Her name is Anna
Her name is Anna. I met her at one of the three parishes I attend in this neck of the woods.
I recognised her faint German accent and told her about the wonderful German bakery here in SRQ.
Anna is in the hospital, and I visited her yesterday.
She was born in Berlin in 1930, just three years before H-tler’s rise to power. As inflation was conquered and employment grew, she enjoyed those days. A little girl would not understand the abnormality of the ghastly regime.
Even during the first years of the war, things seemed normal to Anna. Then the Allies began to bomb Berlin, and her father sent her, with her mother and sisters to a safe country place near the Polish border.
Anna was a member of the H-tler Youth (what child of that era in Germany was not?) and she, at aged 13 and 14 would be marched out every day, with other children, some younger, to dig trenches for the retreating German soldiers to occupy.
Then the Red Army began its march west, and the females of this divided family moved again, to escape what they knew would be Soviet style terror.
Somehow, she cannot remember how, they managed to get aboard a freighter bound for Denmark. They were in a Danish harbour on D-Day, and were kept in the bowels of the ship for two weeks. Many died in the ship, especially many little children. But Anna and her family held on.
Once on land they were placed in a Displaced Persons Camp, barbed wire and all, where they remained for two years. Anna’s mother bribed a guard with a gold watch, and he promised to mail a letter to the father, yet in Berlin. My some miracle he received it.
After two years they returned to Berlin. As luck had it, their home remained standing, and it was in the American Zone. On one side, where a window had been there was but a sheet of plywood, and the children looking down through a gap, saw nothing but rubble.
Anna married a G.I. and came to these United States. She is now on the cusp of being 78 years old, and has never told her story to her children and grandchildren.
She told it to me. Perhaps this was because she is to have major surgery this week. I was honoured to hear it.
(Anna is not her real name)
I recognised her faint German accent and told her about the wonderful German bakery here in SRQ.
Anna is in the hospital, and I visited her yesterday.
She was born in Berlin in 1930, just three years before H-tler’s rise to power. As inflation was conquered and employment grew, she enjoyed those days. A little girl would not understand the abnormality of the ghastly regime.
Even during the first years of the war, things seemed normal to Anna. Then the Allies began to bomb Berlin, and her father sent her, with her mother and sisters to a safe country place near the Polish border.
Anna was a member of the H-tler Youth (what child of that era in Germany was not?) and she, at aged 13 and 14 would be marched out every day, with other children, some younger, to dig trenches for the retreating German soldiers to occupy.
Then the Red Army began its march west, and the females of this divided family moved again, to escape what they knew would be Soviet style terror.
Somehow, she cannot remember how, they managed to get aboard a freighter bound for Denmark. They were in a Danish harbour on D-Day, and were kept in the bowels of the ship for two weeks. Many died in the ship, especially many little children. But Anna and her family held on.
Once on land they were placed in a Displaced Persons Camp, barbed wire and all, where they remained for two years. Anna’s mother bribed a guard with a gold watch, and he promised to mail a letter to the father, yet in Berlin. My some miracle he received it.
After two years they returned to Berlin. As luck had it, their home remained standing, and it was in the American Zone. On one side, where a window had been there was but a sheet of plywood, and the children looking down through a gap, saw nothing but rubble.
Anna married a G.I. and came to these United States. She is now on the cusp of being 78 years old, and has never told her story to her children and grandchildren.
She told it to me. Perhaps this was because she is to have major surgery this week. I was honoured to hear it.
(Anna is not her real name)
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