Refugee in search of a homeland

"Poor Günter." There was a long pause. "What happened then?" I wanted to know. "Oma, together with Gerda's teacher and Fräulein Lina, her housekeeper, went ahead of us in her coupé. Mutter, Gerda and I followed in our car. We drove throughout the night, and caught up with the rest of the trek in Neutomischel. I had to leave our car there, as we ran out of petrol and couldn't get it anywhere.

"From then on we sat on the wagons, or in Oma's coupé. Actually, I must have gone most of the way on foot, as I had to keep the wagons from our village together. We only drove during the day, and luckily we always had a bed for Oma at night."

"How did you manage that?" "When we arrived in a place towards the late afternoon, Mutter went to the protestant minister and told him that we had an 80-year-old Oma with us, and usually he found a bed for her. The three of us slept most of the time together with the rest of our people on some straw in a school or barn. Local welfare groups always organised some hot soup for us, which was quite nourishing. That's how we arrived in Gross Marzehns, as I said, not far from this place, on 2 February." From then on I felt more like a human being again, having a loving family, who were concerned about me. Mutter came to visit me too, and she brought me a jar of Fräulein Lina's most delicious custard. It tasted just like out of this world. I had missed some home cooking for so long.

Eventually the specialist decided to operate on me. From others I heard that once I had my operation I would not need to go into the air-raid shelter. They would wheel my bed down there. This sounded to me like heaven. But it was not to be for another week or so, as the list of those requiring surgery was rather long.

My operation took place on 24 February. That night, as usual, there was an air raid. I was still too groggy to be fully aware of things, but I gratefully noticed, that I was wheeled in my bed into the shelter. I was not allowed to move my head for quite a few days. From then on this would become routine for the next three weeks. Mastoid patients were not allowed to get out of bed for that period, because of 'balance problems'. Well, I didn't mind at all.

In my new ward there were a couple of very nice men, one on my right the other on my left. The one on the left had lost an eye in the war, the other had his tonsils removed. He was in terrible pains for a whole week, and he could hardly talk. Once he was better again, he was very critical of the whole Nazi regime, the war and everything. He and my neighbour on the left had long arguments, to which I only listened with great interest, but felt somewhat out of it.

Onkel Werner and Tante Margaret came to visit me one day. They wanted to know what I thought of the outcome of the war.

I had been too preoccupied with my illness to think about the war, and

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