Home
News
Alumni
Faculty
Contacts
Members
Newsletter
Reunions
History
Sports
Yearbooks
Scrapbook
PX
Books
Marriages
TheWall
Guestbook
Memorial
Links
Berlin Brats
"We spent our entire childhoods in the service of our country, and no one even knew we were there." - Pat Conroy
29 July 2006
Der Tagesspiegel online - Daniela Martens

To School in an Ambulance
300 former pupils came to gathering of American High School and recalled old times

A bomb was found under a car parked in front of the airport building. That's what they said, Diana Kempton remembers. She and the other graduates of 1972 were celebrating graduation at the Prom in Tempelhof airport when they had to be evacuated into a cellar. 'We enjoyed a normal life in extraordinary circumstances', she said yesterday at the first reunion of the students of the BERLIN American High School in the Allied Museum. She came from Arizona for the occasion, her first time in BERLIN in 33 years.

To mark the reunion, the Allied Museum in Clayallee is showing a special exhibition on the history of the BAHS 1946-1994. Around 300 'BERLIN Brats' came yesterday to the reunion and the opening of the exhibit. That's what the children of American soldiers who attended high school in BERLIN between 1946 and 1994 call themselves. Twelve years ago, after the departure of the Allies and the last students left the American High School, BAHS became the Wilma-Rudolph-Oberschule in Zehlendorf.

On that occasion, Jean Crews Derry attended the last graduation - 46 years after she herself had received her diploma in BERLIN. Now the 72-year old has returned a second time. At yesterday's reunion she was one of the oldest and wore, just like everyone else, the maroon T-shirt of the BERLIN Brats. The grande dame with her silver curls related how she was driven to school in an ambulance in 1946 - there were no school buses in destroyed BERLIN.

Almost 30 years later, transportation was still a topic for the students of the American High School. When Bill Planz and his basketball team mates, the 'BERLIN Cubs', played against other American school teams in West Germany, they took the special Duty Train under special 'Flag Orders'. This period is featured in the exhibition: in one of the showcases is a faded newspaper photo of teenager Planz, decent, with a neat side-part. His team won against Bad Kreuznach, as reported by the Stars and Stripes. His sport jersey hangs behind the showcase.

Translation - Laura (Newby) Siklossy '67