Introduction
From December 1941 to August 1945, the United States was involved in a great war that spread to nearly every country in the world directly through battles or indirectly by destabilizing governments.
Chapter 1 – Not Born in Germany
John, 14, was helping his grandfather plant a spring garden at his grandfather’s home in Hillsboro.
“Grandpa Becker, we’re studying World War II in history. Do you know anything about it?” the boy asked.
“Yes, I do know some things about the war, John. I lived through it. But the story I can tell you will be different from what you are reading in history books, so study your teacher’s resources and if you have a test, answer what the teacher has told you.”
“What do you mean, Grandpa?”
“I mean that most history books deal in generalities. My story is what happened to my own family and to me during the war. Many other families of similar background could tell similar stories, but parts would always be different because each of us experiences life differently.”
“Were you ever afraid, Grandpa?”
“We were afraid sometimes, but most of our fears didn’t come to pass. The worst time for me during the war was losing track of my mother.”
“How did you lose your mother?” John exclaimed.
“It’s a long story, John. Let’s sit down and rest and I’ll tell you what I know from experience about the war. At age 82, even talking takes some energy.”
***
“I was not born in Germany, as we have told you. We did not mean to lie to you, but you were too young to understand. I was born in a place now called Ukraine.”
“But Grandpa, you speak German.”
“That’s right. I do and so did most of the people who lived in our small town of Besetnau.
“My ancestors were farmers. Some of our great-great-grandfathers had been invited to move to the Ukraine by Catherine the Great, the Czarina of Russia.
“Is that like a queen, Grandfather?”
“That’s right, John,” he said. “She was born in 1729 in the state of Prussia in the northern part of what we now call Germany. She took charge when her husband who was the Czar of Russia died. During the 1700s, the Russian Army was expanding Russia’s territory to include much of eastern Europe. She invited German farmers to move to those parts because when she grew up in Prussia, she saw farmers who were using more modern methods for farming. She hoped that they would teach the Ukrainian farmers how to raise better crops.”
“But why did the Germans want to move so far away?”
“It was their chance to own their own farms, John. In the German states, great lords still owned much of the land and land-bound farmers had to pay them in crops. Some landowners let them keep much of what they produced but others would demand most of what they grew, leaving farm families to go hungry during the winter. The hope of being able to buy their own land and sell their crops encouraged many to make the long move. For some, that move was nearly 1,200 miles.
“They didn’t have cars and trucks then, did they?”
“No, they didn’t, John. Families often traveled in large units, settled together and built or enlarged small villages. Later, other Germans came too, particularly after 1848 when there was a revolution in some of the German states and the rebels lost. By the way, others fled to other parts of western Europe. Many went to places like Illinois and Missouri, too.
After long years of fighting, Czar Peter I’s forces prevailed and parts of the Ukraine were parceled out to Russia, Poland and Austria.
John yawned. “But all that happened a long time ago. What about the war?”
“Be patient. I’m getting to that, John. It’s not easy to explain why my family ended up traveling back to Germany during World War II under extremely difficult conditions. Right now, it is time for my nap. You will understand when you are older the importance of naps.”
LOOK IT UP
Moscow began in the 1100s and grew slowly. By the 1500s, the inhabitants of that city were spreading their power.
In the 1500s, few people lived in the wilder areas around the Black Sea. Much of central and eastern Europe was claimed by one far-away power and then another. In the 1500s, Poland, the largest country in that area at the time, claimed what was then called the Borderlands.
Moscow and Poland began vying to control the vast areas south of their borders.
The harsh conditions in Poland led many Poles to flee serfdom and religious persecution by escaping to the Borderlands. These fugitives became known as Cossacks.
Although hoping to remain independent, in the late 1600s, pressure from Poland caused the inhabitants of the Borderlands, now called the Ukraine, to sign a treaty in exchange for protection from Moscow. By the end of the 1700s, Ukraine had firmly become part of the Russian Empire, which was centered around Moscow.
Catherine the Great had invited Germans to settle in newly won Russian areas like the Ukraine. She was born in Prussia (part of Germany) in 1729. She came to Russia when, at 16, she married the heir to the throne of Russia, Grand Duke Peter of Holstein. After her husband died, she became the Czarina (queen) of Russia.
Catherine expanded Russia’s borders to the Black Sea and into central Europe. She sent colonists to Alaska. She promoted westernization and modernization of the Russian nobility. She also promoted education and enlightenment among the elite.
