Three great movies!

There are three great movies that I think are well worth watching, even though they are filmed in black and white. For me, they don't make movies like this anymore. They are: "This Land is Mine" (1944), "The Seventh Cross" (1943), and "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946). These three are some of my most favorite movies. Each deals with deeply divided human emotions, overcoming extreme adversity, man's inhumanity toward his fellow man, and the basic will to consciously or subconsciously do what is right; even in the face of extreme hardship. Perhaps a major reason I enjoy viewing these movies is they transport me back to another era and time, of memories of my mother; of how her life must have been like in pre and post-war Germany, and of how she had to survive during that horrific period of time. Each of these movie's primarily focus is from the adult's sufferings, their actions or in-actions and how they eventually overcome tragedy and adversities. However, they fail to take into account the children; they also were part of that era and they too suffered; albeit in much different ways. When I view these films, each one invariably leads me to view them from what my mother's point of view may have been, from when she was a child growing up during a tragic period in time. The films were in black and white however my mothers vision was very colorful to me. She is now long gone to a better place - but her influence, her emotions, her stories, reside as strong in me as they did when I first heard them. I remember her life was not easy, but she strived to make sure ours was! My mother was born in Germany during the winter of 1932. Druing this era, her homeland was undergoing a great transformation. A new leader had been promising the Germans change: jobs, food, anything to make the German people believe and robotically "fall-into-line". She told us one of her early memories were of seeing posters depicting adults talking and asking one another, (?) "What does Adolf Hitler want? (answer) Freedom and food for every decent working German!". This was an actual poster slogan; she remembered this one very vividly! She reminded us of the thought of more food as something she particularly liked when she saw this poster. For a time, this leader was actually delivering on his promises. Food was not plentiful for all, but there was food available as well as work. Germans were finding work by participating on government works projects; one such project was to construct the best road system known in the world, at least up until that time. The Autobahn, or Reichsautobahn (Freeway of the Reich) continued into 1930's and it gave jobs to thousands. It was a make-work program; but the road program also had a sinister plot. the highway was built primarily to move the troops and equipment around faster for the eventual war that was to come. Remember, few Germans had cars. After the war, President Eisenhower even understood the importance of infrastructure when he began building America's "National Highway System". An interesting requirement of our own roads was to have sections within them to be straight and wide for several miles. This was to allow military aircraft an emergency "runway", in case of war! My mother often shared her own experiences and the thoughts she had of the Germany she knew in the 1930's and 40's and into the 1950's, with me and my brother. Some of her thoughts and ideals, expressed within those stories I could not even begin to truly imagine or truly visualize as a child. It was not until much later in life when things began to clear up for me and make more sense. Both my brother and I were often a major focus of her stories. As a post-war child of the early 1950's, I have many early memories of walking on ice cold wooden floors in the mornings, watching the coals glowing in the wood stove, crawling into a toasty bed at night with a warm water bottle near our feet, blankets and pillows several feet thick, and morning breakfasts of merely bread and milk (that is when she had them). As a child, even during that bleak period of time, I thought we were rich. It was my early perception of life, but that perception was far from the truth. I would learn the truth much later in life. I cannot begin to imagine what she must have given up just to ensure the two of us had enough to eat. In the late 1960s, we revisited Germany and she was able to show me where some of those stories actually were played out - as if from a movie, her stories came to life for me. One story I remember her telling me was when she and her brothers and sisters had actually cut down a telephone pole deep in woods to use for fuel in their stove. She told us they had no coal or much of anything else to use for fuel to heat the house or cook food. The war was now in full force and its effects were devastating. Everyone in the neighborhood was in need of food, wood or coal. She didn't say who came up with the idea, but at age 8, (knowing my mother as I did, I had my suspicions). She and her older sister and brother got their younger siblings to help them cut the pole down, tie a rope around it and then they all managed to drag it home. She remembers how proud they were to have accomplished this task. (Leave it to Beaver was not yet a television program, so her parents were not as prepared to give advice or guidance as Ward and June Cleaver often did. Remember too, my mother's parents were also not as affluent). So...they used the wood! They were found out by the Jagermeister (not the well-known popular German drink, rather a Senior Forest Supervisor) who was able to track them to the house by following the trail they made dragging the pole behind them. All other stories she told would touch us one way or another. Some would bring tears to our eyes or make us laugh together, all would eventually fill my mind in later years, and most still fill my mind today. Perhaps, by her telling us of her earlier childhood years and life, she hoped that wouldn't let us take our life for granted. Maybe it was to remember her! Now, I will never know...! Who wouldn't want just five-more-minutes to get to talk to their mother? I'm sure of one thing, as she told us the stories she would remember and re-live them herself. I could tell by looking into her eyes. I still often think of her life and what she must have had to endure during those hard times. Now, I can only imagine.