Toward the end of the 19th century, my grandfather, Harry Christian Meinke, came over from Hannover, Germany, through Ellis Island, a young orphan shipped to relatives. His father died before Harry was born, and his mother died in childbirth, but his luck was about to change. He wound up with some German fishermen in one of America's most welcoming melting pots: Brooklyn, New York.
By the time I knew him, he was a tough guy, a fisherman, a factory worker, and finally, a night watchman. I remember looking at the lines in his half-shaved face sprinkled with gray and thinking, This is what 'grizzled' means. (The cowboys and detectives I read about in my youth tended to be grizzled.) This is why one of my early shocks and lessons occurred one Christmas when he took me upstairs to give me a poster, and burst into tears.
I was about 10 years old, and he'd been teaching me to speak a little German. One of the impressive things about Grandpa is that although he had very little education, he spoke English perfectly, with neither a German nor a Brooklyn accent, whereas the rest of the family tended to yell "Moider da bum!" when we went to Dodger games.
On the Christmas day he started to cry, he was showing me the poster illustrating the Schnitzelbank song, a series of simple questions — Ist Das nicht ein Schnitzelbank? (a sawhorse) — and answers: Ja das Ist eine Schnitzelbank, etc. The drawings were colorful and funny, but when I innocently asked him, "Did you and Grandma sing this together?" he began to say something like "Yes, your grandmother and I…" and then lapsed into German, tears pouring out of his eyes. He was squeezing my little hand, trying to tell me, I see now, how he had loved his wife, my grandmother — Johannah Twomey, from Wales — who had died some years back and whom I scarcely remembered.
I knew, without understanding exactly, that I was seeing something few people, if any, were permitted to see. Grandpa couldn't show this side of himself to the collection of relatives, an eccentric group worthy of James Thurber, who gathered for holidays in that tall dark house on Flatlands Avenue: he ruled over them like the King of Prussia from his special chairs in the living room and at the dining table. But in front of me, a small child, and his only grandson, he could let go for a moment, and for the first time I saw that people — even Grandpa — had secret and powerful inner lives.
Grandpa lived until 1965, but never recovered from the War. In the beginning, before the world — meaning our little section of Brooklyn — learned the extent of the Nazi atrocities, he was solidly pro-German and anti-British, which created tensions that whirled around and above our young heads.
Thinking back to those days, it seems to us that this Christmas is also politically complicated, which doesn't stop us, however, from wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a healthy New Year. May your inner lives be rich and loving, like Grandpa's.
Stille Nacht, Heilege Nacht
At Christmas my sisters and I
learned to sing carols in German:
Grandpa would give us a quarter
apiece for performing though
only Carol could carry a tune
After the start of the War
Father forbade us to practice
and when Grandpa asked for his songs
we told him they weren't allowed
You are German he shouted Sing!
Singt meine kinder für mich!
We stood mute unhappy ashamed,
between father and son locking eyes
while the U-boats were nosing the currents
and propellers coughed in the skies
like angels clearing their throats
—Peter Meinke will be reading at Eckerd College's Writers in Paradise Conference Monday, Jan. 17 , at 7:30. "Stille Nacht Heilege Nacht" is from his book, Liquid Paper, New & Selected Poems.
This article appears in Dec 23-29, 2010.