Kestenberg Archive

KN was born in Berlin in 1934 and at the age of nine months his family relocated to Breslau. KN was an only child. The family was reasonably well off financially. KN's education swung between the two extremes of total freedom and strict rules and regulations. His earliest memory of the war is of gas masks and of asking his father how God allowed such a thing to happen. He also remembers being told not to talk to a milk seller anymore and not knowing why - he now knows this was because she was a gypsy. At some point in his childhood he began to have a recurring nightmare which he associates with the gas masks. He was also very afraid of the Russians. At the end of 1944, KN and his mother went to live with an aunt in Bayern but he was still very much afraid of the Russian army. He liked the Hitler Youth uniforms but was scared of joining the movement and his mother, who opposed Hitler, prevented him from doing so. However he felt a coward compared to friends in uniforms who also boasted of their heroic fathers fighting in the war, while his father did not join up for health reasons. ; At the end of the war his father was in Hamburg during major bombings of the city and he was very afraid for his father's life. KN's school was closed and children roamed the streets freely. Immediately after the end of the war KN and his mother travelled to Hamburg. The journey took 5 days and was an adventure, travelling in horse carriages and freight cars. In Hamburg KN saw placards hung by the Allies about the murder of the Jews and other atrocities and felt a terrible sense of shame. He was very disappointed in his father who until now had been his role model. Although KN's father had not been directly involved in the atrocities he was a Nazi party member and thus the young KN associated him with these events, finding himself in an emotional conflict. Today KN is a Professor of ancient philology at Gottingen University.