An Easter vacation in the country still brings pleasant memories from my childhood days. When the first green leaves sprouted and snow melted, school duties and homework made us restless and we longed for our two weeks' Easter break. In Germany, where the sun during the winter month's is a rarity, the longing for the spring, the warmth and the first flowers increases, and there is always a competition as to who will find the first pussy willows.

During the late twenties my parents packed my brother and two sisters into the train from Berlin to a small medieval town on the Weser River in central Germany, where our grandmother had a picturesque home. Since Grandfather's death, family and guests were always welcome to help bring life into the loneliness of her large home. Her other two daughters were usually already there. They had come from the Taunus mountains near Frankfurt and Cologne with their eight other grandchildren. For us it meant two weeks without home work, jaunts around the countryside and deep woods which showed their first green, the streams running strong with crystal-clear water and the birds returning from their winter quarters. It also meant the great Easter egg hunt which our grandmother and parents had in store for us. Grandma's house had a large garden with dozens of different fruit trees, all kinds of bushes with currants, gooseberries, blackberries and raspberries everywhere. There were great hiding places for the Easter bunny's work.

Our parents usually came a few days later. It was only a 10- minute walk to the train station. The road led over the bridge of the railroad tracks, where we stopped a moment waiting for a train to pass underneath. Then each of us tried with a good mouthful of spit to hit the smokestack of the engine. Nobody ever did! Grandma had given us 10 pfennigs each, so we were admitted onto the platform of the train station. This time, as the train rolled in, our parents surprised us by sticking their heads hooded with an Easter-bunny mask out of the windows to our amazement and their fellow travelers enjoyment. During the walk to Grandma's they carried the wild flowers my sisters had gathered and listened to the adventures their sons had encountered. Soon the several hundred-year-old oak tree in the garden came into view, the tree which had always been a beacon of Grandma's house even from far distances. A glass of homemade canned fruit juice waited for all of us. At the crack of dawn, while we were sleeping, our parents, aunts and uncles wrapped all the eggs and Easter gifts in colored paper -- a different color for each child -- and carefully hid all the surprises in the huge garden now full of dense green and a multitude of tulips, daffodils, flowering trees and bushes.

We were awake with the first rays of the sun and peeked out of the windows, trying to find a few colored specks under the bushes or trees. But our parents were very thorough and made the search rather difficult. Only the flowers were visible. No telltale colors of the wrapping paper could be seen. Then we were let loose, each child armed with a basket. I had tried in vain to teach Grandma's shepherd dog to look for or smell out the hidden objects. Apparently the dog was color-blind or age had affected her sense of smell.. Of course, when we saw a color-wrapped object not intended for us, we would not divulge this information. We were busy for at least an hour. Then our parents checked to see, if we had missed any of the hidden presents.

By that time we had earned a hearty breakfast. The table was a color symphony decorated with flowers and hand-painted eggs, which we and our parents had made the day before. By mid-morning the whole gang went up through the woods into the mountains lining the Weser River, studded with old castles, full of creeks, wildlife and mysterious fragrances of awakening nature. Wild strawberries in bloom were everywhere.

After we had spent two hours of good marching, a large green meadow with a farmhouse and stable could be seen through the trees. Cows and goats were grazing around it. This was our goal. We called it the "Milchhäuschen" or the milk house. The owner knew us all because we came there year after year and were served fresh milk, still warm from the cow, homemade ham sandwiches and home-made canned fruit. A walk through the stable patting the pigs, feeding the chickens and riding the horses was our reward for the long walk. We took a different path on the return hike, which led us along the edge of the mountain with the river far below us and the ruins of partially destroyed castles casting ghostlike shadows against the sky while the setting sun painted touches of gold across the landscape. A passenger boat with a paddle wheel on each side moved slowly upstream on the river giving this spring day a lasting memory of happy days past.

A distant relative of my mother, "Aunt Thea," came to visit us on holidays and stayed with us during the Christmas and New Year holidays. She was an elderly spinster and walked with a limp. She lived in the town of Halle, a hundred miles south of Berlin. Apparently she was well-off because for our birthdays we children always received a nice gift. But she also had the habit, when she broke something in her house, not to get rid of it but to save the pieces of crystal glass, vases or other cracked objects. She wrapped them carefully in paper and put them in a carton and mailed them to my parents as a present for a special occasion. It took a while until my mother realized that practically all the pieces had been broken or damaged before mailing. But she continued to write her thank-you letters for the gifts without mentioning that they were broken when she had unwrapped the parcels. Aunt Thea never admitted her intrigue. When she finally passed away we inherited her Blütner concert grand piano and now could practice on two grand pianos in two different rooms.

I entered the Kant Gymnasium in Spandau when I was nine years old. The curriculum beginning with the freshman years started with ancient Greek and Latin, the study of which continued for eight years. In German schools the cane-whipping of pupils was still practiced. During grammar school days I managed to escape the cane of the teacher. Just watching other pupils getting the cane-beating -- mostly on their rears or occasionally on their hands -- was enough to keep us in line. We never dared to come to school without our homework completed. There always was plenty of it. It took at least two to three hours each day and on Saturdays. In high school the castigation took the form of hitting the hands with a small cane. The teacher either hit our cheeks or our hands, which we had to stretch out before him. It was more a damage to our self-esteem than a painful experience. At age sixteen we were punished by having to sit extra hours after school until four or five o'clock.

Sex education in a physician's family, where the mother also had studied medicine, was non-existent. My father left the key in the medical bookshelf, perhaps intentionally. So I sneaked occasionally into his consultation room to read some of his books, particularly the one about gynecology and obstetrics. At the dinner table my father and mother discussed his cases and often we picked up some interesting news from their conversation. Most of the sex education came from older classmates.

