How Hitler made me forget Germany

Good day dear reader, I hope you had a great week. Mine has been interesting.

A friend of mine who is also homeless is back in the hospital. I've been looking after him for weeks because he is 75 years old and his memory sometimes fails him. He forgets to take care of himself, so I became his friend while helping him out.

In my previous letter, I mentioned leaving Germany, which was the best part of my childhood. There is no other way to describe it. Even today I can close my eyes and remember looking out the window to the street below, the beautiful German neighborhood I lived in.

I don't quite remember arriving in Peru. What I do recall, was that we met my grandma, and she was very kind and sweet to me. At first I could not understand her, but I felt her love. Mother decided to place me in a private school to help me adapt.

That was a big mistake. Because I spoke German the kids at the school started to say "Hail Hitler" to me (among other thing). At the time I didn't know what it meant, but the tone in which was spoken made it clear to me, that I was being insulted. I got bullied every day, until I told my mother about Hitler.

She became very upset over it and took me out of that private school within days. I thought that speaking German was bad, so I started to watch TV more; kids shows of course. While my mother was figuring out where I should go to school; I was learning Spanish in record time.

By the time she decided on the local school "Don Bosco" my Spanish was good enough so I wouldn't be picked on. I didn't take long to become a normal Peruvian kid. My favorite sport was basketball, rather than soccer (we call it Futbol).

I had good grades, wasn't a troublemaker and only got into one fight with a kid which was... let's say heavier than me. I must've been around 10 years old when it happened. He was a little older than me, the fight took place at a park not too far from the school. A lot of kids were there, forming a circle around us.

I remember that he hit me first. I took a punch to the right side of my face and asked him "Is that the hardest you can hit me?". He then charged me at a speed I didn't think was possible (because of his weight).

Next thing I'm on the ground and he is on top of me, sitting on me. I'm face down, unable to get up. He is just jumping up and down as if I was a sofa. Everyone was laughing, while I was in pain every time he put his weight down on me.

I had no choice but to give up. He got up and made it clear to everyone he was the winner by raising his arms. I don't even remember the reason for the fight, but it was the second time I felt embarrassed, the first being called Hitler.

Funny enough, within a few weeks we sort of became friends. Not close friends, but close enough that nobody would even think of messing with me. He was a bully and nobody in our class ever challenged him. The kids which were in the higher grades didn't mess with him either,

That part of my childhood was average I guess. My family was middle class, well, lower middle class. We did not own a house, we rented. I tried to forget Germany, because it made me feel as if I had gone from paradise to a bad place.

One day for some reason that I can't quite figure out myself to this day, I faked passing out right after school was out. I was so convincing that one of my teachers took me to the principal's office so he could take a look at me, The school was run by Father Pighi and Father Puy (I think that is how it is pronounced, I could not find any info online about Puy).

I "woke up" on the leather couch in the office and pretended to not know how I had gotten there, my mother showed up worried but I assured her that I was feeling fine, I suspect that maybe I did it to get her attention because she was sort of dating one of my teachers, but I really don't know if that was the reason. After all, he was one of my favorite teachers.

Within a few years I had totally forgotten my days in Hamburg, instead my mind was in getting candy, playing games at the local arcade, playing basketball at my school (after classes were over).

However something which in the long run would change my life came out of nowhere. Grandma, the person I loved the most (more than my mother) was leaving us. She had a sister in New York and she was going to join her. I had no idea why she had to go, I begged her to stay but all she would say was that she loved me and that she would send me gifts.

I had no idea why she was leaving. Of course now I know why she did it. Our family was struggling financially, I didn't see it because I was a child. Had she stayed... I'm pretty sure she would have protected me from the nightmare that would taint my childhood forever.

It won't be easy writing the next letter dear reader, but I will try my best.

May you walk in the light of God.

Sincerely.

Luis

In the beginning...

Hello dear reader, how are you today? I hope you had a wonderful day by the grace of god.

Where should I start? I guess, at the beginning.

Do I remember my childhood? barely. Was it so bad that I blocked it all? No. Well, the good parts I remember I guess.

I was born in August of 1969 in the country of Peru (south america). I don't remember my father leaving me and my mother, all I knew was that I had a mother and no father.  I think I was 5 years old, old enough to understand what it meant when she explained it to me, that he had left us but that it was not my fault. It wasn't until years later after we returned from Germany that I found out he had left us for his mistress.

Germany... good memories there. I don't remember even the face of the man my mother fell in love with, but I remember how we left Peru with my grandmother crying at the airport the day we left for Europe. I believe I was about 7 years old.

It didn't take long for things to change, the kind German turned into a monster. I can still remember how badly he had treated her. I could hear the screams and how he abused her verbally and physically. I hated him, wanting him to disappear, It went on for a few months, until one night mother packed our things and we left to live with a girlfriend of hers, I think they were coworkers.

Mother worked at a hospital, I'm pretty sure she was a nurse and the way her friend treated me with kindness and always with a smile. I thought that she had to also be a nurse.

It did not take long for her to divorce, even tho she never mentioned the word, only that we would never be with that bad man again.

A few weeks went by before we moved into a small apartment in a tall building (at least it looked tall from the outside). I'm certain we lived in Hamburg.

There is where I met my friend Mike. I don't even know how to pronounce his name properly, decades have passed since then. Probably his full name was Michael, and his last name sounded like Lepa or something like it.

He was a blond kid, a bit older than me. Son of a woman that lived downstairs from us, we played ball, rode our bikes in the neighborhood and played with our toys every day. It was the most innocent and wonderful part of my childhood, something I held on to for many years, and still recall on occasion with fondness.

Every weekend or so mother would take me with her down to the local laundromat where I would run around (because I didn't listen to mother, like most kids do at that age) while she was taking care of our clothes. One weekend, I ran straight into the door handle of one of the washers. Next thing all I saw was red and hearing my mother screaming frantically.

I remember being in an ambulance, then waking up in a hospital bed with bandages over my left eye. My mother was sitting on a chair next to the bed. She told me I was lucky that I still had an eye, that the German doctors had saved me from being half blind.

To be honest, at the time I didn't understand it all. It took many years until I could understand how badly I had injured myself. Today I can feel the bone under my left eye, pushed in as if someone had hammered part of it.

A few weeks went by and everything went back to normal, back to school, back to playing with my best friend Mike, back to being a careless kid again. My mother did become a bit more protective then.

I wonder sometimes what I would've become had we stayed there. Until next time dear reader, I will write my next letter as soon as I can.

May you walk in the light of God.

Sincerely.

Luis