Chapter 2 – Communists and commissars
While helping his grandfather sow lettuce seeds, John told him that his talk the previous week helped in his school assignment.
“So tell me some more,” he said. “I did great on the test.”
“Until 1871, there was no united Germany, John, only independent German states. You’ve probably heard of some of these states, like Bavaria, Hanover, Westphalia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Prussia and Hesse. Each one had a separate government.
“In 1871, a Prussian named Otto von Bismarck united the independent German States and ruled them using the title of chancellor of the German Empire.”
“Didn’t another war come before World War II? John asked.
“That’s right. During World War I, Russia and England fought against Germany. Russia was still governed by the last of the czars.
“Near the end of that war, in 1917, the rule of Czar Nicholas II was overthrown by Russian socialists called Bolsheviks. Part of their ideology was to transform the whole world into socialist states. Russia stropped fighting Germans and began a long civil war.”
“The United States fought against the Germans in World War I. Right, Grandpa?”
“Yes. Germany lost that war. New leaders set the stage for a governmental takeover in the 1930s by a man named Adolf Hitler.
“In 1922, Ukraine agreed to become part of the USSR. Many more smaller countries were coerced into joining as well. At the end of the long civil war, the Communists prevailed. By the late 1920s, one man, Josef Stalin took leadership of the USSR.
“After the Communists took over, they taught that they believed all people were equal and therefore should share all that they had with each other. That sounded good. But the reality was different. After Stalin took control of the USSR, his officials seized all assets, including farms and factories. They lived well while everyone else suffered.
“John, before the Communists took over, my family had been able to raise enough food for ourselves and a small surplus to sell. After Stalin imposed agricultural collectivization on Ukraine, our family’s farmland was taken away from us. My father and the other men in our community were forced to work on a collective farm. We did get to keep our cottage and a small garden. Without the produce from the garden, we would not have survived. Carefully using and preserving that food, we barely had enough to eat.
“Many of our neighbors didn’t survive. We had famines during the years when they forced the people to follow their Five Year Plan.
“To hide the failure of these plans from the world, Stalin continued to export food to other countries, while rural residents died of starvation. Anyone who publicly protested was sentenced to death or relocated to prison work camps. My parents only heard vague rumors of these camps. Anyone who tried to speak openly of them was immediately silenced.”
John’s grandfather told of his young life.
“I was born Johannes Konrad Becker in 1932. There was a large gap in age between my older brother, Karl, who had been born in 1926. Another brother named Jacob was born in 1937. By the time I was 3, I can remember being hungry and sometimes cold for lack of fuel. My parents did their best. Life kept getting more difficult in our village but we had nowhere else to go.
“The year I turned 7, the chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, sent the German Army to attack part of Poland. We heard rumors of unrest but we were far away. News traveled slowly. Then we heard that Marshall Stalin had made a peace pact with Hitler.
“Yes Grandpa, I remember the teacher talking about these men. Hitler and Stalin were bad men, weren’t they?
“I prefer to say that at first they were terribly misguided. When they became too powerful, the results brought tragedy to much of our world.
“Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a man who spent a long time in one of Stalin’s prison camps, decided that good or bad was in individual people’s hearts and all of us had some of both. We each have to learn how to choose the good. My parents wanted to choose good – to live in peace and be kind to our neighbors.
“Villagers often said that the situation couldn’t become any worse. Then it did. In 1941, Hitler’s military forces began attacking Russia.”
LOOK IT UP
Josef Stalin’s three Five Year Plans (beginning in 1928 and ending during World War II) never succeeded and resulted in the deaths of many people through famine. His attempt to conceal the failures resulted in a system of prison camps that soon spread all across the USSR. The secret prison camps of the USSR allowed Stalin and his followers to get rid of anyone who presented even a slight threat to their power.
Most of these camps were located in the Arctic or Siberia. Prisoners engaged in a variety of slave labor, including chopping down trees to build more camps, mining for gold or breaking rock to build roads. Their work was unskilled, manual and inefficient. The combinations of violence, unsanitary conditions, harsh climate, hard labor and meager food meant that few “political enemies” ever returned from these camps.
Chapter 3 – Leaving our home
As his grandfather continued the story of his life during World War II, John began pulling the small weeds that had invaded his grandfather’s garden.
“Living in the Ukraine in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, my parents, Nicholas and Maria Becker, spoke both German and Russian. I attended a German school but there was also a Russian school in a nearby town. The few books and publications we were allowed to see were written in Russian.
