It is I, Hannah Albrecht, not yet a film star but, like Zara Leander, an actress to the core, who gives and gives of herself to satisfy her public. Although, no doubt, the star of the Brown House, it is TERRIBLY UNFORTUNATE that, thanks to my parents, I am depicted in this photo wearing a perfectly HIDEOUS DRESS that you might confuse with a tablecloth. The collar looks like a lace doily. Do you know that word? I am told that I have an extremely sophisticated grasp of the English language for someone of any age, but especially for a thirteen year old girl.
Hannah again. Mummy said I could write about her too although she demanded script approval. As you can see, she is UTTERLY GORGEOUS. Everybody tells her she looks like Marlene Dietrich. Even Marlene Dietrich did! In fact, Marlene Dietrich said mum looked even more like her than she does because mum’s eyebrows do what they do naturally with no help. Most of the time mummy is very calm, but when she gets angry, as dad can attest, you’d better watch out. Granny says it is our Russian temperament.
Daddy said he didn’t care about his photo, which may be true and he left it up to me to say something about him. Like me, he’s an incredible brain box ha ha. Actually, he really is. He’s a physicist who does a bit of research and a lot of teaching at Berlin University. Fortunately, there aren’t a lot of female physics students, let alone pretty ones. Before that he worked for Fritz Opels on the rocket powered motorbike, car and plane. Daddy is an Anglophile (strange but true) and was always saying Fritz was ‘completely bonkers’. That’s when I first heard the word by the way. I am told that I get my lips from him. I mean dad not Fritz Opels.
The last member of the family is the bus. That’s what we call the Bentley that dad inherited when granddad passed away. Dad says he only got it because grandad wasn’t able to sell it at his car dealership because English luxury vehicles aren’t very popular in Germany for obvious reasons. I didn’t see very much of granddad before he died. I know why. It is because he was in disgrace. When grandad took dad and mum out to a restaurant he felt up mum’s legs under the table. Mum didn’t tell dad until after granddad had gone back to Frankfurt. Dad hit the ceiling. Mum just laughed and said if she was given ten marks every time somebody felt up her leg she wouldn’t have to go to work. I am responsible for making sure that the bus has water in the radiator and for topping up the oil. Sometimes I just sit in the back. I love the smell of the leather upholstery. The only thing that I don’t like about the Bentley is that people think that we’re rich and we’re not.
I asked dad’s best friend Leo for a photo, but he said he didn’t have any because his face would break the camera. He isn’t that ugly. Dad told me that there is a drawing in one of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks that looks just like Leo and there is. Leo is always shouting ‘don’t you see what is happening in Germany!’ He says that dad is like an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand.
This is Leo’s wife Helene. She is French, but I don’t hold that against her! Ha ha. In fact, she is very kind. Leo says that anyone who puts up with him would have to be. He says that he knows that he can be ‘a bit obsessive’. She grew up on a farm in Provence. She’s always surprised that I know but she must have told me ten times.
As you know by now, unlike Leo, dad doesn’t seem to take any interest in politics. Leo says Dad doesn’t even seem to have noticed that we now have a Nazi government. Leo told me that Hitler is in power partly because of the Sturmabteilung, who are the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party. They are also known as ‘the SA’ , ‘Stormtroopers’ or ‘Brownshirts. Leo thinks there may be as many as 2 million of them. The total population of Germany is 50 million! You see Brownshirts everywhere. They are always on the lookout for Jews, who they sometimes beat up, not because the people are doing anything wrong, but just they are Jews. After Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, Goering made the SA auxiliary policeman. Leo says that almost the worst thing is that the public don’t seem to mind.