Mano. The boy who didn't know where he was
Mano. The boy who didn't know where he was is a book by Anja Tuckermann for young people that is based on facts. It tells of the fate of the Sinto boy Mano, who survived several concentration camps and a death march and who happened to come to France at the end of the Second World War . The first edition was published in 2005 by Carl Hanser Verlag .
content
Mano, around eleven years old, and six other boys survived a death march. Locked up with other children between barbed wire fences at night, they dug their way under these fences in April 1945, but not all of them escaped through the tunnel they dug. Those who made it escaped the SS men who were guarding them. They encounter Russian tank soldiers marching into defeated Germany and discover that they have nothing to fear from either them or the Germans. So they decide to head for their homeland.
Mano belongs to the Höllenreiner family, who have their residence in Munich-Giesing . Before the deportation in 1943, the men in the family mostly worked as showmen or horse traders, including the father of Mano's cousin Manfred, who also belongs to the children's group. Manfred is weakened by the forced sterilization that Joseph Mengele carried out on him. But unlike Mano, who also suffers from hunger edema and leg injuries, he never really learned to ride a bike. Manfred and the other boys head south on stolen bicycles. Mano, who can barely follow on foot, is finally taken by a cart on which French concentration camp survivors are trying to get back to their homeland. He is apparently so weakened that he does not even notice that his companions on their bicycles will no longer be able to follow the vehicle at some point. You will later tell at home in Munich that Mano may have come to France.
A woman named Élise takes care of him; a man takes care of him too. When the two learn that Mano is a German, they warn him urgently against ever letting it know. He is now said to be a French Jew. A photograph of his father in Wehrmacht uniform, which Mano received from him in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and which was supposed to protect him in Germany, becomes a danger among the French. The man on the wagon tears them up.
Tuckermann interweaves the boy's comments on what was going on in her narrative text, in separate typography. "Now [sic!] There is nothing left of my Tata", is Mano's reaction to the destruction of the picture. Still in the care of his companion Élise Carrée, who was liberated from the Neustadt-Glewe concentration camp , he is registered in verse in Stalag VI B , where he gives nothing but his name Mano and pretends to be unable to remember anything else, and is transported to France by plane and train. They parted ways at a receiving station outside Paris . When registering, Élise Carrée indicated that the boy probably came from the Marseille area and that she thought she had known him before. But he cannot continue with her. So finally Madame Joséphine Fouquet, who works in the ward, takes him home with her. She can communicate with him in German because she originally comes from Ingersheim in Alsace .
Mano initially stayed with the Fouquet family, who lived in a two-room apartment at 35 rue du Pré St. Gervais in Pantin . Joséphine Fouquet, usually called Fifine, and her husband Félix have a son named Paul, who is a few years older than Mano and whom Mano quickly joins in the following weeks. First of all, however, the almost starved and completely neglected child has to be looked after and nurtured. The Fouquets, who were active in the Resistance during the war , already have experience with it, as Fifine's nephew André has already returned from Buchenwald . While bathing, they discover the tattoo "Z 3526" on Mano's arm and learn that he was interned in the Auschwitz , Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Mano is not only in a miserable physical condition, but also severely traumatized.
Mano is quickly integrated into the Fouquet family, begins to speak French and continues to hide his past, for fear of losing this refuge as well, and in the belief that none of his relatives are alive anymore. Caring for the child is difficult for the Fouquet family. Mano is registered as a returnees and receives a welcome bonus, but no further compensation because he does not fit into any of the intended categories. Finally, Fifine seeks support with the relief service for deportees in Paris. Madame Madeleine Marcheix-Thoumyre organizes Manos' admission to a holiday camp in the countryside near Cernay-la-Ville . Mano, who grew up with horses and other animals, feels a certain relief when he z. B. in the garden of a blackbird confided his fears that he no longer has a family, but behaves extremely aggressive towards the other children, especially when they call him German. The supervisors also notice that he does not dare to go to the toilet at night because the fear of an SS man standing outside has burned into him since he was in camp.
