Inge Bernhard Part VI: Getting Married

Inge met Carlos in the past but this time was different. Very different....

So Carlos went first to Paris and had a good time. Then he took the train, came to Braunschweig and I met him at the train with my aunt, the blonde lady who was so nice and we both loved her very much. She had meanwhile lost the house where my grandmother had lived and where she and her husband had lived. The house was bombed. There was nothing left except for a small house where the laundry was done in former times. She had installed herself there. So she had a place where she could see us, where she could invite us for dinner, lunch, and so on.

Carlos and I, we stayed in a hotel, because there was no other place. Then we both saw him at the train, and the minute he came from the train, there was a spark that I don’t know where it came from, and I fell in love with him. I cannot explain that. He felt the same way. I mean—and then, we didn’t say anything. We went to my aunt and we had lunch together. He always looked at me, and my aunt said, “This is what I—” Later on she said, “This is what I was always hoping for, that you would marry him.” My father always wanted it. He got a lot of letters from his brother, from Guatemala, who always said, “Carlos is so lonely and he really needs a wife.” And then my father read this letter to me and I said, “Leave me alone! I don’t know him. I mean, he’s my cousin, I hardly know him. I’m choosing my own mate if I ever want to get married.”

And then he came and we were in Braunschweig and I forgot all about my studies. We spent very nice days there together. We found that we had similar interests in music. We went to the opera together and we went to the town. For me, it was the first time that there was a person who understood what I went through. Because during the war, first of all, most of the men had been—had fallen as soldiers. There were very few people that were younger, maybe like my brother or so, but they were younger persons. There were no men. I didn’t have boyfriends.

Once I had a boyfriend, and he turned out to be a Nazi. Then I said, “Each time I meet somebody, I have to tell first that I’m Jewish, half-Jewish. You have to know this.” And then I didn’t have friends, didn’t have a boyfriend. When Carlos came, it was very different. It was family, somebody who understood my background, my feelings about the times. Although he always thought that I was too German, because he wasn’t used to that kind of German any more. Although for me, he is a German. I’m not so much.

He’s very organized, very orderly, --in some way, maybe. But much, much more than I am. So when we met there, my aunt was so happy, she had a feeling this is it and what she was hoping for. We were sitting there and he always looked at me and looked at me. He couldn’t get his eyes from me.

Carlos: I looked at who?

At me. You looked at me. After six days, I told him, “Carlos, do you want to marry me?” (laughter) Because he was all shy. He didn’t say it. And I knew that he wanted to. And then after six days in Braunschweig—and then we said, “What do we do now?” Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, there’s only one day that you can marry. And at that time it was the 24th of September, at that time. So we had to choose this day, although at that time—I mean, I was considered Jewish only because my mother was Jewish. We didn’t marry with a rabbi. But even so, we wanted to do it the right way. We couldn’t do it otherwise.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC