THERE ARE STILL LIGHT HEARTS IN RUINED BERLIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 97, 20 September 1948, Page 5

THERE ARE STILL LIGHT HEARTS IN RUINED BERLIN

(By Reece Smith, .New Zealand Kemsley Empire Journalist)

1 Contrast With N.Z.’s Sundays

Berlin, July 25. From behind a shattered wall and a hill of rubble outside my hotel window this warm Sunday evening I can hear a dance band playing. And I can see, just to the right of an unscarred linden tree, tables set about a clear space in the ruins. Waiters are moving among the tables, bringing food and wine -to people seated there. The food, I should guess, is scanty and stringy. The wine and the music are warmer and softer. Attractive Berlin girls are dancing gently to American tunes which went out about the time of the Civil War. The violins scrape away at “When the Poppies Bloom Again,” which is, so I am told, about the first thing Bing Crosby did after his voice broke. That puts it around Gettysburg. Yet as a symbol of happiness in a city almost ploughed under by R.A.F. bombs and Red Army artillery, the old tin pan alley opus sounds better than ever it did before. It is summer in/ Berlin, the linden trees are green, the wine is good and the dancers are young.' What matter, in these excellent circumstances, if there is talk of a third world war starting half a mile up the street, and of scige and hunger. Watching these people salvage some sweetness from the dusty destruction in which they live, I considered the prospect as it would be from a Wellington hotel window, about the same time. Jt being Sunday T might see two trams, and some sad looking citizens mooning about wondering what on earth to do with themselves. Even if it were Saturday, the big entertainment day or the week, what wculcl they find in place ofthis pleasant little dancing cafe. They might, of course, be allowed to eat an ice cream walking along the street, provided they did. not obstruct the traffic oh become a public nuisance in so doing. .For anything more to eat they .would have to retire to some air proof hash foundry, slick perhaps in a brassy sort of way, where there was no telling whether the sun was shining or the ti ams outside were jammed in snowdrifts. In place of the linden tree there would be some nondescript nevergreehs in a cracked pot. And would customers please vacate their seats as soon as convenient, and don’t get any ideas about whiling away a mellc w hour with some good talk and a bottle of wine, like treacherous Europeans. For dancing they would have to make their way to a barn set de!cently aside for the purpose. The •New Zealand cabaret band would be of this century, even this decade, with luck. But what would have become of the kindly, attentive waiter bringing wine to the tables? In - New Zealand his place would be filled by an unfortunate police sergeant, plodding round sniffing at glasses.