It is true that the average child is neither gay nor very serious. He is cruel, but not courageous; hard, but not firm in character; sly but not clever; unchildlike, not mature. So far, the average German child is neither unhappy nor even rebellious.
But were we German children of 1914 subjectively unhappy during the War? Did we protest? Did we question? Hitler’s government goes farther than the Kaiser’s in what it wishes the people to accept, but it also goes farther toward supporting its premises and making them credible. It concentrates upon the conquest of the “inner enemy”; between 1914 and 1918, there were other troubles to be met and mastered.
The isolation of the Nazi world protects the growing child from seeing things as they are, and so from unhappiness. One day the child grown up will inevitably come face to face with truth, and be struck by its lightning glare. Susceptible to the “new,” the German youth of the future will find in truth, apart from its general power, the might of the unexpected. It will have the force of a revelation.
But this has not yet happened.
Of course, some children suffer under the pressure of the everlasting propaganda, the monotony of days that are dreary in spite of dictated festivity. Many suffer because now they can never be alone, left to themselves to read and invent stories and pictures.
There are other lacks. Children who had been sent to Switzerland, because of insufficient food supplies at home, were often at a loss in the beginning for something to help them spend their time. This sudden freedom was a desert; the day was empty without commands. Only gradually, as they found themselves accepted by other people, they began to find themselves; they might sit for hours in the garden with a book, deep in a childhood world withheld at home; or eat normal food, good eggs, rich milk, and white bread. At first they couldn’t get enough. They were like the “holiday children” during the War; they would overeat on these “delicacies” and be ill. But they would soon recover and accept freedom and plenty here as they had learned to accept want and drill at home.
It is generally known that want is great in Germany, and that growing children suffer especially from it. There is a shortage of most foodstuffs: fats are rationed, and good meat, fresh eggs and pure flour have not been inexpensive and plentiful for a long time. Bread is spoiled by the addition of potato meal and other Zusatz — it is dark, damp and almost indigestible, and the breadcard, that most dreaded of war measures, seems inevitable. Great physical endurance is demanded of the children; they suffer most.
The recipes in the new German cookbooks reveal more of the actual state of affairs than the official reports do. It is not unusual to find advice on how to make a “delicious, nourishing cake” with Ersatz fat, oatmeal, and entirely without eggs. “Good, dried fish” is recommended instead of meat, which is declared — just as during the War — unhealthful. The German Woman’s Paper (No. 14) makes revealing suggestions, like this about the use of mildewed marmalade: “If there are only a few spots of mildew, we remove these and use the marmalade immediately on bread or for dessert. If there is a lot of mildew, we remove it along with the adhering marmalade, and boil the residue. We use it as rapidly as possible thereafter.” We do not waste rancid butter either, according to the same paper. “Our precious butter may taste rancid. We knead it thoroughly with salt water, and, if that does not suffice, we fry it with onions and can then use it perfectly for fried potatoes, roast meat or vegetables.”
Menus arranged by the household publications are just as embarrassed. Vobachs Frauenzeitung suggests for Wednesday dinner, after a lunch of boiled potatoes and cold pudding, nothing but “cottage cheese with linseed-oil.” That’s not much of a dinner; and it is not surprising that the children, transplanted into normal Swiss or Dutch conditions, collapse. Family reunions will not become more gemütlich because of insufficient meals; family life can never be improved by these menus and suggestions.
If life in the family has fallen to such small importance for the average German child, it is infinitely more difficult for the child of Jewish or “non-Aryan” descent. All the misery of the pariah — of being outside and despised — he must suffer because of his parents.