Subject: Anni Menne

shop assistant/ housewife

Interviewer: F. Hülck

Mrs Menne: My name is Anni Menne. I live in Münster, in Andreas Hofer Street. I have had a nice apartment there for 17 years now with what they call "In-Home Care". We can always call on help.

Interviewer: Could you just state that you agree to the filming?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: And to us using the footage?

Mrs Menne: You may use the footage including the names as you wish. I agree to it.

Interviewer: Thank you, Mrs Menne.

Mrs Menne: You're welcome.

Interviewer: Mrs Menne, we are interested in the time at the beginning of the Thirties. Do you remember this time? How old were you?

Mrs Menne: I don't know.

Interviewer: At the beginning of the Thirties you were sixteen.

Mrs Menne: Yes, you are probably right.

Interviewer: Yes.

Mrs Menne: That was my second best subject at school. My best subject was German. When I read the paper and see mistakes in German I get upset, but that is not your problem.

Interviewer: Exactly.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: How was it at the time? Were you in Münster when you were sixteen?

Mrs Menne: Yes, we lived in Münster in Wehr Street. My mother was the janitor in the Intermediary School for Girls. We lived rent free and we didn't have to pay for heating, but the job was not well paid. That was 1928. Then I began a commercial apprenticeship in Hamburger Street, in groceries, and we didn't live in Wehr Street, but Kodoier Street, which is in the Lamberti Quarter and the parish priest was Count von Gahlen. He wasn't always a bishop, he was the parish priest in 1930 and in 1932 my father unfortunately died and the local priest, Count von Gahlen, presided over his burial and shortly afterwards my mother went to pay for the burial service and Count von Gahlen took a handful of money from the collection box and put it in the pocket of my mother's apron. The women in those days almost always wore aprons. "So, now go home, it is all paid for." He didn't take any money. There were no costs for the burial. Later Count von Gahlen became bishop and we followed his progress. Then I finished my commercial apprenticeship in 1931, but there were thousands of unemployed in Münster with completed commercial apprenticeships and I was one of those. Then I took casual jobs. I sold vacuum cleaners for "Elektrolux" (manufacturer of vacuum cleaners and other domestic appliances, translator) door to door. I had to survive somehow, because I was unemployed. We didn't get much unemployment benefit in those days. It was 20 marks a month, but I had to pay 15 marks rent. My mother had remarried and she wasn't living with me and money was short. When you have to pay 15 marks rent from 20 marks it's not much to live on. That was in 1932. So I took on various jobs, in sales and door to door, casual work and that's how I managed. Later I had a good job with the company Bernsing und Ernesti in Hamburger Street - commercial, merchants and pharmacy. Spirits, pharmacy and groceries. That was a good job and it was fairly well paid and then I met my husband at the post office counter. You might laugh, but it was at the post office counter. I didn't have the money to pay the COD charges, so I had to wait there, there was no other way. He was looking for a respectable girl and I was certainly that. He really chased me and didn't give up and he tried to guess where we lived. Meanwhile we were living in Berg Street and he tried to find out and catch me there. In those days the admirers never came into the house. We lived in a very respectable house and it wasn't allowed and I had taken my mother in to live with me. She was unhappy in her second marriage. She was in Seppenrade, married to a wealthy master carpenter who had a carpentry business but she was so unhappy that I took her in with me. Of course that was a financial responsibility. We lived in Berg Street in the centre of Münster, close to the "Buddenturm" (a tower which was once part of the old city wall, translator). When we looked out the window we could see the "Buddenturm". That's where we lived. What did you want to know?

Interviewer: Were you aware of the political developments at the time?

