My earliest memory is of a kitchen with--in my young eyes--a huge brick stove/oven combination. The outside edge was brass, polished to a gleam at least once a week. To this day the smell of certain metal polish takes me back to that kitchen. In reality, the stove was probably 3' x 5'. The largest portion of it was consumed by the oven, which had to be fired with briquets and wood. On the top right were several gas burners. The stove was also the source of heat and, during power outages at night, a source of light.
Now, this fabulous multi-tasking behemoth was in our kitchen in Berlin. I'd think the time was around 1948, so it was still very much post-war.
The kitchen had other wonderful features. There was a big hole in the wall to the "balcony room," occupied by my grandmother, our "Omi." Just when it was repaired I don't remember, but probably as soon as materials became available. Then there was the country style sink supported on top of a cabinet, my brother's favorite play place. He'd declare he was the plumber and proceeded to attack the pipes with various tools. On one memorable occasion he actually managed to unscrew a part, so when the water was let out after washing dishes, it flooded the entire kitchen.
Very important was the window to the courtyard. It was Observation Central when we kids played there; sandwiches were thrown and caught by us because we couldn't interrupt our play; a little gossip was traded with women hanging up laundry, and, most important, it was the stage for itinerant performers who went from courtyard to courtyard.
This was the time when thousands of displaced Germans tried to make their way back home, or to find their loved ones, or simply wanted to survive and start re-building their lives. The typical response to a warbly song performed by an emaciated survivor, or a poem badly recited with a stentorian voice was to throw a Groschen (a rough equivalent to a dime) from the window. These wandering performers were not ordinary beggars, they were simply the flotsam and jetsam of a country nearly destroyed by war.
That was the beginning of my brother Rainer's love-hate relationship with mechanical matters.
