The rainbow never sets

to the hospital, but they told me that you had been transferred to here. By then it was too late to come all the way here. I went home again, and started early this morning to come here. It took some time to find you, but I am so glad that I did."

"So am I, Vater, it's just too good for words. You have suddenly appeared like from a forgotten world."

"The Germans from our whole village are billeted with some farmers in Gross Marzehns, not so far from here."

I still couldn't believe it, it was too good to be true. I had not experienced life-giving news for such a long time. It was simply overwhelming. I fell back on my pillow, rather weak and exhausted.

"Please tell me everything that happened to you, beginning from our phone conversation on 20 January. Do you remember? I'll just lay here and listen."

"It seems much longer than three weeks ago. So much has happened since. After I hung up on you I heard in the office that everyone in the province of Posen had received marching orders. They were to pack up immediately and catch the next train out of Posen. Thousands of them were already streaming to the station, and there was chaos everywhere. I then had to make the hard decision not to go and see you, as I was anxious about Mutter. You see, she had gone a couple of days earlier to visit Günter in Krotoschin, and hadn't come back from there.

"Since the evacuation order had come that day, I feared she would not get a place on a train to come home. So I phoned Irene and told her to get the farm wagons with rubber wheels ready, get our staff to pack our things straight away, and put them on the wagons, and to tell Oma. I also told her to organise all the Germans in the village and tell them to pack up and leave for the main road towards Berlin. I would follow with Mutter and the others, as soon as we were together again. I then took the car and went to Krotoschin to pick up Mutter.

"The road to Krotoschin was completely chaotic. I arrived there late in the afternoon to learn that Mutter had been offered a lift back home that same day. I made my way back home straight away and got home at about 10 pm, only shortly after Mutter had arrived. She then told me, that she had reached Krotoschin 10 minutes after Günter's unit had left for the front. So the whole trip had been in vain. The wagons were ready packed and waiting for our arrival. We sent them ahead and went quickly through the house to pick up things which our staff might have forgotten, but then forgot ourselves to take some of our papers and documents. Luckily, Mutter picked up all the photo albums. By the time we left it was about 11 pm. It was freezing, about --20°C, and the roads were terribly slippery."

"Have you heard from Günter?" "No. The Russians broke through there on 22 January, according to the news. Perhaps he is in their hands as a prisoner of war."

150