“Our family’s loyalty began to be questioned by the students who came to our school from the homes of Ukrainians sympathetic to Russia. I was only 9 then, but I remember the first time an older student called me a spy and beat me up when I slipped and spoke a few German words to a friend in our schoolyard. Even though it was for German-speaking children, only Russian was allowed at our school.
“Even though my father and grandfather before him had been loyal to Mother Russia and my father had fought with the Russian troops against the Turks in 1910, his loyalty to Russia was now being questioned. He was taken into custody when the authorities searched our home and found a German Bible. No publications but those approved by the Communist Party and written in the Russian language were allowed.
“After that, my brother Karl and I became afraid to say much to any of our neighbors. We kept even small complaints to ourselves.
“Fortunately, we lived nearly 660 miles from Moscow. But soon we began to hear rumors that citizens of German ancestry were being accused of causing sabotage in areas north of us. Whispered rumors told they were being sent to Kazakhstan or Siberia. Some were sent to work camps. Others were packed into railroad cattle cars and taken to uninhabited areas in the Arctic where they were dumped out. Men, women and children were left in the cold to starve or freeze to death. A few of them lived and were able to sneak back and warn the rest of us.”
“Did you know about that, Grandpa?” John asked.
“No, we children didn’t. At the time, our parents didn’t tell us anything that might frighten us.
“During 1942, the German Army was able to push the Russians back past our general area. In many cases, the Russian Army did nothing but pull back and wait for winter. Like Napoleon, more than a hundred years before, the Germans finally had to retreat because of their losses to the unforgiving Russian winter.
“By 1943, when the German soldiers in our area were ordered to pull back their lines, they urged us to go with them. I remember the night I overheard my parents whispering.
“ ‘Can’t we stay?’ my mother asked. ‘Karl is old enough to face such a long journey, but what about Johannes? He’s only 6. And I haven’t even weaned baby Hannah Maria yet.’ ”
“ ‘This is a terrible decision,’ my father answered. ‘Either way we choose involves great danger. Our children would not fare well if the Russian soldiers came and sent us all to Siberia.’ ”
“Mother cried then. ‘So we must leave the home we’ve worked so hard to keep and travel at least a thousand miles to a place neither of us knows? Do you think people will help us? Perhaps they don’t have enough to eat for themselves.’ ”
“ ‘I know this,’ Father replied. ‘Either way we must put ourselves in God’s hands. My heart says that we must go.’ ”
“My father had already begun building a larger wagon with a covered top. I helped him set in place the wooden spokes of its wheels and the framing for the canvas top. Into it, my mother began setting the things we would need.
“Packing caused some lively discussions about how much the wagon would hold and what the word ‘necessities’ really meant. Mother cried sometimes when father refused to carry precious pieces of furniture that had belonged to her own parents.
“ ‘We need the room for food, blankets and medical supplies,’ he barked. Then he patted her hand. ‘I know these things mean much to you. And remember, I will have to leave my precious farming tools as well.’
“We weren’t the only ones leaving, John. Nearly every family in our village had decided to join the wagon train to Germany. There were many tears shed and many prayers given in our church on the final days before we left.”
LOOK IT UP
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) had many major members – Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Moldavia, Kirghiz, Armenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Although theoretically independent countries since the fall of the Soviet Union, most still fall under the shadow of Russia, as has been shown recently in Ukraine.
Soon after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, citizens of German descent began being indiscriminately accused as “abettors of Nazism,” or “spies and saboteurs.” Many were also deported to the remote areas of Kazakhstan, the Arctic or Siberia. Deportations from Ukraine alone were estimated at 450,000 people. The prisoners were packed like cattle into freight trains and taken to the uninhabited places where they were left to survive with no help of any kind.
It is speculated that all people of German descent would have eventually been deported from the western regions of the Soviet Union if not for the rapid advancement of German troops into the Soviet territory.
Chapter 4 -- The long road
Grandpa had a suggestion as he slumped into a lawn chair.
“Let’s rest,” he said.
Then he continued his story.
“We set out for German-occupied Poland in September 1943. John, you have seen wagon trains from movies about the American West, so you can begin to understand what traveling was like. The rutted-dirt roads were narrow and dusty. While we plodded northwest toward Poland with our team-pulled wagons, we had to drive past noisy motorized trucks and a few tanks heading east, bearing supplies for the retreating soldiers. Their noise spooked our horses.
