Mom's Memoirs:

[Drawing on looking at her album.] 1932, the last summer of the Weimar Republic, our world began to crumble. That year we had the last free elections in Germany[1] and even at just twelve years old, I was already very interested in politics. The German democracy had gone haywire, if I remember correctly, 42 parties competed in the elections that year, from Communists to Fascists, all kind of splinter parties. Flyers, posters, handouts etc abounded and I collected everything I could lay my hands on. When the Nazis won in 1933 my father burned it all! Anyway: summer 1932, first my mother had a hysterectomy (I didn’t know at the time what that was, but I knew it was serious (she had complications and was in the hospital for several weeks[2]) and then I came down with polio. In between we spent our summer vacation on the Baltic coast. in Heringsdorf (translates into: sprat village) - strangely enough Dad was there on vacation too that summer, but even if our paths had crossed I doubt whether a High School grad would have looked at a seventh grader! However cute (judging by my photos I was kinda cute then). It seems to me that I have written about my Polio elsewhere already (how anybody can ever write a 500-page autobiography is an utter mystery to me  when I have trouble with mine on the 35th page!!) Anyway, with a lot of patience especially on the part of my mother, using a very modern approach, no hospitalization but listening to MANY expert opinions, with the financial help of Aunt Franka, we managed to get through this with a minimum of damage. I was back in school, on a part-time basis, after six weeks and full-time in less than a year. I remember having to wear high-laced boots (which I hated with a passion) for about a year and I was sent to all kinds of exercise classes, experimenting with numerous methods; I remember Mensendiek (sp), which was especially for women and was supposed to be done in the nude! (I had private lessons!) I think the idea was that it enabled the instructor to observe the muscle activity...

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From Mom's Autobiography document :

Piror to going to the seaside, still that summer Magda had a hysterectomy.  She was very sick.  Was in the hospital for weeks as she got an infection.  Aunt Franca stayed with us a while.  I never saw her in the hospital – children were not allowed in hospitals in those days.  We wrote letters to each other.[3]  Magda was 38 at the time…. At least briefly before that, she thought about having another baby.  She had asked me a year earlier about having a sibling and I was quite enthusiastic about it.  Hysterectomy ended any of that. 

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Ultimately 1932 was not a good year, as that fall, Mom contacted polio.  In retrospect, we attribute the infection to an excursion to a lake in Berlin where we spent a day in the company of Lily Schwenk and  company.  Went swimming in the lake (Lily did not contact polio.)   Started as the flu.  Looked like Mom was recouperating from it, but then it started again (fever recedes and comes back worse, called a camel’s curve)  Mom remembers Doctor coming for house call and her bed is located away from the window.  And the doctor always made mom get up and look at her throat thru the window.  But mom could not get up.  They started treating mom quite aggressively.  Consulted 12 different physicians for one reason or another.  They used a very different approach from  what was standard practice in those days.  Standard practice was for immobilization.  But they tried to get Mom moving.  So what she remembers best is that they got a masseuse, called Schwester Eva (nurse title is Schwester).  And she came every day to give a massage.  They made mom raise her leg (right) and they measured how much she could move her leg.  (it was in both legs but much worse in right)  but her parents absolutely did not want her to be hospitalized – that was her salvation.  School was closed for a couple of days to dis-infect everything because of Mom’s illness.  Couple things mom remembers:  they used heat treatment which was called diathermia – consisted of some lead plates put on opposing sides of the leg and so not to burn had to be totally flat and some oil put on them which was attached to a machine that had to be rented.  Magda trained to use machine and some times burned Mom as plates had to be kept totally flat.   The time she told mom how long it would be was always shorter than really but she covered it by reading to mom.  The one book she remembers vividly was “The Wonderful Journey of Nils Holgerson and The Wild Geese” by Selma Lagerlof which the Schwenks had given her.  Her paralysis started receding after 2 to 3 weeks and she could go back to school on a parttime basis after six weeks.  She remembers that originally that she was taken to school by cab and stayed for two lessons a day.  Does not remember how soon it was that she went back full-time – maybe after Christmas.

Notes:

1. Those elections were in November 1932.

2. Thus, why Mom was writing her a letter even though she was home.

3. One extant letter, see below.

4. Birthday present? [Obviously, Fela was still in good graces!.]

5. Aunt Franka must have come to stay with them while her mother was in hospital.

6. Hans Pinn was the editor-in-chief on Unsere Zeitung, and Gerda Winner must have been one of the other teens working on it (there is a signed Gerda W. article).

7. For more about Eva Cassirer, see her classmate search.

8. Definitely warm: High of almost 29C and that day and 31C the following day.