“My mother is sitting at the kitchen table. The paint has chipped off in a few places on the table legs. The white has become yellowish. The table had eight legs, so she could store the dishes she was using in the inlaid wooden frame, which hid an enamel bowl. You could bring this mission forward and push it back. Here she often sat and drank a cup of coffee. The filter bags were from Melitta. Sometimes in the company of Waltraud. Waltraud was the best school friend of Hannelore, my eldest sister, who had already left home and was studying languages abroad. When the two of them talked to each other, sometimes I should go out and yes — play. Maybe I stayed behind the ajar door or sat on the floor in the hallway. It must have been on one of those days that I heard the name Fritz Kittel.”
This is text number 4 of the exhibition “Who was Fritz Kittel? A Reichsbahn worker decides. Two Families 1933 – 2022”, which will be on display at the German Museum of Technology in Berlin from February 15th. The exhibition is the result of a journey through time that began in 2019 with a telephone conversation. And it went like this: “Are you Mr. Kittel?” “Yes, what is it about? You’ve been calling here for a fortnight.” “Is your first name Fritz?” “No, that was my grandfather. He is no longer alive.’ ‘Was your grandfather a railway worker?’ ‘Yes, but what’s that about?’ ‘May I tell you something?’