The rainbow never sets

plane has less chance to escape. Then the four-meter-base will hook on to it, and the guns receive their commands from there. You know, how that works, don't you?"

"Yes, we are familiar with that." "Good, then you can start tomorrow." The rest of the day was free.

The night that followed was another air raid. The sergeant called each one of us to practice on the search light. As he had anticipated, we had no trouble working it. The new FLAK helpers were standing around and watched us. I found it a bit scary, for the light was so bright that everything around us seemed flooded in light, though it was only the reflection of the beam. We suddenly realised how dangerous our position was. 'Like sitting ducks', I thought. The bombers could try to eliminate us before anything else!

Our beam of light was penetrating the darkness. As soon as a plane was caught in its beam, we had to do our utmost not to lose it again. We found the whole exercise so absorbing, that in the excitement our initial fear dissipated.

We heard again the crashing of the bombs like yesterday, only this time they seemed to be nearer. The whole earth trembled. When was it going to end?

The raid that night lasted for over two hours. I was totally exhausted by the end, both physically and emotionally. All I could think of was sleep, but sleep was a luxury in Berlin.

The following morning we had an air raid during the day. Since search lights are useless during daylight hours, we just stood there and watched the terrible destruction of what the sergeant called 'carpet bombing'. A grid seemed to be selected by the bombers, and all unloaded their load of death and destruction onto a single square down below, erasing everything in its path.

Oh beautiful city of Berlin, what has the Führer done to you? Is Berlin, like Posen, going to be defended to the last man? A cold shudder came over me, just to think of the future.

Whenever I had an opportunity to listen to the news, my ears were focussing on reports about the fortress Posen. It had been completely encircled on the evening of the day we had escaped. The Soviets were fighting hard to take it, but so far, heroic fighting by the Germans kept it in German hands. I heard, though, that the enemy was making slow progress towards the centre of town, the Kernwerk, a fortification from World War One. My thoughts went, full of sorrow, back to those we had left behind. Were they still alive, or had they been able to withdraw to the centre?

In the morning of 8 February I thought of Mutter. It was her birthday. Had they been able to escape the Russian onslaught? And where were they? Had Günter been caught by the Russians in the fracas of fighting

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