Mrs Menne: Yes, I was aware of them, but my father was always anti politics. We stayed in the background, but things were happening. The persecution of the Jews was fairly strong. I also worked for a Jewish firm, but it was a generous company. They paid well. I sold goods in department stores for the Jewish company, but they were always fair. They always paid in advance. I never met the owner. He lived in Frankfurt. I earned money with my eloquence. I sold things to people who passed by. I always quickly drew a crowd of people who were interested and because of my eloquence I sold well and earned well. Those were good times. Later I went to work for Melitta. Melitta Minden, the coffee company, coffee filters. In those days the coffee filter was new. Nobody had filters. Before I came my appearance had been advertised in the store window and when I was there a board had been placed outside inviting the people in and everyone got a cup of coffee and was able to buy a coffee filter. In those days it was "in" and a new thing. I explained it all and in the evenings they invited people to a presentation and I was earning a lot of money. It was well paid. Melitta paid well. They paid for all expenses, like travel and accommodation. Those were very good times. I was even sent to Norderney where I sold the lighthouse keepers their first coffee filters. It was like a big pot or a bucket. The lighthouse had a restaurant. Then I was sent to Berlin, to Dresden and everywhere I had to appear. We got a schedule and had to travel to that place. My eloquence and my good speaking voice always helped me.

Interviewer: Were you already married then?

Mrs Menne: No, I married in '36 and the first child was born in '37 and the second in '39 and my second child lives in Stuttgart now, 540 kilometres away, so of course she doesn't come every week. They have children now and their children are studying or have already finished. That is another generation.

Interviewer: Your husband worked at the post office?

Mrs Menne: Yes, he was with the Post Office. I couldn't pay the COD charges for a letter at the counter and he was always after me. He found out where I lived and when I went out in the evening there he was. He really courted me for a long time because I was in no hurry to marry. That comes soon enough and that is the same these days. I was 22 when I married and I never regretted it. Later he was Postmaster, but in the beginning we didn't have much money. I earned good money at Melitta, much more than him. He was a candidate for the higher civil service at that time, and later he was promoted and he earned more money, but in the beginning we had to be careful with our money, although that's a good thing.

Interviewer: After you had married and had your first child, how was the situation in Münster? How did the changing political situation make its impact, or how was the political mood?

Mrs Menne: The Jews were being persecuted. That was going on. My husband was on counter duty at the post office and there was money missing from the day's takings and when this happened the counter staff had to pay for it themselves. The Post Office had plenty of money, but the counter staff were responsible and this was a family crisis, you could say. It was 100 marks. 100 marks today is not much but in those days it was a lot of money. The next day a Jewish man from the company Hass with double 's' came to the counter and gave my husband the 100 marks. We were so relieved that we had the money again. My mother would have lent us the money so that no shadow was cast on a postal official but we got it back from a Jewish firm. I have only had good dealings with Jewish firms, even before my marriage when I worked in department stores as a salesperson for the Jewish company.

Interviewer: Was there much anti Jewish sentiment?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: From amongst the population?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: Or did it come from the...?

Mrs Menne: Amongst the population there was anti Jewish sentiment. "Oh, you don't need to go there, they have Jewish prices," and it wasn't even true.

Interviewer: So the old sayings?

Mrs Menne: Yes, the old sayings were heard on the street and amongst the people.

Interviewer: Your husband had an important position at the Post Office.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: He came into contact with a lot of people.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: Did he ever express his opinion about these negative sentiments?

Mrs Menne: No, he stayed neutral, because he was a public servant. That is always the thing with public servants. They sit on the fence. No, he was too careful. If my husband could have had his way there would have been no police, no divorce, nothing. It would have been boring, but he was a really genuine person through and through. No, he didn’t express any anti Jewish sentiments. He listened to all the talk and we discussed it at home and we were very pleased about getting the 100 marks back, because it was so much money for us in those days and the money was missing from his register.

Interviewer: So how did things continue at this time? It must have been 1938 or '39 by then.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: The war came as a surprise to many people.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: And how did things continue for you? How did your life change?

Mrs Menne: My husband was transferred to Borken.

Interviewer: When was that?

Mrs Menne: In 1938 he had to work as Postmaster, so he was promoted and he was in charge of the post office there. We were given Post Office living quarters and financially we were better off. It was interesting work as Postmaster. We were provided with an apartment and we could pick which one. That was very good. My husband had to join the postal defence force. It wasn't like the storm troopers, but it was part of the Nazi party. He was given a postal defence forces uniform and if it had been necessary he would have had to report for duty. We had a nice apartment in Büren and then we had to leave because the English came, the occupation came...