“When the weather was dry, the dust from the roads was terrible. On clear nights, Mother and the younger children would sleep in the wagon. Father, Karl and I slept under it.
“Our creaking wagons often broke down while wending their way along the rutted roads, causing traffic jams as they blocked the road to those traveling behind them. Then the men would help each other fix a broken wheel or find a spare part to replace an axle.
“My brother Karl was allowed to ride ahead on his horse with some older youths. Together, they scouted for farmers willing to sell us hay for the horses or spare parts for the wagons.
“When it rained, our wagons would sometimes dig their wheels deep into the mud. Again, other men nearby would help.
“You see, John, it wasn’t just our village. People whose ancestors had come from Germany had settled in dozens of different areas of Russia and the Ukraine. Thousands of families joined us at one time or another.
“We were not attacked as we traveled through villages where Russians lived, but only because officers in the German Army had planned our route through a safer area. Russian sympathizers were never sure when a convoy of German soldiers carrying supplies might be near us.
“How long were you on the road?” John asked. “If you left in September, the weather must have been getting colder all the time.”
“It was. We were on the road for several weeks. Everyone felt a little less frightened when finally we crossed the border into Poland. Then, so many of us had arrived at the same time that the German officials finally decided to transport us by train to a holding camp near the eastern border of Germany. To do so meant that we had to hand carry what we could manage and leave everything else, including the wagon. Again, our parents had to decide what to take.
“After a few days of uncertainty, we arrived at the holding camp where we were divided by families. My family was assigned to a vacant Polish farmhouse. We were given one with a garden plot that still had a few turnips buried. We had custody of a cow, too, although the cow still belonged to another farmer. Mother was delighted to have milk for little Hannah Maria.
There was also a barn with farming machinery. Father was pleased to have the equipment he would need to plant crops in the spring.
“The Weber family lived across the road. That couple also had German ancestors but both the husband and wife were born in Poland. Our parents quickly became friends with them and we became friendly with the Weber children.
“My brother Jacob was only 6 then. He and our neighbor boy Kurt Weber of the same age used to play with each other while Father, Karl and I did the work of cutting wood and digging up turnips to store for winter. The little boys explored and found places to hide from each other and from us. Kurt Weber had a wooden horse and wagon to play with. He and my brother spent hours making up stories while playing with them.
“I envied Jacob and Kurt. They could laugh and play and explore the neighborhood without being aware of the danger we were in. I was old enough to begin to understand how perilous our situation was becoming.
“I looked up to Andreas Weber. our neighbors’ 17-year-old son, who listened to a shortwave radio with his friends and told me that the Russians were beginning to counter-attack successfully. Sometime before Christmas, we heard that the Russians had recaptured Kiev in the Ukraine, north of the Black Sea and were still on the move, taking back more territory. My parents realized then that they had made the better choice.”
LOOK IT UP
Since the Dark Ages, farmhouses in Europe have been clustered together inside villages and towns for protection. Farmers still commute to their farmlands, which are sometimes located far from the village. Similar plans were used by early French settlements in Missouri such as at Ste. Genevieve.
By the winter of 1943-44, the tide of the war was turning. In 1942, German troops had continued expanding their conquests. In May 1943, they had been driven from Northern Africa. This allowed the Allies to take Sicily and drive for a beachhead in Italy.
From then on, Germany had to divide its forces to cover three different fronts. Allied air raids were successfully being carried out on German cities as far to the east as Berlin.
Chapter 5 – Quiet Before the Storm
Grandpa continued his story.
“As the cold winter descended on Poland, we stayed close to home. Our family celebrated Christmas with very few gifts but much gratitude for a roof over our heads. In January, the warning was quietly being passed that Soviet troops had advanced over Poland’s eastern border.
“By the spring of 1944, it wasn’t just the unfolding of the war we had to worry about. One of Jacob’s explorations with his friend Kurt had nearly cost my brother a finger.
In the Weber’s backyard was a rusting horse-pulled potato digging machine. The digger had a seat for the teamster to sit on. Between the two wheels was a plow. Just above the blade was a large wheel with fingers on its perimeter. This wheel, when engaged, would turn and throw the soil plowed up by the blade a couple of feet to the side and expose the potatoes.
To Jacob and Kurt, this machine was a big toy. That single wheel seemed like a windmill; it would turn when they pulled on the fingers. They made a game out of it. One of them would stand on one side and turn it with a jerk and the other one would be on the opposite side trying to stop it. I had seen them doing it before and warned them to be careful. They were not.
