The "Abitur", our graduation examination, consisted of the final written and oral exams of all the subjects of the last several years. A boy or a girl was officially declared "mature" enough to face the world. The exams were two weeks long and much feared since the grades were the key to the university. In 1938, however, one-half year of "Arbeitsdienst" or labor camp was also required. We would be sent out to the countryside to help the farmers. No vacation was permitted between graduation and departure to the assigned camp.

At the graduation the principal handed me a book as a reward for being one of the top two students of my class. The homeroom teacher presented each of us with an envelope with our final grades. Of the 30 students who had entered the school in the fifth grade, seventeen made it all the way through. Before I could open my envelope, the teacher took me aside, saying, "You will find an empty sheet inside, I am sorry. The secretary found out yesterday that your tuition was not paid and it is the rule that you cannot get your final grades when there is a debt." I stared at him in disbelief. "My uncle must have forgotten," I stammered. All my classmates compared their grades while I dodged them on my way home, my head hanging low. My uncle was furious.

"They could have called even yesterday," he said, "I was out of town the last two weeks but my secretary should have paid it."

My grades were what I had expected, and I would have been able to go to the university even though they had a "numerus clausus," a limited enrollment, at that year and could take only the two top students. I always had planned to study medicine. I knew that my father would have approved. But my uncle and aunt did not; they considered it more prudent for me not to spend my inheritance on eleven semesters of expensive studies but to have a dowry and "make a good match," which meant a husband from the right circles. I decided to give in for the time being. After the strenuous labor camp I could take a few social science courses, learn some cooking and sewing and travel to other countries with the excuse of learning other languages. Art was another subject of interest to me.