before her death, we went to a prospective members meeting of the local German American Society. At one point someone asked her what her maiden name was, and she lied, then instructed me to do the same.

She hadn’t wanted a room full of Germans to know she’d had a Jewish surname. She never got over being self-conscious about her background.

She rarely spoke about her childhood. It’s amazing how little I know about her life.

She was born in 1939 in Leipzig, Germany. Her parents’ marriage was dissolved, because her mom was half Jewish. Then there was a move to the town of Grimma. During this time there were “incidents” with a Russian soldier, but what exactly that means, I’ve no idea; she never elaborated. Somewhere in there they spent time in a refugee camp.

When she was about 11, her mom and two brothers left the east while my mom was attending a summer youth camp. Her mother had to hire someone to pick up my mom from camp and basically smuggle her out to the west.

Then came an unhappy stint at a boy’s school in Bielefeld, time as an au pair in Switzerland, then she got a sponsor and moved the U.S. in 1959.

When I went to Germany last fall, I’d hoped it would somehow connect me to more of her past. It did, in some ways. In Grimma I felt the echoes of generational trauma quite clearly when we found the house she had lived in. And throughout the Leipzig area there was a sort of collective heaviness that permeated almost everything. I can only describe it as coming from people who lived through some serious shit.

The trip helped me learn more about the time and place that shaped the person she was in a way I never could’ve understood before. It gave me context for her reluctance to relive those times, and it helped me understand her fierce protection of her privacy, of who she truly was. She’d lived all her life with labels.

My mom instilled in me many things; I believe she wanted to pass on her best qualities to me, and she succeeded. She taught me bravery, and how to work hard. She instilled in me a love of books and taught me how to think critically. I inherited my dry sense of humor from her. I try to bring forward the best parts of who she was, every day.

This mini family history isn’t where I’d intended this post to go, but here we are.

We are all immigrants in one way or another, each of us bringing multiple histories with us. Familial, cultural, religious… We all want to belong and to feel worthy of having a place from which to stand on solid ground and be the best versions of ourselves. I’ve always taken it for granted that the United States was a place where I could do that, as I stand on the shoulders of those who didn’t have it quite so easy.

---