When he was picked up by Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre in August 1945, he confided to her that he remembered having a sister named Lili. But he still does not comment on his parents or his origin from Germany. Since she has to work, Madame Fouquet gives him to a day care center by the hour, where there are problems with the other children again. Mano still tends to kick children who have teased him when they are already defenseless on the ground. Finally, the attempt with the after-school care must be given up and Mano is instead looked after by Félix Fouquet's sister Lucienne and her husband André Knepper. Knepper teaches Mano to collect stamps so that the boy has something to do. In doing so, he realizes that the boy can hardly read at all.
When Mano learns from Fifine Fouquet that during the First World War she had to live far from her home and separated from her family for many years, he is about to talk about his origins. But the fear of then having no one in the world at all keeps him silent. Fifine Fouquet, concerned about his schooling, again turns to Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre, who suggests that he be examined thoroughly in a hospital before going to school. Mano is admitted to an inpatient facility - under the name André Manot - in which he falls into the deepest despair: Again, as a German, he is discriminated against and abused by both fellow patients and staff. In addition, because of disgust, he can no longer eat after discovering that his bed neighbor tends to eat feces. He is also given electric shocks , from which he suffers greatly. After he told the Fouquets when they visited him that he would surely die sooner or later in this hospital, they tried together with Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre to find a solution. Dr. Heuyer , the attending physician, is firmly convinced of the point in what he's doing. A medical capacity has to be found that he can be convinced of. Fortunately, the Dr. Lallemant and Mano can go back to the Fouquets. But there is still the question of where it should finally stay. Lucienne and André Knepper are thinking of adopting the boy, but they still hope to learn something about his past.
Dr. Lallemant advocates sending him to the sanatorium of Monsieur Maret to relax in Saint-Maur-les-Fosses . Again there are problems with the other children there, again Mano's fear of leaving the dormitory at night to go to the toilet is noticed. Monsieur Maret finally learns of some scenes on the death march that have been burned into Mano's memory and is horrified.
Meanwhile, in October 1945, the UNRRA's Central Tracing Bureau sent an initial search query for Mano, which was initiated by his father in Munich. The Fouquets meanwhile, when they visit him in the sanatorium, prepare Mano for the fact that Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre might find wealthier adoptive parents for him than the Knepper couple. In order to find out something about his past, Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre now also sends a search message on the radio.
Mano spends Christmas in the sanatorium, which is slowly becoming less crowded. Some of the children can be reunited with their missing parents, others are to be adopted. At the beginning of 1946, meanwhile the Bavarian Red Cross was also looking for Mano on the radio, Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre came to the sanatorium with a wealthy couple who were interested in an adoption. Paulette and Pierre Chassagny actually choose Mano. But for the time being the boy is moving to Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre. She tries to give him some education and equips him with new clothes. She also often takes him with her to work in the relief service for displaced persons. Although Mano learns that relatively little information is needed to start a search for missing people, he remains silent about his origins. Numerous acquaintances frequent his hostess's apartment who were in the Resistance during the occupation and now some of them are prominent. Mano meets Charles de Gaulle and Lucie Aubrac , among others , who was able to free her husband from prison three times. Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre, for her part, hid Jacques Vendroux , who is now a member of parliament , during the war . Still trying to find out something about Mano's past, she has the boy interviewed by Georges de Caunes on the radio station France Inter . Paul Fouquet also takes part in this conversation.
In the spring, Mano is taken on a short trip near Marseille. There he mentions both Germany and Munich. On another trip he reveals that he is very familiar with horses and other animals. Simultaneously with this knowledge about his past, however, the adoption by the Chassagnys is being pushed forward. As he has expressed his desire to be a soldier or captain, Pierre Chassagny wants him to attend the cadet school in Le Havre . In preparation, Mano was housed there with the childless couple Odile and Auguste Chevrier at 46 Rue du Docteur Cousture around Easter 1946, now under the name André Mannot. He explains to his tutor that this name comes from Hungary and that Mano is derived from Emmanuel. Odile and Auguste Chevrier go to great lengths to look after the boy, and he also finds a good friend in his schoolmate Pierre . Nevertheless, Mano, who is now also taking piano lessons, does not feel well and once fled from Le Havre to Paris.
