InsaneJournal

Current mood:

contemplative

How did the Great War (world war one) affect you?
My father was a veteran of the war - he'd lost a leg, and the humiliation of his lameness coupled with the defeat of his beloved Vaterland turned him bitter. Freidrich Varner the war hero sat by the window drinking his beer, his medals still pinned to the coat that hung carefully on the coat rack in his study as long as I remember. He did not take to wearing it again until the National Socialists were coming to power. My family has a long aristocratic heritage - though the actual title that came with the land in Weisbaden is long gone, as is the 'von' that once preceded our surname. But appearances were important- they were proud people. They hired a tutor for our education, when they could barely afford food.

Many heirlooms left the house, one at a time, always in silence. We never asked where they went- and I do not think that my parents would have answered. But I assume this, more than my father's meager pension, is what kept up the outward appearance to the few neighbors who still came to call. The Varners were too proud to appear less than prosperous. I remember at times, certain things - my mother patching an overcoat , my father refusing to wear it in such condition and going without. The overcoat being handed down to Freddi, his coat to Bernhardt, and in turn that coat to me. But we never complained, not so much because of this family pride - but because we were aware that in many places people were starving. How could you complain of wearing your brother's hand-me-down coat when you went to town and saw boys with no coats, wearing little more than rags over their hollow frames? You could not in good conscience do so.

Growing up like this has made me stronger, I believe, than I would have been had I grown up in the excesses of wealth that had belonged to my family before the war. I have learned to accept what I have been given and make the best of it.