An Elephant in the Garden

Lizzie decides to call Karl “Karli” so that he will be “inside the story” she tells to him and his mother (18). She begins with a description of her family and their home in Dresden, a house with a walled garden that opened onto a public park. Lizzie, born on February 9, 1945, was called Elizabeth then, her mother “Mutti,” and her father “Papi.” The elephant was named Marlene after Mutti’s favorite singer, Marlene Dietrich. One of Karli’s legs was shorter than the other and he had asthma, but he was a happy little boy and the family’s clown. His and Lizzie’s early childhood is filled with music, picnics, and lovely summer trips to Aunt Lotti (Mutti’s sister) and Uncle Manfred’s farm.

The trips to the farm end after Hitler rises to power in Germany; one night at the farm in the summer of 1938, Lizzie’s mother and Lizzie’s aunt and uncle quarrel about Hitler, rupturing family ties. Bitter about Germany’s humiliating defeat in World War I and “how people starved in the streets after the war” (25), Manfred blames the post-World War I government in Berlin and “the Jews” for betraying Germany; Hitler, he says, is restoring German pride and “putting things right” (25). Mutti calls Manfred a fool and Hitler a madman, reminding Manfred that the family has many Jewish friends and predicting that Hitler will ruin the country. The following morning when Lizzie and her family go home, she knows that the days of “sunshine and laughter” at the farm are over (22).

As a child, Lizzie is semi-aware of life in Germany under Hitler, especially for the Jews, who are persecuted daily. She hates the injustice and cruelty she sees inflicted on them, but her family does not discuss such things; as Papi says, “[Y]ou never know who’s listening” (24). The war only truly becomes a reality for Lizzie a year after leaving the farm, when Papi comes home in a German army uniform and says he is being sent to France.

After Papi goes to war, Mutti takes a job at the zoo. Initially, Papi comes home on leave every few months, but these visits eventually stop, though Mutti sometimes receives letters from him. She reads his letters to Lizzie and Karli every evening at bedtime. She and the children hold hands and think of Papi in what Mutti calls a “family moment.” She places each of his letters behind a picture of Papi on the mantlepiece, which serves as “an altar to his memory” (30).

As the war drags on, it is clear that Germany will lose. The Russian army is invading Germany from the east, and the Allies are advancing from the west. Refugees flood into Dresden, and food and fuel become scarce.

Sad, angry, and afraid, 15-year-old Lizzie feels “hollow inside,” withdraws from her family and friends, and often blames Mutti for her despair. She resents Mutti’s love and concern for Marlene, an elephant who is grieving the death of her mother; Lizzie feels that Mutti cares more about Marlene than her and Karli. After Lizzie expresses her anger and resentment to Mutti one evening, Mutti shares her fears about the war and how it threatens those she loves. Lizzie then regrets her “cruel words” to her mother, and she and Mutti cry together, “opening [their] hearts to each other” (38).

Mutti also tells Lizzie something so terrible she cannot stop thinking about it: Dresden will likely be bombed, and when that occurs, the zoo will shoot its animals so that they do not escape into the city. Mutti cannot bear the thought of Marlene being shot. Lizzie is deeply frightened. Comforting her, Mutti reminds Lizzie that the air-raid sirens and their bomb shelter will protect them, and she promises that Marlene will survive too. The next day, Mutti tells Lizzie, “I have had an idea […] in the night, a wonderful idea, a grand idea. A secret” (42), but she does not reveal what it is.