Suffer Little Children

In his short life he had known nothing but hardship and hunger. Erich Kaniss was a small, silent, Berlin boy, with weary eyes in a thin, pinched face. He had been four when the war began. Now he was twelve.

Erich's father was a salesman who had built himself a little stucco house in Teltow, a suburb for Berliners of the lower middle class. Soon after the war was ended, Russian officers came to the house and took Erich's father away.

When Berlin was divided into sectors, the Kaniss family found itself living in the Russian zone, just beyond the frontier of the U.S. zone. Erich's older sister, a blonde, buxom girl of 17, quickly found an American friend. She brought home cigarets, chocolate and PX supplies. On the proceeds from these, they lived.

But Erich was always hungry. His hunger was a gnawing, driving urge that was never stilled. Wandering about the ruins of Berlin, he dug bits of machinery out of ruins, collected scraps of tin and wire--the kind of treasures that boys everywhere collect. Now & then he found something that was useful to an adult. Sometimes he was able to trade his treasures for food--but never enough to still his hunger.

Erich knew that some of the bigger boys at school had their own ways of getting bread. They sold it--ten marks for a slice. Usually Erich was unable to pay, but by arguing and promising he got bread on credit. Over a period of weeks, he put himself 160 marks in debt--more than the price of a pack of American cigarets. He thought that he would be able to pay up when he had sold enough of his treasures.

Then, gradually, the world began to close in on Erich. The older boys wanted their money. They took him aside, threatened to expose him to the principal, to the police, to his mother if he did not pay. It began to dawn on Erich that the "treasures" he picked up had value only to himself. He did not know what real money was worth, but he began to realize that 160 marks was more than he had any hope of getting, ever.

One day last week Erich went again to a neighbor and offered her some things he had found. She got angry. She was a hungry woman herself, with mouths to feed. "Listen," she said, "I have no bread to give you. Your things are worthless. You should find better things to do than going around begging." She slammed the door. Erich went away, his treasures clutched in his hand.

He went home and lay down on his bed. He ate his meager supper silently, then went back upstairs. In the darkness of that night, when the others in the house were fast asleep, Erich climbed the ladder to the attic. In the silence and alone, he hanged himself.

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