Interviewer: That would have been later.

Mrs Menne: That was later.

Interviewer: So how were the war years, say around '39? How did things develop? Did you continue working or did you stay at home and look after the family? Your life must have been changed in some way.

Mrs Menne: Yes, my mother worked at the post office. We took her with us, because her second marriage was unhappy. I took her in and she worked at the post office doing casual jobs so we had extra money and I looked after the household and the children, of course. It wasn't possible in those days to work as well. My husband said, "It is not fitting for a public servant, you can't work." I would have liked to work part-time for Melitta and that would have brought in more money and been interesting, but he refused. "That is not fitting for a public servant." I can still hear him saying it. "Not fitting," well, there you go!

Interviewer: Did he remain with the Post Office or was he called up for military service?

Mrs Menne: He was called up later, in 1944.

Interviewer: Did he stay with the Post Office until then?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: There was a lot of work to be done, I suppose?

Mrs Menne: That's right.

Interviewer: They couldn't just uproot every occupation and send all the workers to the front line.

Mrs Menne: That's right. He was called up into the army reserve and was in an army barracks in Hamm. The barracks were bombed and he ended up in the basement among the rubble. There were 41 soldiers in the basement and 40 died in the bombardment. He was standing in a doorway and didn't get hit directly. He was dug out and he hadn't been badly hurt. He was lucky. That was how it was in the war.

Interviewer: Were you in Büren during this time?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: Were you affected by the shortages?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: Could you tell us more about that?

Mrs Menne: There had been food vouchers for a long time and shortages. There was a butcher where we got the meat, a brawny fellow, and we got 50 g a week, not a bit more. I said to him, "Mr Dietrich, that was such a nice piece of meat," and I always flattered him. He was fascinated and gave me a few grams extra. Men need to be flattered in order to get anywhere with them. That was Mr Dietrich. We had the food vouchers then and my mother worked at the post office and she sometimes got a bread voucher or something which was left over. (There is a another chair and a lounge chair). We carried on bravely through the hard times, since my mother was working at the post office and my husband. Then in 1944 the occupation came.

Interviewer: '45 !

Mrs Menne: Yes, all right, '45. We like to forget bad things. We had to leave our apartment, just get out, and we couldn't take anything with us and then we had to camp upstairs in the attic drying room of the post office with nothing. Once a day we were allowed into the apartment under guard to get the most necessary items. That was pretty tough, spending Easter in the attic drying room of the post office. Those were hard times.

Interviewer: But weren't you happy that the war was over and that the political situation had changed? What were your thoughts?

Mrs Menne: Well, my husband wasn't released. He was taken prisoner and sent to a prison near where we lived. He was sent to Massberg and had to work in a factory. The de-nazification was beginning and we had some hard years. He wasn't a public servant anymore. During the de-nazification he was assigned work in an automobile factory where crankshafts were made. He had to work for a small wage, but my mother earned money from the Post Office. We struggled through.

Interviewer: How did things continue after the de-nazification?

Mrs Menne: That took two years and after the de-nazification he was paid a handsome sum as compensation and rejoined the Post Office. We were better off then. We were able to buy clothes with the compensation money, and we had always been happy anyway.

Interviewer: Who paid the compensation money?

Mrs Menne: The de-nazification...

Interviewer: Department? It was probably paid by the British, by the occupying forces.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: They introduced it.

Mrs Menne: Yes, I suppose so. I don't know. We were paid by the Post Office or through the Post Office. Then he didn't have to be in the postal defence forces anymore. The postal defence forces meant he had to be there to help if something happened, but the post office wasn't invaded or affected in any way.

Interviewer: Did you move back to Münster or did you stay in Büren?

