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

by Mary Ethel McAuley

I will never forget the day my "ad" came out. Before I was up at seven A. M. the maid knocked at my door and said that I was wanted at the telephone. It was some one about the typewriter. That was the beginning. The phone rang all day long, and all the next day. People came in droves, and they would not go away even after the typewriter was sold. They wanted to know what kind it was, and they left cursing themselves that they had not come earlier.

Before I advertised in the paper I had decided to hold out for my price, one hundred marks. At 10.30 A. M. I was offered ninety marks, but I said one hundred was my price. At 11.30 there was a lull in the callers, but the telephone rang like wild. A little Jew came in and offered me fifty-three marks for my typewriter. I was standing there looking very much insulted at the idea of any one daring to offer me fifty-three marks for my good machine, when suddenly the landlady appeared at the door of my room. "Fräulein McAuley," she said severely, glaring at the Jew, "I want this to cease. The maids have done nothing this morning but answer the phone and go to the door about your typewriter. Do you understand?"

I felt squelched and begged her pardon, and when she left banging the door after her, I looked helplessly at the Jew. "Sixty-five marks," he said sympathetically. "Make it sixty-six," I said, "and you can have it." "Done," he answered, and I sold my typewriter at the profit of one mark after having it a year.

I explained to the landlady that I had not put the telephone number in the paper, and she was pacified. Her daughter admired the American way in which I had made the sale, and the following day she put an "ad" in the same paper for a pair of field glasses she had. "All the soldiers will want them," she said. They prepared for a rush such as I had had for the typewriter, and not a soul answered the advertisement. Both mother and daughter blamed me for it. I think they thought that I had done something more than merely advertise in the paper.

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.