In the winter of 1934 our school planned a trip to the "Riesengebirge," a mountain range close to Berlin. The mountain range separated Germany and Czechoslovakia. The school had rented one of the dormitories on top of the highest mountain. Study hours were scheduled in the morning and at night -- with skiing during the day. The" Riesengebirge" is famous for ice cold winds of fifty to sixty miles per hour. On one of our trips such a storm surprised us. We experienced a complete " white-out." We could not even make out the poles which were placed at a distance of fifty yards on the crest. Many of the students had inadequate ski clothes, and in no time frost bites could be seen on their faces. Having skied since age ten, I was asked to gather all stragglers in our group. I had some newspaper in my knapsack and placed it underneath the thin trousers of some of my classmates, to give them wind protection. Some of the stragglers were so exhausted that they laid down in the snow. "Go ahead; I will follow in a little while," I heard them say. Poking them slightly into their buttocks with my ski, I got them going again. I knew the dormitory could not be far away. After we progressed a few hundred yards more, our warm quarters were a welcome sight.

During a skiing trip I saw one pupil fall badly. He could not get up. He had fractured his wrist. With the storm and snow howling around the ski lodge, medical help was not available. A two-hour downhill trek or sled-ride to the nearest doctor was impossible during the snowstorm. The teachers, not trained in first aid, were looking for someone to help. I convinced them that I could try to take care of the fracture and at least splint it. So I did what I had seen my father do many times. One teacher had to hold the upper arm while I pulled the wrist straight. The outcries of the patient almost stopped my attempt to set the fracture. Fortunately, the wrist straightened out quickly. I had two splints prepared with an elastic bandage to immobilize the arm. The next day one of the teachers took the student to the doctor.. Later my father confided the story to me that the teacher had told him. When the teacher took the student to the local doctor, he was shown the X-ray and asked whether a doctor among our group had set the fracture since it was in perfect alignment. The doctor replaced the splint with a cast and sent both on their way.

During the early thirties cousin Mathes, a young, pretty woman, visited us. She was the daughter of Aunt Klie, the brother of Uncle Leo Gerhardy, my mother's cousin. She was my mother's niece. Her vivacious personality, dark skin, sparkling brown eyes and dark hair made her look even younger than her twenty-five years. My mother was her confidant. Aunt Klie had put her into a school run by nuns. The all-girl school's dormitory was fenced in with a high wall. One day cousin Mathes jumped over the fence into freedom. Her mother had to put her into public School for her to finish her education. She fell in love with an SS man, a six-foot-two, blond, attractive black-uniformed person. She came to visit my mother and told us about her intended wedding. But she first had to undergo a physical examination to determine whether she was fit to marry a tall blue-eyed blond SS man. She was found not fit to marry into the "Nordic race," so the engagement was broken off. In the spring of 1934 she let my mother know that she had found another attractive man -- this time a German diplomat, whom she wanted to bring to our home. He was also a tall, handsome person elegantly dressed. His bushy eyebrows and green eyes could pierce any person he fixed with his stare. He was fifteen years my senior. I admired his charismatic personality and his interesting dinner conversation. He selected his language carefully and had impeccable table manners which impressed my mother greatly. Aunt Mathes had introduced him as her fiancee.

The year was 1934. Hitler had done away with constitutional government. Hindenburg had died, which gave Hitler a free hand with dictatorial power. My mother had invited Rudolph Rahn, cousin Mathes's bridegroom, to satisfy her curiosity with the new catch after the engagement debacle with the previous bridegroom. The impression our guest made on me was profound. He represented everything I wanted to be. Not even fourteen years old, I asked him, "I hear you have graduated from the School of Foreign Service. What do they teach you there ?"

"Yes, I was six years at the school that included some practical experience in several German embassies. But first I had to finish my university years," he answered.

"How many languages do you speak fluently?" I asked again. "Four" he replied. "And I am at present secretary in the German Embassy in Oslo." He had entered the diplomatic service in 1932. My admiration for this man was boundless. His family had sent him to the best schools. A long list of distinguished government and Foreign Office appointments were in his family background. He was polite, eloquent and well-mannered. His conversation demonstrated knowledge in all phases of our daily life. My cousin had made a really good catch, I thought.

"What do you think of our new government?" my mother asked him.

"Oh, I think they are going to be very successful. You will see lots of changes for the better coming. Unemployment will disappear. People will find work again. The thirty-two bickering parties in the Reichstag have disappeared already."

Well, he should know, I thought, having been around in the world and speaking four languages. His confidence in the success of the Third Reich became more profound as time went on. Many years later, when I had already been a prisoner of war behind barbed wire for four years, I read in the New York Times, which the attending American physician sometimes left in the prisoner compound, that Ribbentrop had appointed him ambassador to Rome in October 1944. During the last months of the war he negotiated with the German High Command that Rom and Florence were declared "Open Cities" and would not be bombed. This short notice brought back the memory of the many dinner table conversations we had had from 1934 to 1938, because cousin Mathes and Rudolph Rahn were dinner guests several times during those years. I always wondered how such an intelligent, cultivated person with contacts and experience all over the world, could sell his soul to such a devilish regime. If we were kept ignorant about the happenings of the Hitler regime, at least he should have heard about the infamous secret crimes of the government and disengaged himself. Was it greed? Was it lust for power? Or was it blind ambition without regard for his surroundings, which led him down the path of destruction of the Thousand Year Reich? He joined in his behavior with all the German generals who loved to fight Hitler's war. Some of them even despised Hitler. But not a single general had the guts to blow himself up with him. They had plenty of opportunities to do just that. Intelligence, when associated with greed and power, does not protect one from blindness.