All in all, I stayed in Gebesee for only eighteen months. In that time I had learned carpentry and how to build model aeroplanes. I became a family representative, I helped out on the farm during peak harvesting and, generally, enjoyed every minute of my stay. I also had no difficulty passing my exams.
Each holiday offered me something special. In Karlsbad, I played tennis with my aunt and went to concerts and operas. In Harzburg, I was able to progress in the art of the Spanish Riding School. I spent more holidays with the Goedeckes and went skiing with them in Thuringia. Erika and I were usually together and we spent Christmas with our guardian in Mücheln.
It was no wonder that I was so unashamedly happy, and had not become downcast because the war seemed to be dragging on without an immediate end in sight. It was different for my parents and they suffered severely to be separated from Erika and me. It was not until after the war that I discovered how hard they had been hit and I felt guilty when remembering how happy I had been without thinking what the absence of their children must have meant to them.
In November 1940, my class transferred to Haubinda, the intermediate-grade school near the town of Hildburghausen in Thuringia, where a whole new range of interesting and exciting experiences was waiting for me.
Haubinda lay about sixty-five miles to the south of Gebesee and was beautifully situated in an elevated position at the edge of a long stretch of Thuringian woods. The main school building, of timber frame construction, rose to a height of four stories and was topped by a clock-tower that could be seen for miles. All classrooms and main function rooms were located there, as well as one family of boys. The accommodation for the main body of pupils must have been the most attractive of any provided in the Lietz Schools and was a specific idea of the founder himself. Dotted along the edge of the wood, but within a ten-minute walk of the school, were idyllically situated detached houses, one being provided for every family. Each house was different and all were of timber-frame construction. Twelve to fifteen pupils lived in each house together with their “family parents”; the younger boys usually slept two or three to a room while the senior boys had single rooms. There were one hundred and twenty boys in Haubinda, all between fourteen and sixteen years of age. The headmaster, Dr Willi Damm, was a small man, alert and enthusiastic in his ways. I think he was less strict than Dr Prüss, and always had a twinkle in his eye, but he was an excellent educationalist.
My family father, Herr von Papenhausen, was the teacher for gym and general sports. He was a wiry man who displayed a fantastic agility in the gymnasium. I was one of twelve boys who lived with him and his wife in the Kirschberg Haus (Cherry-Hill House) called after a nearby cherry orchard. Although my house was the furthest from the school, I did not mind, and loved to walk to my lessons along the pleasant woodland paths. In winter I sometimes used my skis to go back and forth, or maybe took time to make a detour if it was a particularly nice day. The crunch of hard snow under my boots or the swish of skis after a fresh, powdery fall were the only sounds that could be heard in the stillness of the snow-covered landscape.
Our daily routine was identical to the one we had in Gebesee, but in Haubinda we had the additional opportunity to learn pottery, and copper work in the “arts and Crafts” sessions. I joined the music guild, because I had not played the violin since leaving Ireland and was beginning to get rusty. Frau Zeilinger, the wife of one of the teachers, gave me lessons and soon brought me up to a standard at which I could join the school orchestra.
The facilities for sport were excellent. Apart from athletics grounds, we had a soccer pitch, a swimming pool, a rifle-range and a tennis court. There were several ponds on which we could skate in winter, and the hilly terrain gave excellent skiing and tobogganing opportunities. I thought ice-skating a bit dull until I managed to encourage other boys to start playing ice-hockey, but, to me, there was nothing to beat the exhilaration of a high speed ski-run down the side of a hill. In the woods at the back of our school we had natural bob-sleigh runs provided by the beds of small streams running down the hills. We turned snow into ice by spraying it with water and altered the shape of embankments to convert these into fast bends. The most popular toboggans in use were ridden by one person lying on his stomach and steering with movable runners at the front. We also used a large five-man toboggan with a steering wheel.
In Haubinda I gradually began to feel the pinch of food rationing. Being at an age when a boy’s physical development is very fast, I was not getting enough food to still my hunger. Although the weekly ration of bread, at five and three quarter pounds, was satisfactory, I got only twelve ounces of meat and nine ounces of fat. This ration of fat also included that used in cooking. It is small wonder that I did not get enough calories to replace those burned off during all my activities. The farm provided us with plenty of potatoes, fruit and vegetables, which were healthy and filling, but barely lessened my gnawing hunger.
Game was not rationed and we were lucky occasionally to have our diet supplemented with venison, hare or wild fowl. Extra food allowances were available to special categories, but we did not qualify. These only applied to heavy labouring jobs, people on shift or working long hours, sick people, pregnant women or breast-feeding mothers. Men at the top of the scale got ten pounds of bread, 30 ounces of meat and 20 ounces of fat in a week.
Lack of adequate clothing was something else that gradually became a problem. Ration coupons for clothing were valid for one year and could be used for whatever one chose. However, the amount of goods to which I was entitled was limited and I often wore clothes that I had outgrown. Footwear could not be got for ration coupons. In this case, a detailed purchase application had to be made giving reasons and justification for one’s need.
When I arrived at Haubinda, I was at an age when boys in the Jungvolk moved up into the Hitler Youth, but, just as it had been in Gebesee, we formed our own unit and had our own leaders. Of course, we still followed the prescribed routine and went through recommended tests, but it was all done as physical recreation without any propaganda creeping in.
Membership of the Hitler Youth had been mandatory in Germany for boys over fourteen years of age since 1933, and by 1939 the membership stood at 1,723,000. Total membership of all youth organisations, including the Jungvolk and the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädchen – Association of German Girls), was about 8 million at that time and all were under the direction of Baldur von Schirach, who had been charged by Hitler in 1933 with setting up these state-controlled organisations. There was something of interest for everybody. Besides an emphasis on athletics, there were camping and hiking trips that were thoroughly enjoyed by all the young people taking part.
I remember spending quite a lot of time in the Hitler Youth doing a form of orienteering and having to pass tests, which included map-reading, using a compass and rifle shooting. Although people have termed these activities pre-military training, I must say that I never saw any of our pursuits in that light and I know that I not only benefitted in some way from everything we did, but really enjoyed myself. Having had lots of practice with my air-gun in Carlow, I quickly got accustomed to rifle-shooting on the full-size range. It gave me great pride when I managed to win a medal for achieving the “sharp-shooter” standard.