“One day, while they were playing, they noticed that the inspection plate on the gearbox had fallen off. They could see the gears inside. My curious brother put his finger into the gears. Kurt turned the wheel.
“Jacob tried to withdraw his finger as the gears tore at it. From the field, I could hear him scream in pain. I ran to him. Kurt looked frightened as he told me what had happened. I picked up Jacob, who was white as a ghost by then, and made tracks for home.
“With a rag, Mother bound his hand tightly. Together we rushed him to the nurse in the next village.
“The nurse washed the badly mangled finger and stitched it up as best she could. She expressed some doubts that he could ever again use the finger. After a few visits to her office, the nurse changed her mind. In fact, he did recover. Perhaps her doctoring had saved his little finger.
“A few days later, Andreas Weber announced to his parents that he and several of his young friends intended to volunteer for the German Army. Karl decided to join with them.
“Both families were deeply disturbed by the decision and had objections. Mr. Weber needed Andreas at home to help plant, cultivate and harvest the crops that they expected would feed the family the following winter. His father’s health was not good. Both sets of parents expressed the fear that their sons would be sent to the Russian front. Still, in May, the young men left for basic training at a nearby Army base.
Rumors began to spread that the German Army might be about to retreat from Poland. Talk of packing up and leaving Poland to head into Germany began to be the main point of conversation on everyone’s lips.
“Soon, a village official made the announcement that all of the German expatriates in town were being ordered to leave Poland. My parents were given the choice of taking the train again or traveling by wagon. But we had no wagon.
“The same official instructed my parents that we had to leave the following morning. They had less than 24 hours to make the decision.
“Mother was beside herself. ‘How can we care for the children?’ she asked, knowing that Father didn’t have an answer. ‘If we at least had a wagon, we would have some place to sleep no matter where we had to travel,’ she said, sighing.
“Just then, Mr. Weber rapped noisily on the door. He told my parents that he had decided to leave. He and his family were going to take the train. When he heard of my mother’s desire for a wagon, he told us that since we didn’t have a wagon or a team of horses, we could help ourselves to his.
“My father brought out the wagon from the Webers’ barn. We spent the evening loading our meager belongings and preserved food into the wagon.
“The following morning, our father harnessed the horses and pulled the wagon onto the road for another long journey.”
LOOK IT UP
Frigid cold and snow that winter brought a lull in the war. But during that time, the Allies in England began preparing for a massive invasion of France. An armada of ships was obtained and troops were trained for an amphibious assault to happen somewhere along the French coast at Normandy in the springtime. (The Normandy invasion was staged on June 6, 1944.)
Anticipating a possible invasion, the Germans spent the winter reinforcing their coastal emplacements of arms.
Chapter 6 -- On the Road Again
Grandpa picked up his story as his family was about to set out on another long journey.
“The great number of refugees fleeing the Russians became a flood,” he told John. “In the village where we had stayed for the winter, half the people had spoken German. Half had now taken to the road again. This was true in many parts of Poland.
“The people of Poland had been treated as inferiors by the German high command and many Polish hearts were now set on revenge, so we had no real choice but to leave before the Russians threatened western Poland.
“By now, our family was more experienced with traveling by wagon. Mother often had needed to take the reins while Father scavenged for firewood or supplies. My mother was a kind-hearted woman, not only to members of her family, but also to neighbors and even strangers. Mother was usually one of the first to volunteer to work in the camp kitchens that were set up nightly by the army for the refugees. She would bring extra food back to the wagon with her after cleanup. In troubled times such as these, that was no small matter.
“After a few days of travel, the husband of a friend of my mother’s became ill. On a Tuesday in late May, my mother volunteered to drive the wagon for her while she tended to her sick husband. Mother took little Hannah Maria with her. She had me look after my younger brother.
“German Army officers were trying to help us travel safely. On Tuesday night, they discovered there were not enough resources in the nearest town to take care of all of us for the night, so they directed many of the wagons to keep going to the next village. My father didn’t know that at the time.
“When we camped that evening, we couldn’t find Mother. I went from wagon to wagon until nearly everyone had gone to sleep but could not find her anywhere. Jacob cried, then slept curled up close to me that night.
“In the morning, my father made a point of talking with one of the Army officers. The officer explained what had happened and assured us that we would soon catch up with her. But we didn’t that day or for several more days.
