When Juliana had gone, I was left standing on the platform, unable to wave at the departing train. I realized that I was now completely alone in this world that was getting more hostile all the time. It was warm, but I felt very cold, and I cried harder than I had in a long time. I was so lonesome, and I was so afraid for the future, although of course at that point I couldn't begin to imagine the full dimensions of what awaited me. It would be thirteen years before I saw Juliana again, sixteen before I saw my brother James. I never saw Christiane again; she died fleeing from Paris to the South of France, leaving two young daughters behind. I heard that from my two aunts in Berlin in 1942.

Once Juliana was gone I had to take over many of her duties in the house and the garden. Out of school I had no free time left. I hardly got around to reading and I could only play if Günther or Herbert wanted to and Aunt Martha graciously agreed. Starting in the autumn of 1937 there were no more Völkerschau bookings. Uncle Mohamed started raising pigeons, chickens and rabbits. He looked after the chickens and the pigeons himself. It became my job to organize fresh greens to feed the rabbits between spring and autumn. When I got out of school I would head out with two big shopping bags to gather grass in the woods, on the meadows and on the verges of the roads and fields. Every day. Anything the animals didn't eat right away was dried and kept like hay for the winter months.

Apart from that the rugs had to be beaten at least once a week, then there were the steps that needed scrubbing and the coconut matting to be cleaned as well as the brass on the letter box and the garden gate that had to be polished. That was agonizing work, especially in the winter when it was below freezing. The cleaning solution, Sidol, would freeze too and it was very difficult to use.