mally khorasantchi

I admit crying while painting my roots around my father, August Breuer. I remembered seeing this picture once long ago as a child and it frightened me. It wasn't until my mother's death in 1982, that I saw it again, found in between my mother's letters. It shows my father arriving by train in Düsseldorf, coming back from Russia, seriously injured. He was stationed in Russia as soldier for the German army. He was carrying a tin of hard boiled eggs, looking up to a platform that was destroyed by bombs and no longer exists. He is looking at the person who took this photograph before picking him up. My father was not alone. As bad as things had been during the war, there was hope. He had his life, two sons, his sisters and brothers. To me, the eggs, a symbol of new life, were equally as poetic as roots.

My father is standing with his two brothers on the ground where his former house and business, destroyed by bombs, once stood. My father's first wife, Anita and their 10 year old son Rolf, my Aunt Mally and her two children were all killed in the attack just before my father returned home from Russia. The debris had been cleared and the plans for a new house were underway. It's a bizarre scene - they are already wearing new suits, smoking cigars and looking relaxed and happy, a testimony to the rebuilding of nations and men.

In this photograph, the war seemed so far in the past. My cousins Irmgard, Edith and Elsbeth are walking with Uncle Hans on the Koenigsallee, an elegant and famous boulevard in Düsseldorf. With the ruins of war in the background, they are wearing new spring outfits; a new generation looking to a bright future.

I will always remember the feeling of being cocooned between big bosoms and food. There were the two uncles and five aunts from my father's side and two sisters and one uncle from my mother's side. Lots of cousins and endless amounts of food; rooms filled with laughter, happiness, eating and drinking – feelings of comfort and warmth.

As a child, I felt without exception that only if I behaved, was obedient and thankful, I would be loved. This is a picture of Anke (my best old friend even today) and me in our matching coats. The coats were beige, a practical color selected by our mothers because they didn't show dirt. We were good Catholic girls, following parental rules, never questioning authority. We were taught to be uncomplaining and grateful; that, unlike them, we were lucky to be born after the war.

My father died April 13th and since Easter was the following weekend, he was buried on the 19th , the day I turned 12. Forced to walk in the procession behind my father's casket, on my birthday, I was in shock, unable to shed one tear. My mother, who was left with a car dealership and four children to raise, was more shocked panicked. Looking back, this was the day my childhood ended, where I cut my roots and, though unprepared, started out on my own.

When I was nine years old, I received an honor award from the City of Duesseldorf for my painting of a lantern, and a cash prize of 50,00 Deutsch Marks which I deposited into my savings account. Months later, my mother and I had quarreled about a minor issue and she decided not to speak to me, even after my many apologies. Shunned by my mother, I felt awful; helpless and very lonely. Desperate to win back her love, I went to the bank and withdrew all my money, which by then had grown to 51,50 D M., I went to the local flower shop, spent all the money to purchase 150 Baccara roses to be delivered to my mother.

Soon after learning my mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1962, my grades in school began to deteriorate. Even at this young age, I wanted to go to art school to become a painter. My mother, concerned about her failing health, insisted that an artist would not be able to earn a good living, so she enrolled me into a business school. I was devastated and very sad. As a conciliatory gesture, she then paid for private art lessons from a leading porcelain painter in Germany. Coming to America 38 years later, I came to appreciate my business school experience. I operated and grew a very successful Merle Norman franchise business in Florida which gave me invaluable confidence in my newly adopted country. This painting, references both the discipline of delicate porcelain painting as well as the nail polish dripping over German text. So many things, which we do not understand at the time, make sense much later.

I found 29 obituary cards in my mother's handbag after she passed away in 1982, and was compelled to save them for some reason. All of these individuals are related, or are close friends, of my German family. The oldest died in 1898, the youngest one, who was my father, died in 1960. What I found fascinating about each of these sentimental and personal testimonies of a life well lived, was that they were written during the time of Europe's two, very destructive, world wars. The obituaries lovingly portray each person in a most positive light, as obituaries invariably do; they are wonderful, God loving human beings, with not one ever doing anything wrong. The German text is translated into English and written on glass reflected in a mirror which also reflects the image of those viewing the work.