“If my father was worried, he didn’t show it to us. He led us in praying for her, then told us he was sure we would find her again soon. He did, however, send me out to ask about her each night. She was nowhere to be found.
“A week later, on the following Tuesday, we drove into our next stop somewhat early. After we had found a place to camp, I began making my usual rounds looking for my mother. This night I found her helping to cook the food for our evening meal.
“John, I hadn’t realized how afraid I was that we would never see her again until I was finally able to hug her close to me. I was too old to cry. She wasn’t. Mother smiled and cried at the same time. Then she followed me back to our wagon and we had a joyful reunion. We compared stories and realized that she had been stopping a day ahead of us each night. Finally, her friend’s husband had become so ill that they had found it necessary to stay at the same camp that next day to let him rest. We felt sad for him but still glad to have Mother with us again.
“My father had not seemed anxious but I overheard him telling Mother that he didn’t want her to volunteer for anything else that would mean they would be traveling in separate wagons.
“Not long afterward, our wagon crossed into German soil. We were required to stay in a refugee camp for several weeks. Although we were of German descent and the German language was the first I had learned, we still had to be naturalized as citizens.
“My great-grandfather had first immigrated to the Ukrainian part of Russia with his family 100 years before. My grandfather had been 5 years old when his family left from the German state now called Bavaria. After that fact was confirmed and a great deal of paperwork was completed, our documents were handed out.”
LOOK IT UP
The cathedral at Cologne (now called Koln) in Germany, located near the central railway station, suffered 14 hits by aerial bombs but did not collapse. Most of the city’s buildings were destroyed. The great twin spires were an easily recognizable landmark by Allied aircraft raiding deeper into Germany in the later years of the war, which may explain why the cathedral was not destroyed when many other historically significant sites were.
Construction of the Cathedral began in 1284. The building was finally completed in 1880, after 632 years of on-and-off construction. At that time, because of its towers, the cathedral briefly was the tallest building in the world.
During World War II, restoration and reconstruction work rendered part of the church usable by 1948. The remainder of the building was not restored fully until 1956.
In June 1944, the Normandy Invasion brought Allied troops to the shores of France. Also that month, the Allies entered Rome. In a desperate attempt to regain their momentum, the Germans sent a rocket attack against Great Britain.
By July, Allied troops were marching west and in August, Paris was liberated.
Meanwhile, the Russians were pressing back the German Army in Finland and in much of Eastern Europe.
By September, the Allies had reached the border of Germany.
Chapter 7 – Showers and chocolate
When his grandfather appeared to have rested for a few moments, John asked a question.
“So then you were allowed to settle in Germany?” he said.
The older man continued his story.
“Not quite yet,” he said. “First we had yet another kind of new experience. Our people were divided into groups – small children with their mothers and the other women, men with the older boys. Without a stitch of clothing, groups of us walked into a large room, a shower of sorts.
“Oh no,” John gasped. “I’ve read about that.”
“Taking that shower wasn’t what you think,” John’s grandfather reassured him as he worked at hoeing the ground. “It wasn’t until many years later that I learned of the fate of so many Jewish people who were put to death in showers like that one. Knowing about it still makes me shiver.”
John’s face showed his shock.
“In our case, John, the soap was really soap. The water had chemicals in it. Lice and fleas had been our constant traveling companions for months. These showers were designed to make them go away. You have no idea how difficult it was to keep clean while on the road.
“After the majority of us had received our papers, the authorities brought families back together. They systematically assigned family groups to different parts of Germany, so that each group would not be too much of a burden for local populations to help.
“Our family and some of my more distant relatives were sent to Lower Saxony. We settled in a rural village in the heart of the Luneburger-Heide.
“Local farmers had been asked to take refugee families in order to help them get resettled. Herbert Fritz became our host and landlord. The five of us moved into the second story of his farmhouse and occupied two rooms, a bedroom and a kitchen. Perhaps, I should say almost six of us. My mother was again expecting a child.
In exchange for our housing, Mr. Fritz got the use of the team of horses we had brought with us. My father and I found work around the farm, milking cows, feeding livestock and repairing machinery.
***
“During our long trek from Ukraine, I had seen many burned-out buildings and dead animals along the road but we had managed to avoid the bombings that were becoming routine in the larger Germans cities such as Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin.
