German Author Reflects on Poverty and a Wooden Handcart Used to Transport Her Child to Kindergarten

A first-person account published by the German author Janina Lütt describes life on the Existenzminimum, Germany's minimum subsistence income, and the purchase of a wooden handcart with pneumatic tires. The three-kilometer route to kindergarten had to be covered without money for a bus or a car. Lütt saved for the cart, then spread a plastic sheet on her balcony and painted it with red weatherproof paint. The 50-euro outlay represented a severe financial blow, yet she judged the cart worthwhile because a car would be an expensive luxury for someone affected by poverty and often leads to debt. The cart also removed her dependence on people she would otherwise have to ask for car transport of heavy items. A kindergarten teacher's remarks about the arrangement later caused distress whose full emotional weight the author says she only now understands.