Illa - Part 20

5 Year Old German Girl Remembers Living During WWII

This is a true story, hand-written by Ilse and posted by her daughter on Steemit.

One day in 1945, we got a letter from Oma.

She wrote. The worst of the war was over. No more bombing and fighting, at least in the big cities as far as she know. We can now sleep at night. Hamburg is from now on ruled by the British and Americans who share different sections of the city. The people of Hamburger are divided in their opinion of this situation. What choice do we have anyway, that’s what I think. Our new enemy is hunger, cold and illnesses. Neither coal nor other heating materials are available. Trees in parks are cut down. Park benches disappear, like anything else that burns will end up in somebody’s oven to make supper. Many people have boils and all kinds of ailments that are related to unsanitary conditions. Rumors of Typhus are going around. If it comes to hunger, we are the lucky ones having a garden. From the fruit trees and berry bushes, I have dried or preserved as much as I could. Opa used every spot possible to plant vegetables; lots of potatoes and carrots. These we have put in a hole in the ground, covered with straw and earth. We call it ‘mieten’. It is good that Opa was a farmer; he knows how to work the earth and what will grow well and things like the 'mieten'. He goes and shows some neighbors, especially us city folks. We are helping each other and becoming a close community. I worry about winter coming, but I will try to stay optimistic and hope it will only get better. Stay for the winter in Schopflohe, it is still safer and you will have enough to eat. Maybe you two can be here by next Easter.

Another Autumn and the apples have been picked and placed on the shelves. Cider has been made. The cabbage cut and stamped down in the big barrel with salt, ready to ferment into sauerkraut. A pig was slaughtered and the meat prepared. The potatoes lay in the basement. All the usual activities of fall ensued without an incident. Mom showed me how to knit this winter. She has found an old sweater that can be unraveled to reuse the yarn. It seemed that everything was the same as last year, but something had changed. My mom changed. Quite often she would make sharp remarks to us, or show no patience where she usually would. One night, when we were alone in our room, I very carefully commented on that.

“My scalp is itching,” She complained as she scratched her head. "And I want to go home".

She smiled. Then she went to the drawer and took out a pair of scissors. With anger, she crudely cut off her hair. I sat very quietly and watched; worried my hair would be the next target of the scissors. Mom turned away from the mirror, threw the scissors into the drawer and closed it with a big bang. “So”, she said. “That is that.”

She looked horrible. Her hair stood out like an uneven broom. Her face was so angry; I had only seen it like that once. That was the time before the truck had exploded on the country road.

Soon after, Mr. Ule read the newspaper from Nördlingen since Schopflohe had no newspaper of its own. The news from the Russian front had been devastating. Almost none of the German army had survived in Stalingrad. Mom was crying harder than I have ever seen before. Her whole body was shaking and horrible heaps were coming out of her. She was holding me too tight and it was hurting, but I did not say a thing, somehow I know my mother was hurting more than I was. I stroked her face and wiped some of the tears away. “Mutti, maybe Vati is alright. Maybe he ran away from Stalingrad and is home already”.

Mom started to laugh in between the tears. Cried and laughed, cried and laughed.

“No, Illa, he would not have run away!” Holding each other, we fell asleep. We had always had a great bond of love, but that night it grew even stronger.

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https://steemit.com/story/@susieisms/illa-part-21