“That changed because we had been resettled just a few miles from an airport. The Luftwaffe – the German air force – was stationed near the airport. We lived in the path of the Allies’ bombing route from England to Berlin. Many times I saw a mass formation of bombers flying overhead and heard villagers point to them and say: ‘There they go to Berlin.’
“Close to the end of the war, the airport sustained a massive attack by British and American fighter planes. Smoke was visible for a great distance. The fighter planes were American, model P-38. The twin fuselage was unmistakable.
“By afternoon, about 300 German airmen had lost their lives and had to be buried in two mass graves in the village cemetery. Sometime after the war, these two graves were emptied and some of the bodies shipped to their relatives.
John blinked his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ll bet you were afraid by then.”
“We were for a while. We didn’t know what to expect.
“A few days later, the American Army moved into our area and soldiers occupied the airport. Tanks rolled into our village as well and soldiers put up their tents at our schoolyard.
“Our parents warned Jacob to stay out of the area where the soldiers were camped, but that didn’t keep my younger brother away from the American soldiers. In no time, he could chew gum as well as G.I. Joe himself – that is, as long as his supply of gum lasted.
“Instead of being afraid, we learned then that the American soldiers had big hearts, especially for children. And they had brought lots of chocolate.
“World War II in Germany officially ended in May 1945. But my family’s struggle to survive and adapt to our new home did not.”
LOOK IT UP
In January of 1945, Soviet troops captured Warsaw, Poland.
In February, President Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in Yalta in the Russian Crimea to discuss terms of surrender they would impose on Germany and Japan.
In March, the Allies took Cologne and established a bridge across the Rhine River at Remagen.
At the end of April, Adolph Hitler committed suicide.
May 8 was named Victory in Europe Day.
In June, American, British and French troops moved into Berlin.
In October, the United Nations was formed.
Chapter 8 – Our new home
After a short rest, John’s grandfather continued his story.
“By the spring of 1946, we had moved into a wooden barracks building that was formerly used for soldiers,” he said. “There were six buildings and each of them held several refugee families. Our building was located across from the school. Mother registered Jacob at the school immediately.
“Our entire family occupied one large room. We had little furniture. A table, some chairs and beds had been left. A few other items were given to us. And by now there were six of us. Jacob was amazed to come home from school one afternoon to find our mother holding my new baby sister, Gretta.
“Our building included three separate bathrooms and a washroom in the concrete basement. These facilities served all of us in the building. We had to carry our water in a bucket from the washroom.
“Money was very scarce. We could not afford to buy more than the most basic needs. Mother made clothing for us, usually cut down from used garments other people gave us. My father was handy at repairing shoes. He made us shoes from larger ones. He had tools for that craft. What he didn’t have, he improvised – he made nails from the wood of a birch tree.
“Those shoes were not the best-looking ones but they covered our feet and got us through the winter. The younger children didn’t need any shoes in the summer; they went barefoot from the last frost in the spring to the first one in the fall.
***
In the first few years after the war, the school Jacob attended served hot lunches for all school children. Lunch was distributed at the 10 o’clock break. Each child had to bring a small bowl and a spoon to school. Soup was served, every day a different kind. Friday was always a special day. On that day we received a small bar of chocolate with the soup.
“By this time. a large group of American soldiers had occupied the airport. My father found work as a gardener for the soldiers.
“This airfield was not being used for planes any more. The runways had been destroyed by all the bombing. So were the hangers and most of the larger buildings. The airport itself was off-limits to the civilian population but the surrounding fields, which were government property, were rented out to people without land. That’s how we grew enough potatoes to last us for the whole year.
“A local farmer gave my father a job milking cows and feeding his livestock He also let us use a small field for a large garden. My father grew rye on one field and potatoes on the other. He rotated the crop every year. I worked in the field with him.
“My parents and I wondered how I would be able to get more education. I was your age by then – 14. My mother asked at the school and found that although I had not attended school since the autumn of 1943, I could begin school at the start of the next semester.
“I was three years behind and would have to attend a class with 11-year-olds. I worried that the other students would make fun of me because of my size. Or that I could not remember the things I had been taught – in Russian, at that – so long before.
“I finally decided that I had to risk it. The work was hard but eventually, I was able to skip two grades and catch up with students nearer my own age.
“At home, we all had chores. My father acquired a pair of domestic rabbits. In no time, we had many rabbits. As soon as our rabbits grew large, we had rabbit meat in abundance. My father made cages for them. Jacob made sure they had green grass everyday, at least in the summer as long as it was available. In the fall, my father cut the grass along the field roads with a scythe and let it dry for hay. This hay, along with potatoes and rye bread would be the food for those rabbits over the winter months. Sometimes we had as many as 50 rabbits at a time.
