The family moved to Mid-City, Los Angeles, USA in 1930, the city where Charles Bukowski's father and grandfather had previously worked and lived. Young Charles spoke English with a strong German accent and was taunted by his childhood playmates with the epithet "Heini," German diminutive of Heinrich, in his early youth. In the 1930s, the poet's father was often unemployed. In the autobiographical "Ham on Rye", Charles Bukowski says that, with his mother's acquiescence, his father was frequently abusive, both physically and mentally, beating his son for the smallest imagined offense. During his youth, Bukowski was shy and socially withdrawn, a condition exacerbated during his teen years by an extreme case of acne. Neighborhood children ridiculed his German accent and the clothing his parents made him wear. In "Bukowski: Born Into This", a 2003 film, Bukowski states that his father beat him with a razor strop three times a week from the ages of six to 11 years. He says that it helped his writing, as he came to understand undeserved pain. The Depression bolstered his rage as he grew, and gave him much of his voice and material for his writings.