FRAU MATILDA The Beast of Acceptance By Kate Gostick
as visions of cattle trucks heading to concentration camps sprang to mind. I frantically searched the paperwork we had brought from America, which had also been perpetually put off for another day, and eventually found evidence of her heritage in her pedigree. I rushed down to the town hall with all her papers and she was saved from the “extermination” with only a day to spare!
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think it was the lack of knowledge of the basics of the German language that almost led to the extermination of poor Matilda, our Newfoundland dog. Shortly after we arrived for our three year expat assignment in Frankfurt, a letter came which I just kept putting off reading because it looked so difficult and long. I would glance at the “Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren” and even this simple Dear Sir/Madam
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would fill me with dread, so I would place it back on the ever-increasing pile for yet another day. After putting it off for thirteen days, I finally decided to take on the challenge and it was then that the true horror of a pending doggy peril hit me. We had fourteen days to prove that Matilda was of “pure race” or she would be “collected and exterminated!” Germany’s recent history made the language in the letter uncomfortable
LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
The holocaust was a dark, dark stain on German history and maybe should not be used so flippantly to talk about a letter about a dog, but the language used was poignant and unchanged from that which had been used to describe the millions of unfortunate Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. The word nazi did not seem connected to the lovely natives of our little village who smiled “Guten Morgen” as they passed marching and laughing along the paths through the endless fields, maintaining their well-oiled joints. However, as they left the country paths and headed through the medieval town, through the town gates, on to the cobbles and past the castle, the same feet walked over golden cobbles amongst the grey, each with a name, a date, a place. These were the Stolpersteine that marked where Jews affected by the holocaust had lived and when and where they had died. I too had walked over them many times in the first couple of years I was there, never taking the time to look down as I rushed to get an ice cream or meet a friend for lunch or coffee, but now on this day the sun caught the edge of one glistening up at me. I am sure they had glinted in the sun on other days, but this was the day after I had been on a walking tour of Frankfurt for parents at the school and these little stones in the cobbles of the city had been pointed out to us and their significance explained. Now I took notice. www.lancmag.com
