Papa Panknin’s Comments on Gertrud’s Eating Habits

Some of my blogging friends are quite right in pointing out that just because Biene was a picky eater does not mean that she was anorexic. To summarize this rather sad development, I let Papa Panknin speak through his letters to friends and family between 1959 and 1963. Hopefully, not too much of Papa’s sarcasm and irony is getting lost in translation.

1959-12-20 “After many years, we are looking to a joyful Christmas. For the first time in eighteen years, I have been thinking about having once again a roasted goose on the table and a bottle of wine. But that thought evaporated into thin air. The kids reject any poultry with an expression of utmost disgust. My wife and I cannot eat an entire goose all by ourselves. So we are planning to have a rabbit dinner. There is no harm in having two eaters less at the dinner table.”

1961-12-06 “Gertrud is adopting an unnatural lifestyle. It is God’s plan that a young girl should work and be in constant motion from dawn to dusk. Instead, the kids sit on school benches all morning and lazily spend the afternoons on couches. Biene only eats apples. According to books and magazines, eating apples makes you slim and good-looking. Which woman and, even more so, which girl isn’t prepared to make big sacrifices on the altar of beauty. When fashion moguls declare that an old jam pot would serve as a fashionable head cover, it would be done without questioning. Of course, the industry would not do such a stupid thing and suggest something to reduce their profits. Mamma worries a lot about our daughter’s lack of appetite. Biene eats nothing, almost nothing, only fruits. Consequently, she has no bowel movements. Someone who eats nothing has no bowel movements. I know this from my time as a POW.”