THE GIRL WITH THE WHITE HAIR

When I was about 10, I had a strange girl in my class. She was tall and skinny, had a very pale face and white hairs. Really white, not light blond but white like an old woman. She hardly spoke with us and was always apart.

What draw my attention too was also the fact that the teacher who normally wasn't very friendly was very nice with her, which was quite unusual. Teachers at that time were teaching and that was it, they weren't interested in pupils psychological conditions everybody had his own worries.

Adults were busy with sorting out their lives, it was only 5 years after WWII and Bonn where I lived was to 80 % in ruins. A few of my classmates were still living in the basement of their houses.

This girl intrigued me more and more and finally I tried to become friend with her. But it was very difficult, she seemed to me as if she had built a wall around her and it was difficult to find a hole and get through to her.

The fact that she had white hair made me so curious that finally I asked my mother. My mother told me that the girl was probably an albinos and asked if she was wearing sunglasses or had red eyes, but I had looked and she had not. She had blue eyes. Finally the curiosity won and I dared to ask our teacher.

To my surprise she answered me I thought she would send me away. She told me that this girl lived in Berlin. Her house was bombed while the whole family was inside. Her parents were killed and she was a toddler and buried under the rubble for 3 days until she was discovered. She was so shocked by this experience that her hairs turned white.

I was shocked too, when I heard this and during the night I dreamt that I was buried under a house and screamed to get me out. My mother tried to explain and comfort me, but I could never forget what had happened to this girl who was my age, while I lived happily with my grandparents on the countryside.

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