What Were You Doing During World War II ~ Part 2

Where Were You During World II ~ Part 2

Germany had now been at war for almost two and half years

and food shortages and bombing raids were taking centre stage

in the family's daily struggle to survive.

“I was in public school until Grade 8 and the war was going on ~ so there was no more schooling. Every day, the sirens would go off ~ and we would have to sit in the basement because they were bombing: the Americans by day ~ and the British and Canadians by night.

And we went out of our beds and down into the damp, stone basement

for two to three hours at a time. I still see the sky, black with bombers.

.

Our apartment house had a roof garden and when my father returned from Poland

to visit and the alarms went off ~ my father and I ran up to the roof garden to look ~

and we saw them coming ~ and saw them drop the bombs.”

“The seriousness was the complete shortage of food that had most of the war-ravaged countries grabbed by the throat. When you had nothing to eat (or very little to eat), my mother got a quarter-pound of liver sausage for a family of six. ~ and she had to lock it into the kitchen cupboard, so my brother wouldn't get it. He being 5 years old and hungry would have eaten the whole thing in one bite. But then, we would all go hungry, So she had to hide it away. Bad times! Very bad times!”

“Food distribution was run by the government using food stamps ~ being able often only for water, tea, butter, no sugar and not much flour. Eventually, the toll on civilians was becoming too much for even Hitler ~ and he decided to move all the families with children out of the main cities and into the countryside. The farmers had to take us in ~ and they did not like that! Since we were 5 kids, we were all on different farms, except for the two youngest, who were with our mother.

The farmers, felt this was a tremendous burden to endure

while still caring for their own families and fields throughout the war. “We had to work...we had to work in the fields...get the potatoes...work when the pig was killed...work, work, work...and, I was only 12 or 13,she said. We had to keep working, so we would be allowed to visit our mother.

“One day they were told that a massive raid on Frankfurt was underway. The allies were dropping incendiary bombs on the city trying to break the will of the German population. Years of bombing specific targets, had taken place ~ but never seemed to solve things long enough.

So, a blanket bombing the city was ordered. 

Anna's mother knew that they still had valuables in their apartment,

most importantly 2 feather beds ~ and she sent Anna on a cross-country train ride to retrieve them. She was 13 years old. When she returned to her home alone, the neighbourhood was in ruins and smoke...fire and bomb craters all around. “So I went to the apartment and got the feather beds ~ and I had to get back to the train station with my 2 big valuable sacks. People there helped me ~ they could see my problem.The trains were packed full...they were hanging outside...and on top of the roof. And I had to get in with my big feather beds. But, they helped me...they stuffed the beds in....stuffed me in...closed the door...and the train was off.. That was the last time I saw Frankfurt for 60 years.”

She then made her way back to the countryside ~ and back to work.

Be sure to read Part 3 ~ ensuing in my last issue.

Writer: Merle Baird-Kerr...November 13, 2019

Comments welcome: mbairdkerr@cogeco.ca