If truth is the first casualty of war, innocence must surely be the second. But how much literature considers the children who grow up in violence – and how much less still is written directly for them? This is what makes The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert, a German children’s book that came out in 1948 and was translated into English in the early 1950s by Clara and Richard Winston, both so poignant and so fascinating.
We meet the Lechow family in disarray after the end of the Second World War. Originally from Pomerania, they have fled to the west after the Russians arrived – and after second son Christian was shot dead in their home by a soldier. Now in Hesse, they are in a city that doesn’t want them, doesn’t have room or food or jobs for them, and yet they have no where else to go. Mrs Lechow has four remaining children to care for and only the hope that her husband, a doctor, is alive and will return from a Soviet prison camp.
Fifteen-year-old Matthias and thirteen-year-old Margret have had to grow up fast and the loss of Christian has been especially hard on Margret, his twin. After erratic wartime schooling, neither return to the classroom in their new home. Younger siblings Andrea and Joey attend school but for Matthias and Margret, both who had dreams of careers and university once upon a time, now is the time to work. Sometimes that means for wages, sometimes it just means leaving the city to trudge from farm to farm in the nearby countryside to scavenge for food while Mother stays at home, making enough money to keep them afloat with her sewing.
Home is not a comfortable place. Assigned to the two-room attic of an initially hostile old woman’s house, they are perpetually cold and uncomfortable, finding their town surroundings a bleak contrast to the place they left behind:
Home – that meant the old orchard under the expanse of clear sky in Pomerania, the white house on the outskirts of the town, Father’s roses on the edge of the terrace where the family took their breakfast on warm summer days. Cosi [their dog] would like in the sun and drink in its warmth. And there was Christian, too. But all this, this strange city with its ruined streets, this old, old house with its steep stairway, this grey old woman who disliked their coming – this could never be home, could it?
But at least the Lechows have each other. The loss of Christian is a void in all their hearts and, as Matthias and Margret soberly discuss, no word in ages from their beloved grandparents in Silesia means they too are dead, but the family they have is precious – not everyone is so lucky. Young Joey brings home a new school friend, Hans Ulrich, whose mother was killed in a bombing when he was too young to identify himself. Now, he lives without his birth family, without his true name, and without even knowing his age:
Mother opened the conversation. ‘How old are you, Hans?’ she asked. It turned out that Hans Ulrich had only the vaguest idea. ‘I might be seven,’ he offered.
‘You ask your mother,’ Joey said.
‘She doesn’t know either. Anyways, she isn’t my right mother.’
‘But I’m sure she’s good to you,’ Margret said quickly.
Hans Ulrich conceded that his foster mother was a good sport. In some ways she was better than most mothers because she did not worry over him and let him stay up as late at night as he liked. But he did not enjoy being sent out to the country to beg potatoes, especially not now that it was winter. On the other hand, snitching coal at the railroad station was fun.
Slowly, the Lechows settle into their new world. Mother turns their apartment into a true home and, thanks to the gregarious Andrea, their landlady is charmed into friendship. Matthias finds work with a bricklayer – a busy role in a country that needs rebuilding but one frustratingly distant from his twin loves of astronomy and gardening – and friendship with more refugees whose housing situations are far more precipitous than the Lechow’s. But Margret can’t seem to find her place. Not until a miraculous bit of luck befalls them, with first Matthias and then Margret being taken on to work at Rowan Farm. It means an escape to the country and work both love – in the garden for Matthias and in the kennels for Margret, for Rowan Farm breeds Great Danes, like the beloved dogs the family kept in Pomerania. It is here that they begin to create a new home – The Ark – out of an old railcar, a refuge and a new beginning for them and for their friends and family in town.
I loved every element of this book. It is optimistic but never simplistic. Every character has been shaped by the war, from the displaced families to the fatherless children to the scarred soldiers. This is not a story of the worst horrors of the war but of the everyday ones that touched ordinary lives: the lost people, and places, and opportunities. It is a book that seeks to give children both a mirror of the world as they know it and hope that order, peace, and happiness can still be found. I am so thankful that I took a wander through Barb’s old reviews earlier this year and found this and am equally happy to report that there is an excellent sequel: Rowan Farm.
[…] The Ark (1948) – Margot Benary-Isbert, translated by Clara and Richard Winston This filled a gap I […]