Under them, struggling to make ends meet, were the rugged peasant farmers (Bauern) and day- .’ laborers (Tagelohnern), the countryside’s dominant figures, who lived in the small, quiet, yet somewhat depressed hamlets that dotted the Mecklenburg countryside. In the area from which our family came, the landless day-laborers outnumbered the peasant farmers. Joachim Klafehn himself was a day-laborer, or Tagelohner.

Children, indeed, Joachim Klafehn’s own, were sent at a young age to work in the fields, on the farms, or in the houses of the wealthy landowners.

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