Germany in War Time: What an American Girl Saw and Heard

by Mary Ethel McAuley

MOVING IN BERLIN.

When you move from one place to another in Berlin it takes just about three days to get all the food cards in order again. Here is what you would have to do if you move from one suburb of Berlin to another, say from Charlottenburg to Wilmersdorf. This is for all foreigners—even neutrals.

First you go to the Portier or janitor of the building where you live in Charlottenburg, and he gives you three green slips which you fill out. These slips tell your name, age, occupation, religion, nationality, where you were born and where you last lived. After they are filled out the Portier signs them. The Portier keeps one slip, sends one to the magistrate of Charlottenburg and gives you the third. With this green slip you go to the Charlottenburg police. In the first room a policeman looks up your record which you are surprised to find filed in a little box, and if your record is all right he sends you into the next room where the chief presides. The chief of each police station has charge of all the foreigners, and at the little branch police station on Mommsenstrasse where I reported in June the chief told me he had over five hundred foreigners in his district.

You present your green slip, which the man outside has stamped, and your passport to the chief, and after more filing and stamping both on the slip and on your pass, you are ready to move. As soon as you get to Wilmersdorf the new Portier gives you three white slips to fill out. They are very similar to the green ones and ask the same questions. The Portier signs these, and he keeps one, sends one to the magistrate of Wilmersdorf, and with the third white slip, your green slip and your pass, you go to the police in Wilmersdorf. Here they file and stamp and then give you back your pass and the white slip which has been stamped for the bread commission.

It is not necessary to go to the bread commission in Charlottenburg, but you must take all your food cards and your white slip with you to the bread commission in Wilmersdorf. Here they look over all your cards very carefully to make sure you are not trying to cheat them and then they give you an entirely new lot of cards cutting them off up to date so you can't get more than your share of food. So far moving has been easy, but the worst part of the business is to come, and that is getting registered to buy meat, eggs, butter, sugar and potatoes at certain stores. Lately this registering has been somewhat simplified, and you can get registered at the bread commission for all the articles except meat, but when the registering was first introduced each person had to go to the Rathaus or city hall himself and get registered for each article. This meant that one had to stand at least an hour—for there were always such crowds—at five different rooms waiting to have your sugar, meat, butter, potato and egg cards stamped so that you would be allowed to buy these articles, and after you were registered you could buy them only in a certain store, but if you weren't registered you couldn't buy these articles at all. This registering scheme was a very good one, for since it has been introduced there has been no standing for any of these articles, and when the people go for their butter or eggs they find it waiting for them, and the food controllers give each shopkeeper just as much of each of these articles as he can show he has customers registered to buy that article in his store. This has also done away with a lot of selling Ohne Karte, or without a card, for the shopkeeper does not dare to sell without cards, for then he would not have enough for his registered customers and then the police would get after him.

Just to show you what a trouble this registering is I will tell you of the time I had getting registered to buy an egg. I got the egg card easily enough. I had lived at a boarding-house before and I did not even know that you had to be registered for eggs. I took my egg card and went to Herr Blumfeld, an egg-dealer near by, and told him I wanted to buy the egg due on my card. That week we got only one egg apiece. Herr Blumfeld said that he would gladly sell me the egg, but first I would have to go to the magistrate of Charlottenburg and get registered to buy from him, but that after I got registered I could always buy eggs from him.

That didn't sound so hard, so I took the egg card and went to the court-house, which was about six stations on the underground. The court-house was black with people madly rushing to and fro with cards in their hands, red cards, green cards, yellow cards and blue cards. There were soldiers, prosperous looking business men, maids, children, well-dressed women, and women with shawls on their heads. Guides were stationed everywhere, but the people did not seem to be able to find the room they wanted.

I asked a guide where the egg room was, and he pointed it out to me, "Eierzimmer 91." I had to go up five flights of stairs, for all the registering rooms were on the top floors. About seventy-five people were ahead of me waiting to be registered to buy eggs. It was about an hour before my turn came, and then I presented my card and said, "I would like to buy eggs from Herr Blumfeld on Pestalozzistrasse."

"Where is your Ausweiskarte?" the lady at the desk asked. I told her I had none and had never heard of one.

"I can't register you for eggs without an Ausweiskarte. So you will have to go home to your Portier and get one."

I took the underground and hurried home. The Portier said that he had no Ausweis, or permit cards, and that I would have to go to the bread commission and get it. After waiting at the bread commission in line for an hour, I succeeded in getting an Ausweis card, and then I rushed back to the magistrate. This time I had to wait only half an hour, and at last I came to the desk and was registered to buy an egg from Mr. Blumfeld of Pestalozzistrasse.

I had spent the whole day trying to get that egg, and I was happy in the thought that my efforts were not in vain. As I rode back on the underground I was trying to decide, "Would I eat my egg for breakfast or for dinner? Would I have it boiled or fried?" and then the awful thought came to me, "What if the egg was bad?" That would be too cruel!

It was just seventeen and a half minutes to eight when I got back to the egg shop of Herr Blumfeld. He was sweeping. I waved my card triumphantly, "I have it," I cried. He leaned his broom against the counter and pointed to a sign hanging over the stove, "Eier ausverkauft" (Eggs sold out). I looked at it, then staggered, and then fainted dead away in the greasy arms of the astonished Herr Blumfeld, Eier-Grosshändler.