Stories from War (Chapter 1 of 3)

I turned on the video camera and started the interview.  The first question flew by as did the next.  I paused briefly from the hurried scribbling of my pencil on the page; my hand struggled to keep up with my thoughts as the amazing story began to unravel with each word she spoke.  I stopped, as my grandma took a pause in the narration, and glanced into her fair, gently wrinkled face.  The lines stretching across her forehead and cheeks added an air of proficiency in years, coupled with the curly bleach-white hair that dignifies one with wisdom.  Her rich, European accent caused each letter she spoke to sound unique and made the English language sound out of place, for the broken syllables she spoke could only truly be appreciated in their native language.  My grandma, I call her Oma, sat next to me in a stiff, wooden chair.  Her eyes looked down into the couch from behind a pair of dark, thickly-rimmed glasses seeming to gaze back in time to a place far away, as she recounted her life…1

Living near the railroad in the industrial town of Osek, Germany, we had grown accustomed to seeing soldiers pass by on their way to the front lines.  Mother would sometimes take me along with her to meet them with loaves of bread and apple juice from the orchards, but I never expected the war to come so close.  My two older brothers, Gerhard and Walter had gone to join Hitler’s Nazis and father and mother were always worried about them.  I was 14 then, a girl my age is expected to never cry about anything, but I missed them very much and just wanted them to come home.  To be with us again; I wished this war was over.  They left 3 years ago and since then, nothing has been the same for me.  Mother started working at the factory, cooking dinner for the workers and father started to work later also.2

I graduated from the German school and had to ride a trolley 30 minutes to another school in the nearby town of Krupka.  One morning, we were all riding in the trolley car watching the smooth green hills roll by when a huge explosion shook the car, almost causing it to go off the tracks.  The driver stopped, as bombs shattering the earth and sent enormous clouds of dirt skyward.  He ordered us to run to a nearby farmhouse, hoping it might be saved from the Allies’ bombs.  At that moment I had the overwhelming feeling of wanting to be home.  I wanted nothing more than to run home and hide under my bed.  And so, leaping out of the trolley, I dashed across the fields; my schoolbooks, a forgotten worry in my haste.  Above the whistling of the bombs I heard the driver’s voice yelling for me to come back, but I was too numb to comprehend what he meant.  I ran through cow pastures and up a hill, tripping and stumbling, until I reached my house at the bottom.  That was the first of many experiences with bombs and war.3