1948 Giengen Germany

Helga Canon
Born 1942
Giengen, Germany
Interviewed on Feb 7, 2025
By Emily Cai

HC: I was born in 1942 and people at that time- their priority was, what are we going to eat today? Do we stay warm? Can we make it to the next air raid? Even after the war ended, everything was in rubble… So I had little experience going to the movies, but I remember the entrance fee- instead of having a ticket, the entrance fee was a coal brick. I don’t know whether you know what that is, but they were shaped like eggs. Not many people even were willing to give that out because that would heat a room for a couple hours.

EC: You didn’t pay for a ticket with money?

HC: Because the money didn’t mean much. We had inflation and deflation something fierce, right? I remember that my mom told me, ‘go gather up all the change and turn it in because tomorrow it’s worth nothing.’ So yeah, none of us were really movie people. We were poor, and needed to put food on the table for five kids.

EC: So when did you see your first film?

HC: I think it may have been at school in first grade, and I think it was just called Der Hase Und Der Igel: the hare and the hedgehog. My hometown is known for the Steiff family. They’re the creator of the teddy bear. They did all the animals, you know, they’re dressed up like people. That may have been in 48, 49.
But anyway, that was a movie where the hedgehog and the rabbit were running a race, and the slower one was cheating because he took up over the mountain and even though he was slower he was there first. So that’s the moral of the story in that film. You may not be the fastest one, but you take your time, or if you’re clever enough, you can get there.

EC: Were the characters related to the Steiff company at all?

HC: I don’t think the movie was. It was a German film company, and they may have taken the Steiff hedgehogs and dressed them up. I think that the German film companies were trying to get something for the kids, you know, to enjoy after the grim war. But the Steiff family- we all knew the story. The owner of the company was a polio victim. And to pass time- she couldn’t walk, but she had a sewing machine. My hometown had always made felt- like pressed wool. And she would make these stuffed elephants and then she made other animals. And that’s how the bear got started.

EC: So the film was like stop motion animation?

HC: Yeah, well they were some kind of puppet. But once they were used for animation, you know they’re ruined because you had to stuff them and once that’s taken out, you know, well it’s no longer good.

EC: And you said these animated films were shown at school?

HC: Yes, it was shown during school time. And they probably showed others after that. But I just remember that one, because the characters were so cute and they were dressed up. They were called Mecki, and he had a Mecki family. People just loved those dear things.

EC: Did the school show these as a form of escapism, to have something lighthearted?

HC: That’s why they brought it out. You know, what are we going to do with the kids? We got to give them hope- like my mother shielded me from a lot of heartaches. That was one of the movies that helped us, and it just sticks out because it was so funny and you never saw a dressed up hedgehog. And I have liked hedgehogs ever since.

EC: Did you see any movies outside of school? 

HC: I knew the movies, but I never went to see them. We never had any bricks to waste. So we never got to have that luxury to go see anything. But the movies after the war- they called them trümmerfilme. Trümmer means rubble, just like you have trümmerfrauen that cleared down the rubble to make something out of the rubble and reuse it. Well, they filmed it among rubble to show how bad it was.
I remember one of them was very famous. I think it was called Murderers Among Us, and the main actress- when I was a teenager- she was very famous. Her name was Hildegard Knef. And I know of her because she was born about 15, 17 miles from my hometown. I mean, she was just everywhere, all over the magazines and everything. I’m more familiar with her face than anybody’s.

EC: Were they playing this film in theaters?

HC: Well, there was no theater to go to. It was probably in a tent or wherever they could hang a curtain. There was nobody to show you a seat- you may have had wooden crates or boxes to sit on. I think the first time I had gone into a German movie theater was when Bob and I were visiting almost 30 years later.

EC: Do you remember the name of the theater?

HC: I don’t remember the theater, but we saw My Fair Lady, and I was so disappointed.

EC: Why were you disappointed?

HC: Well, it was the same film, but the speakers that spoke German were not Audrey Hepburn, or Rex Harrison, and all that German just didn’t do My Fair Lady justice.

EC: It was dubbed over?

HC: Yes, it was dubbed. Bob didn’t understand, of course, he just went with me to be my escort. And I told him, well, if I would have closed up my ears, I probably would have enjoyed it more.

Postcards from Helga depicting the Mecki family and children buying movie tickets with coal bricks.

Helga is a long-time family friend.