Meanwhile, Johann Höllenreiner did not stop looking for his son. On March 21, 1946, he sent UNRRA headquarters a summary of the last eyewitness accounts of Mano's disappearance and a personal description. His son wears the number Z 3526 on his left forearm, is thin and dark-blond, has bad teeth, a small scar over his left ear and poor pronunciation because he bumps his tongue. He is also easily excitable.
Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre, alerted by the Chevriers by phone, is already on the platform in Paris when the train arrives with which Mano fled Le Havre. She admits that he can stay with her for two weeks if he apologizes to the Chevriers, and during this time she takes him to the Medrano circus in Montmartre . When a trainer enters the ring, the boy suddenly exclaims that this man looks like his papa. When asked, he explains that his father once worked as an artist at the circus, probably at the Krone Circus in Munich. His grandfather was also an artist. He also remembers elephants.
Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre has Mano's vacation extended by the Chevriers in order to be able to take him to the wedding of Geneviève de Gaulle and Bernard Anthonioz in Bossey . Back in Le Havre, Mano gets into trouble again in the schoolyard when he is insulted as a German. The Chevriers and Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre, who are not yet able to correctly interpret his tattoo, suspect that he was abused in medical experiments and that this may have contributed to his easy excitability and difficulty concentrating. Meanwhile, Mano is taken several times to a camp with German prisoners to identify SS men. He's still struggling with the question of whether it shouldn't be better to tell the truth about his past. At some point he involuntarily writes the name of his father, Johann Höllenreiner, on his blotter. When his host asks, he explains that Höllenreiner was a friend of his father's and that he traded horses.
Mano is allowed to return to Pantin in summer. The Fouquets take him on trips to Paris and Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre takes care of his health problems. He has mild scoliosis , his tonsils should be removed and he also needs glasses. After the almond operation, you will go on vacation to Ingersheim. In the pilgrimage chapel Drei Ähren , Mano hears the Lord's Prayer in German and is suddenly overwhelmed by memories. He says he learned this text at school and now claims that his father's name is Johann Fischer and that he lived in Munich.
The holidays are suddenly interrupted when Luciennes and Félix's mother dies. Mano attends the funeral and then stays for a few days with Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre, who is planning to go to Germany. He asks her to look for the Höllenreiner brothers on Deisenhofener Strasse in Munich. She has him again medically examined to get more detailed information about his age and origin. He is classified as a twelve year old Hungarian Transylvanian. Shortly afterwards he returns to Le Havre. The Chassagnys now have all the papers to adopt to adopt the boy and they want to do so in Neuilly during the next vacation.
On October 23, 1946, Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre informed the Chevriers by letter that Mano's future adoptive parents were killed in a collision between their yacht and a steamer. She writes to Mano that no Johann Fischer is known in the Krone Circus, that Mano's father might have worked in the Fischer Circus and that her letter to the Höllenreiner brothers was returned as undeliverable.
Mano, who now has to assume that he no longer has any close relatives, then decides to respond with a smile to the Chevriers' wish to adopt him in turn. But during a visit in November 1946, Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre declared that she, too, was interested in adopting Mano. Plus, she's still waiting for the answers to some of her searches on his relatives.
Shortly afterwards, success came: Jean L. Bailly, the director of the child search department of UNRRA, wrote a detailed report on the fate of the Höllenreiner family, which Tatiana Albova had reconstructed. There is no doubt that Manos' parents have been found and are in good health. Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre is informed that Bailly will come to France and pick up the boy.
The Chevriers are anything but happy about this, Pierre's mother, Madame Carron, is overjoyed that Mano's odyssey seems to have a happy ending, and Mano himself is torn. He is afraid that the report might be wrong and that he will be pushed back into the unknown. His hosts in Le Havre suggested that he claim that the photos that would now be presented to him do not show his parents. Mano nods. But when Bailly shows him pictures and questions him, it quickly becomes clear that the family has really come together again. Mano spends two more days with the Fouquets and Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre and is then brought back to Germany in a jeep , accompanied by war correspondent Thérèse Bonney and another journalist . On December 13, 1946, Mano met his parents and sister again.
The reunion is cannibalized by the press, a big party is celebrated, and Mano is spoiled extensively by his parents in the weeks and months that follow. Again, overwhelmed by the situation, he behaves not exactly according to the rules, especially towards other children. Finally, his sister Lili inflicts a lump on her head and claims that Mano is the culprit. Only the next day does she admit that it is not.