Mrs Menne: We were still in Büren and one daughter was at school and wanted to do her leaving certificate but that wasn't possible. It was a girl's school. Büren is a nice town. Recently I was able to afford to go back there. A taxi driver I know drove me there at a cheaper rate and I went and looked at everything again. There is a Jesuit College and a large school. She was at school there and then my husband was transferred to Vreden on the Dutch border. He was at the post office there for a long time. But unfortunately he got Parkinson's disease and he was given early retirement because he couldn't work at the post office anymore. He was working at the postal bus service and he had to tell people the departure times. Parkinson's disease makes people slow to react. When people asked him something he took a while to answer. The answers were always correct, that stayed the same, but he was too slow and so he was given early retirement.

Interviewer: Getting back to the war years, did you experience bombing raids in Büren?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: Did the bombing affect you?

Mrs Menne: Yes, we were often in the basement and the house we lived in was damaged by bombs. The bombs were dropped right there. The windows were broken and that was unpleasant.

Interviewer: So you were directly aware of the war?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: It wasn't as though Büren was unaffected by the war?

Mrs Menne: It wasn't unaffected. A bomb was dropped and the front of our building was damaged. The windows were broken and the road was damaged, but that didn't matter. We got new windows, but the splinters and all the dirt had to be cleaned up by the women. Nothing happened to us, because I always insisted on going into the basement and we were often down there. There were lots of alarms.

Interviewer: Did you have any contact with the occupying forces following the war?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: With the British or the Americans? What happened during those times?

Mrs Menne: I came into contact with them all, because we had to leave our apartment quickly without taking anything with us and the British and Americans ruined the apartment. They did the cooking on top of the good furniture and they took everything over. My mother gave me the gift of life a second time because of this cylindrical heating oven we had which the British had stuffed full of all sorts of things. When we were allowed to move back into the apartment we cleaned everything up and it was my job to light the oven. I kneeled in front of it to light the fire but my mother held me back. "No," she said. "Let me see what they have stuffed in there first," and indeed, there was a missile in there. They didn't put it in there with any purpose in mind, it was just stuffed in with the rubbish. It would have all blown up in my face and it was because of her caution that she could take it out first. I can still see that missile. She saved my life, because I was in charge of the oven and you always had to stand there next to it until the flame really got going. Later the heaters were really good, of course. Will you edit some of this out?

Interviewer: Yes, we will organise it in sequence.

Mrs Menne: That's good. Do you have any more questions?

Interviewer: When you heard about the systematic persecution of the Jews after the war were you were surprised or did you have some idea of what was going on?

Mrs Menne: We had some idea because people were always anti Jewish and I was always in favour of the Jews, because that Mr Hass brought the 100 marks back without a word and I had worked for a generous Jewish company. I sold the latest inventions to the general public and I earned good money and I was always tolerant. I never saw the man. He lived in Frankfurt.

Interviewer: You talk about the people.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: You talk about the people, but everyone is a part of the people.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: If you had a different opinion, could you do anything? Was it possible to have an effect or to do anything about the anti Jewish agitation?

Mrs Menne: You couldn't do anything about it and as a postal official it wasn't the done thing. He was so committed. I didn't take it all so seriously. I even smuggled things in from Holland which we couldn't get at the time. I smuggled coffee and cooking fat and necessary items, but he pretended we didn't belong together when we had to pass customs. Never mind, the main thing was that we belonged together again afterwards. Everything had to be absolutely proper.

Interviewer: At this point you already knew about the concentration camps?

Mrs Menne: Yes, there was that.

Interviewer: Were you aware at the time that the Jewish people were not going away on a journey but that they were being brought to these camps?

Mrs Menne: How who were brought to the camps?

Interviewer: The Jews.

Mrs Menne: Excuse me?

Interviewer: They were removed from Münster, weren't they?

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: But they weren't just being transferred. They were killed in these concentration camps.

Mrs Menne: Yes.

Interviewer: Did you have any idea of this?

Mrs Menne: Yes, we knew that, but normal people couldn't do anything about it. My husband could have done something, but a public servant doesn't do such things and public servants didn't have opinions. He wouldn't have done anything and didn't want to. He was very proper. No police, no divorce, nothing. Not for him.