Subject: hello Date: October 4, 2005 9:43 a. m. EST From: CF Behrman To: ernstmeyer@earthlink.net Dear Jochen I do not know if you remember me-Cindy Fansler-from the summer of 1939 at the Flanders (I was Josephine in HMS Pinafore) I remember you well and also remember with some shame that my cousin Jane and I were rather mean to you. I'm sorry ( and have been for many years). Please accept my apologies. In retrospect, I do think that the mothers, Sally Flanders and Bobby Fansler, could have done more to integrate you into the family and teach us how to treat guests properly. With me you are a memoir of those months, and I was much moved by your account. I have been doing a lot recently was memory and memoir, and I was quite interested in your essay is about memory. I have recently retired as a professor of history at Wittenberg University, and does have a professional interest in the subject. I'm sorry no one pointed you out at the memorial for Pete. I would have liked to see you again and meet your wife. All the best to you. Cindy Fansler Cynthia Fansler Behrman I am not sure I have your e-mail correctly. So I'll also send these USPS ================ October 12, 2005 Dear Cindy, below is an email letter which I sent you yesterday. In as much as I am not certain of your email address I am forwarding it by US mail as well. Please understand my quote blaming quote to you for my taking lifelong of a few in the German language was intended to be humorous actually the situation is much more complex. I don't believe that any blame can attest to the case and your conduct that summer of 1939, conduct which I think was the normal reaction of girls of your age to a somewhat older boy who was absorbed in himself and paid no attention to you. To: CF Behrman@aol.com Dear Cindy, My apologies for erasing your email without reading it. The subject "hello" quote nonspecific and I didn't recognize your name, but I do now, and I thank you for writing to me. I admit that although I have faint memories of your mother, I have no memories of you, or for that matter of Josephine. I started to review the Pinafore text for clues, and I will listen to the CD of the operetta for echoes of the past. It is possible that we share an interest in memory as a source and anchor of history. It is a topic that has occupied me for years, and I should be pleased to try to consider with you those aspects of this complex subject that might be of interest to you I have been perplexed by the logical discontinuity between Soeren Kierkegaard's assertion that "subjectivity is the truth", a repudiation of what he calls the "world historical" component of experience, and the postulates of historical and scientific objectivity that dominate our societal existence. Most recently I have been reading "The structure of scientific revolution" by Thomas Kuhn, a contemporary of ours, whose analysis of the history of science, at least to my mind, raises more questions than it answers. I have found it a useful discipline to file my notes on various topics on my website: home.earthlink.net/~ernstmeyer. At this juncture I have zero readers. I don't recommend it, but you are welcome to look into the files to the extent that you might be interested in knowing what has been on my mind. Most of the material on history would be in the journals (Tagebuecher) that are largely though not entirely in German, a circumstance for which you are partly to blame, because if you had been more inclined to talk to me in the summer of 1939, I might not have felt the need to seek refuge in the German language for the rest of my life. But you must feel free to make corrections and otherwise a demur and pose questions, to which I will do justice as best I can in the English language. ================== From Jane Flanders Ziff October 2, 2005 Dear Jochen, I was deeply moved by seeing you and hearing from Ellen about your letter. - I saved the one you sent me until I could share it with my cousin Cyndy. She and I have had a common nightmarish recollection of that awful summer you were with us, and how awful we were to you. Reading your memoir together brought back a great many things we had not thought about, and relieved us of some of the deepest feelings of our insufficiency that summer. Thank you for doing that. I did not know your father was released from Buchenwald, at that time, nor did I know that anybody was released from Buchenwald. I was trying to figure out why you would have walked back from school by yourself, but realize that you would have been in Horace Greeley. At the bottom of the hill (which was, unlike your memory, very steep) whereas I was still at the King Street school at the top of the hill. So that would not be, for me, another instance where I would try so hard to avoid you. Why were you such a monster in my eyes? You gave me is a hint when you compared your house to ours, so comparatively dirty and unorganized-I don't remember you're not being able to speak English; your English must have been better than you remember, I don't remember Sally speaking to you in German, which she could have done. But this-please understand I don't criticize the "then" you now, nor did I precisely criticize you then but you lost no time (in my mind) to let me know that you belonged to the league meant to make me feel alien. We children had been consulted as to whether we would like to have a boy join our family, and we had unanimously agreed it would be wonderful. I can't answer for Ellen's and Pete's feelings; there was a strong hierarchy in which Pete and Ellen were the boss and I was to be kept in my place (what place that was, was not sure) We were all supposed to be independent and somehow better than anyone else in Chappaqua, which Pete and Ellen seem to subscribe to - but I was supposed to not be as good as they-and however I was not at all convinced that I was "better" than Chappaqua but I tried to believe it. Independence was also hard for me, I wanted to be dependent on them (Pete and Ellen) and they would have none of it. And I wanted to be part of Chappaqua, but I never had the right clothes, the right values. I was an alien. There was at some time in expression in vogue "your mother wears GI boots"-it brought back my Chappaqua shame in a community where mothers wore stockings and dresses my mother