Both the Fouquets and the Chevriers are interested in Mano's further fate, send photos and ask about his well-being by letter. Mano also replies, but the correspondence soon falls asleep and a visit to the Höllenreiner family in France does not come to anything.
The narrative ends with the quotation of the termination of the search order by the German Red Cross on April 22, 1947.
reception
Andrea Lüthi commented on the work with the following words: “The happy ending and the arc of suspense hardly suggest that the novel is based on actual events.” Tuckermann tells the story “factually and straightforwardly” and renounces sentimentality. Lüthi paid tribute to the author for the respect she showed towards the people portrayed.
Friedmann Harzer said that Tuckermann's book about Hugo Höllenreiner's concentration camp fates, including an attempt at sterilization by Mengele, was the more successful book in the literary business compared to Mano and was more difficult for the readership. After all, Mano, the boy who didn't know where he was , also contains positive helper characters and a classic homecoming plot. He points out the different treatment of perspective in the two books. In Do not think we'll stay here! the reader actually always sees the event through Hugo Höllenreiner's children's eyes, while Mano has a first chapter narrated by author . The following seven chapters, each introduced with the name of an important figure in the book, are told personally. Despite the seven inner monologues of the helper figures with which the individual parts of the narrative begin, the view of the main character remains the decisive perspective.
Real backgrounds
Tuckermann's book is illustrated with numerous photographs. In addition, it contains quotes and images from the correspondence of the institutions that were involved in the search for the missing boy and his return to Munich. In all of these documents, the child is referred to as "Franz-Josef Höllenreiner" unless it is named "Mano", "Manot" or "Mannot". According to these documents, Franz-Josef Höllenreiner was born on October 19, 1933 as the child of Johann Baptist and Margarethe (or Margarete) Höllenreiner in Hagen . The contemporary witness, who was apparently the archetype of Tuckermann's Mano, is usually cited under the name of Hermann Höllenreiner .
The cousin Manfred, with whom he is traveling at the beginning of the story, was the older brother of Hugo Höllenreiner .
The caption to Figure 22 informs the reader that Mano Höllenreiner and Paul Fouquet did not see each other again until 60 years later and that this renewed contact came about in the course of research for Tuckermann's book.
Mano's future adoptive father was named Pierre Louis Gustave Chassagny. He was born on May 18, 1901 in Paris and died on September 14, 1946 in Les Mureaux .
Madame Marcheix-Thoumyre was born as Madeleine Thoumyre on September 13, 1902 in Dieppe and died on August 28, 1981 in Groslay . She was already widowed when she took care of Mano Höllenreiner: Her husband Antonin Laurent Marcheix was born on January 20, 1888 and died in Tonkin on December 23, 1940 . He had been chief engineer for bridges and roads and the director of the Société des Charbonnages du Tonkin.
output
- Anja Tuckermann: Mano. The boy who didn't know where he was. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-446-23099-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anja Tuckermann, Mano. The boy who didn't know where he was , Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-446-23099-6 , p. 13. In the following, the book is cited as Mano .
- ↑ Mano , p. 210
- ↑ Andrea Lüthi: Remembering without language and home. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . March 4, 2009 ( nzz.ch ).
- ↑ Friedmann Harzer, “Still, I'm never really free.” Hugo and Hermann Höllenreiner in Anja Tuckermann's memory books “Don't think we stay here!” (2005) and “Mano. The boy who didn't know where he was ” p. 9 ( academia.edu ).
- ↑ Friedmann Harzer, “Still, I'm never really free.” Hugo and Hermann Höllenreiner in Anja Tuckermann's memory books “Don't think we stay here!” (2005) and “Mano. The boy who didn't know where he was ”. P. 4 f. ( academia.edu ).
- ↑ Pierre Chassagny on gw.geneanet.org
- ↑ Madeleine (Marie Emilie) Thoumyre on gw.geneanet.org
- ↑ Antonin Laurent Marcheix on gw.geneanet.org
- ↑ Reference to the Écho annamite of August 2, 1928 on entreprises-coloniales.fr (PDF).