“He also bought a piglet and raised it until it got big enough to butcher. A flock of chickens provided us with eggs.
“Although we had few luxuries, we did have the necessities of life and were grateful.”
LOOK IT UP
Life in war-torn Germany was difficult for several years after the end of the war. During the war years, many industries had been converted to producing war materials. Allied bombs had destroyed many factories.
Factories that could produce furniture, clothing, shoes and related items had to be rebuilt or retooled. The commodities that could be produced by the few standing factories had to be rationed. For example,. if a person wanted to buy a pair of shoes, he or she had to acquire a certificate from the village administration, take it to the store and buy the pair of shoes or more likely order them.
Food ration stamps were issued once a month. Customers had to take these stamps to the store. The store clerks then cut the required amount with scissors. Users could swap or trade some stamps for others. For example, tobacco stamps weren’t needed, they could be traded for sugar or butter.
Chapter 9 – The best gift ever
Grandfather wrapped up his story.
“During our first Christmas season since we had lived in Ukraine, officers of the American Air Force invited children of all the grades to come to the air base for a surprise. Transportation was provided by the American Army. We didn’t have the slightest idea what was planned. The trip in a troop carrier was exciting enough, but what was in store for us would stay with me for a long, long time.
“The party was held on Christmas of 1946. We were brought into a large room that looked like a theater. First-graders in front, second-graders behind them and so on. It was all done in an orderly fashion – a little noisy perhaps – but that was to be expected.
“Our principal announced that we were about to see a movie, an American movie. I didn’t know then what a movie was, not to mention an American one. I can’t speak for the smaller children, but I had never seen such a phenomenon before in my life.
“Through the motion picture, I was introduced to Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the rest of Walt Disney’s characters. The fact that those animals spoke in English didn’t bother me in the least. I don’t think I even noticed it. I was too amazed.
“After the cartoons were over, the school choir sang a few Christmas carols. Santa Claus, or der Weihnachtsmann, as we called him then, came for a visit and brought gifts. Starting with the first grade and ending with the eighth grade, each one of the children received a basket filled with all sorts of sweets: cookies, nuts, apples and oranges. As far as I am concerned, the American soldier introduced the orange to Germany. The familiar chocolate bar was also in the basket.
“These Christmas celebrations were to go on annually for the next three years. When the British Army took over the base, they discontinued the Christmas parties for our school.
***
“In 1945, the Red Cross had set up an office in a nearby city. They began the task of trying to find information as to the whereabouts of husbands or sons missing in action.
“In all that time, we had heard nothing from my brother Karl. We knew he had last been sent to the Russian front; that was all. Mother looked very sad when anyone spoke of him or asked about him.
“As soon as she had the opportunity, my mother reported the last location of my brother, hoping that he was still living. We began to have some hope that he might still be alive as soon as a trickle of prisoners of war began arriving back in Germany from the east.
“In 1947, two years after the Red Cross had started to search, we received the first postcard from Karl. He had indeed been a prisoner of war in Russia. What joyous news it was that he was alive and able to write.
“Then a letter arrived, telling us what had happened to him: Shortly after he was put into action on the Russian front, he was wounded on his thigh by an exploding hand grenade and was taken to a nearby hospital.
“He told us later that as the war was ending, many of the wounded men held out hope that the American Army would arrive first. Instead the Russians took the territory.
“My brother was one of thousands who were transferred to camps deep inside Russia. Those who were suspected of being active spies or enemies of Russia disappeared.
“Because of his youth, he was eventually set free. He finally arrived to greet our grateful family in 1948. His safe return was our family’s greatest gift of all.
“John, the strange thing is that people often ask me how I managed to survive all we experienced. The truth is that my parents were people of faith who let us know that they loved us even during the most difficult times. Their love smoothed over the realities of our lives.
“They were grateful for small blessings. We learned to be grateful, too. We lived in hope that things would get better. Eventually they did. All in all, I’ve had a good life.”
Epilogue
Karl Becker immigrated to the United States in 1956. His brother Johannes joined him in 1959. Both men became U.S. citizens.
Today, the now-independent country of Ukraine is once again in the news. And we in the United States are being challenged to respond. Several ethnicities, including a few Germans, continue to live in that country.
