After my first year in school I noticed big changes. The year was 1933. In our classroom before was a painting of the “Old Germans” who were lazy laying on a bearskin. It was replaced with the same old Germans, our forefathers, but they were now busy working, still wearing animal skins. This change in or switch in history left me puzzled. Of course from the wall stared a picture of the “Führer” at us.
1937 – my last year at school in Bohnsdorf (East Berlin). (1st row, 3rd seat back)
Soon I felt somewhat like an outsider, then many girls joined the “Bund Deutscher Mädchen”, BDM for short, and wore a special outfit to their meetings. But since I never got baptized, I had a free hour during school time, while my classmates had religion lessons. They envied me for this.
…During World War One, my father got drafted but let go again, since he was one of the first ever to refuse to swear to God and the Kaiser to save the Vaterland, by admitting he does not believe in God and therefore can not give this oath. (So this is the reason I can not believe in any religion.)
From Ursula’s autobiography, Leaving Berlin.
Ursula Grimm 