wore workboots and a sheepskin jacket to pick me up after school sometimes, she having been working in the garden.) So I longed to have a new brother, a loving brother, a companion and I got you, to share my room and the first thing I remember about you (you certainly had enough English for this) was that you said it was terrible of me to be naked in front of you. Once again I did the wrong thing and, without knowing the "rules". Your misery seemed all disapproval and hostility. I wanted to get from away from you as badly as I had wanted you to be my buddy. How sad to hear what the farm represented to you. I had given up on wanting you close, and hated the idea of sharing my Eden, my world of Cindy and Jill, my escape from sibling scorn and Chappaqua alienation. And that was the summer of guilt, of avoiding Jochen as far as possible in joy and shame. I guess you missed all the positive parts of Sally and Moll's parenting. The "Game" which you remember as too sophisticated for us, was a delight and a joy-as we often read books we did not understand all of, we loved the charades, our attempts to act and communicate in meme, and to guess the rest of them. it was on their parts (parents) inclusion - this and music and singing and Gilbert and Sullivan was what they could give us. Social help, moral support, physical affection, they could not. I didn't remember you were there for Pinafore. That was, now I look back on it, a deliberate attempt to shore up the younger children. Otherwise why were Cyndy and I given the lead roles. Ironically you don't even remember that "farewell my own" was me seeing as Ralph Rackstraw. They must have taken the piano onto the porch at Heyshott - I remember all the rehearsals being there. Or perhaps we just heard the piano from the porch. The Knabe was in the sitting room hard by. We can't look back into our parent's lives, called them "Daddy and Mahmee". I don't know why they didn't help you or us more. Sally worked as a visiting nurse and was gone most of the time, Moll took the train at 7:14 and arrived on the 5:49 and corrected papers all the time and took on homework in the summer when Sally was preoccupied with the garden (I resented that, but now know how much time that took-including canning for the winter which I don't do.) (There were apple trees, cherry trees and plum trees and a certain amount of flowers.) But that does not explain it - philosophically they must have believed that we were capable of handling everything ourselves. Pete and Ellen seemed better at that than I. But Ellen has told me that far from being in league with Pete against me, he would never admit her into any "league." One thing I was puzzled by in your recollection was the question of why they took you in. It was, I am sure a matter of feeling a need, and not realizing how complicated it would be for you or for us. You, too, were supposed to be able to handle everything. Cyndy wants to write to you about memory which is such a big theme as she is trying to write her own memoir. I asked her to wait until I got all this off my chest - I hope you are patient with my garrulousness. Your stay with us was a bad time for my and Cyndy's behavior, humanity, imagination of someone else's needs. What was, was, and I am sorry but grateful to you for opening your side of it I was also sorry that because of the need to go back for Joost's (my grandson's) glasses, I was not able to talk more with you or introduce you to Cyndy. You write awfully well. Thank you for the memory. Sorry I don't write with a machine which would be at least more legible. Jane Flanders Ziff 24 Moreland Ave. Amherst, MA 01002 I don't do computers, but Monte is reachable at HMZ@umass.edu. ================================= From Ellen Flanders June 18, 2005 Dear Jochen, Thank you, thank you so much for writing to me. I have often thought of you and wondered about your life, what your life has been the like. I know you were not happy with us. I know at the time I was not helpful to you but I was clearly too self-centered and socially inept to do anything about it. I did not know that you cried yourself to sleep every night but I might have guessed. You had lost everything that made life comfortable for you, particularly of course your family and you had been put in an entirely different place, where you felt no easy welcome. Jane and I felt some guilt about it, but did nothing. I would be glad to talk with you about some of the memories you shared and the questions you raise. My parents died in 1950. We kept the farm for several years as a joint vacation house but then the split the property. Pete got the house and some surrounding land Jane built a house near the top of the hill. I got 10 acres of woodlot on which I have now built a small house. Peter died last winter and the house belongs to his three children. There is a memorial service for Pete at the Quaker conference center in Old Chatham, Powell House, July 16th, 2 to 8 PM. I'm sure you would be very welcome if you wished to attend. I'm not sure that the mailing address of the farm would be any help to you. It's rural delivery from East Chatham. However I can give you directions. Take Route 295 from Canaan towards East Chatham. About 1/2 mile beyond Canaan on the left is the Canaan Town Garage. On the right, Bristol Road goes up a steep hill, along level, then downhill (you may remember this is the route we took going to the village.) Halfway downhill is Flanders farm number 22 on mailbox. Return uphill near top on the left is Ziff house (Jane). Top of hill right on Beacon Hill Rd. 1st house on right is mine. It's a little hard to see, down a hill, obscured by greenery. To approach from Route 20 go to Lebanon Valley Speedway, go eas, first main road is Columbia County 9. Go right. take first left, Co. 35, then 1st rifht, Salls Road, then left fork. Flanders farm is halfway up the next hill. Do visit if you can, stop and see me (you would need to let me know in advance or I probably would not be there.) I want to send this off so I will not say anything more at this time. I would love to see you and also to meet any members of your family who would like to come. I am very grateful to you for writing. Sincerely, Ellen Flanders I have returned to my maiden name, but I am a widow, with six children and 15 grandchildren.