Our Family's Journey Through Time
On Sunday, November 24th, 1940 my mother took me to the Johanniskirche (St. John’s Church), a Protestant church in our neighborhood. There I was baptized and officially given the name Klaus-Dieter.
The following Thursday after my baptism in the “Johannniskirche” my grandmother found out that I had been baptized in the Protestant faith. I am sure that her response would have registered on the Richter scale. She immediately walked the short distance to Heiliggeistkirche (Holy Ghost Church), the local Catholic church and spoke to one of the Father’s there. Shortly thereafter, she collared the priest and brought him to our apartment. After a short discussion with my mother I was baptized again, this time as a Catholic.
I can’t remember too much about the war because I was pretty young, but this incident sticks in my mind. It was the night of January 8th, 1945. The air raid sirens went off, and my mother grabbed my arm and we headed down to the air raid shelter. We were there for several hours before the all clear sirens went off. We got out of the shelter and crossed the street to our building. Mom stopped in the middle of the road and we looked up. The entire top of our building, including our apartment, was gone. We made our way over to the restaurant and stayed the night with my grandparents. The next morning we left Frankfurt and on my grandmothers bicycle we made headed out to Gross Auheim. My grandfather was a teacher there and he had an apartment in the school building. He let us live there until my mother was able to get our own place.
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