大象传媒

Germany v Britain
World War II

For this project, I have interviewed both my Grandma and my Granny. They both experienced the war, but have totally different views and answers to my questions. I really enjoyed doing this project, and found out lots of new, exciting pieces of information.

Name: Agnes Mary Hamilton
Age (now): 74
Age (during the war): 9-15 years old
Maiden name: Murray

Name: Lieselotte Campbell
Age (now): 68
Age (during the war): 3-9
Maiden name: R眉hmkorf

Where and when were you born?
Agnes: I was born on 17th January 1930 and I was born in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Lilo: I was born in Hanover, Germany, on 2nd April 1936

Where did you live during the war?
Agnes: In Fraserburgh
Lilo: In Hanover

How many were in your family?
Agnes: There were four in my family: me, my big sister Joan (who is four years older than me), my mum Agnes, and my dad Edward.
Lilo: I had a sister Inge, who was three years younger than me. My mum was called Henrietta and my dad was called Henrich.

What was school like during the war?
Agnes: We only got 1 陆 hours of school a day. This was because the army occupied half of my school. We went to school in shifts, which changed every month.
Lilo: I started school in 1942, and it carried on until 1943 but it was stopped for a few years in 1994. It was just too heavily bombed. We had nothing left.

What do you remember of ARP?
Agnes: My dad was an Air Raid Precaution Warden. He had a big tin hat with ARP on the front of it. It was his job to walk around the streets at night making sure that no lights were showing from people鈥檚 windows.
Lilo: When the siren went we had wither to go to a shelter in a cellar (we didn鈥檛 have one), or to the nearest bunker, which in my case was 陆 a mile away. We had to run all the way when the siren sounded.

What about gas masks?
Agnes: We had to carry our gas masks everywhere with us. I hated it. Every morning at school we would have a gas mask practice where we had to sit with our gas masks on for five minutes. Our teacher had to go round us all checking that they were on properly. I could hardly breathe in it! If you did not have your gas mask with you, you were sent home.
Lilo: We were not handed out gas masks. No one apart from the ARPs really had one. The government (Hitler) did not issue them.

The blackout?
Agnes: In the late afternoon when it was still light, you had to pull you curtains closed. They were made from special heavy blackout material. There was no point in doing the blackout where I lived, because we were on the coast, and there was a huge lighthouse on the cliff that would light up the whole town every two minutes, showing us to the enemy. The lighthouse was never turned off because the incoming boats needed it to see. We still had to do the blackout though, because it was the law.
Lilo: We had heavy curtains and the windows were painted black.

What about evacuees or evacuation?
Agnes: The week before the war started, children from Glasgow were evacuated, and we got a little boy called Georgie. He was about 9 years old and he was very dirty and poor. Georgie was very homesick, and after three weeks his mum came and took him away. About six months into the war, Fraserburgh was very badly bombed due to the lighthouse. I was evacuated to my granny鈥檚 house in the country about 40 miles away in a place called Midmar. I was there for a year and I was spoilt rotten! My mum and dad visited me sometimes, but the petrol was badly rationed, so they only came about once a month. While I was there, I experienced the worst winter of the century. (1939/40) The snow was so high that you walked over hedges and bushes because the snow covered them. There was only one teacher in the school with about 25 pupils. He was an old man whom we called the 鈥淒ominee鈥� meaning 鈥渕aster鈥� in Latin. The school lasted all day. A fire at the front heated the big classroom, and I was always jealous of the smaller children getting to sit at the front. I was about 10 years old at the time.
Lilo: No one was evacuated to us because we lived in a big city. It was bombed so much that it was not safe for evacuees. I was not evacuated from Hanover; I lived in the midst of things for the whole war.

Do you remember any specific posters or warnings?
Agnes: Yes I do. There was one that said 鈥淒ig For Victory鈥� which meant that everyone had to grow their own vegetables, and one that said 鈥淲alls have Ears鈥� which meant that you were not allowed to say anything that could help a spy.
Lilo: The one I remember said 鈥淔eind h枚rt mit鈥�, which meant don鈥檛 talk about things that would be useful to a spy.

What do you remember of the rations?
Agnes: I can鈥檛 remember the quantities, but I can remember what was rationed. You got tiny rations of butter, meat, eggs, bread, sugar, cheese and you got coupons for clothes. I can never remember going hungry. It was amazing that my mother could put together a meal for the family every day; with the sizes of rations she was given.
Lilo: It was pretty bad. I remember one time a British soldier gave me a bit a Cadbury chocolate. I will never forget that because I had never tried chocolate before.

Did anyone in your family fight or die?
Agnes: No, but I knew a few people who got killed. A boy I sat next to in class called Brian was killed. His father owned a pub, and it was blown to smithereens. Also, a neighbour鈥檚 son who was a soldier got killed in Normandy. I had some cousins who were in the war, but none of them got killed.
Lilo: My father was a simple soldier fighting in Russia. He had not wanted to join, but he was quite a good shot (he practiced shooting). Anyway, it he had refused to sign up, he would have been put in prison. That is what happened to my dad鈥檚 sister鈥檚 husband. He was put in jail for refusing to sign up. Later he was made to fight, and he was killed. My dad went missing in Russia along with his whole unit. They just disappeared. My family tried to look up records, but in the 1940s, he was declared dead. The last time I ever saw him was February 1944. I was eight years old.

How did your lifestyle change?
Agnes: There was much less to eat. We got no new clothes. My mum spent all the clothes coupons, buying shoes for us. All the clothes we had were fixed time and time again.
Lilo: It was pretty awful. Every night I would go to bed scared. Hanover was really badly bombed, so my mum, sister and I spent most nights in the nearest bunker.

Was your house or anywhere near you bombed?
Agnes: No. Peterburgh had a population of about ten thousand people. It lost more people per capita than any other place in Britain. When Norway fell to the Germans, Germany took Stavanger, a Norwegian air base. When the German bombers went down to the big cities in England, they passed Peterburgh. On the way home, if they had any bombs left, they would drop them on Peterburgh.
Lilo: My house was bombed. We had been in the bunker during the night and when we got out, we were told the news. We had nothing so we stayed for a while with a pharmacist who had a spare room. The three of us shared a room and we were allowed to use the toilet and the kitchen. After a while we went to stay with a friend. We lived with them until my family moved to Hamlin in 1948.

Did you have any Anderson or Morrison Shelters?
Agnes: Most people had shelters in their gardens, but we had one under our stairs. We had a big space under the stairs where we slept. The stairs were supposed to be the part of the house that remained if the house was bombed, so we were quite safe.
Lilo: No, just the nearest bunker or cellar.

What was your biggest fright or fear at the time?
Agnes: Mine was when I came back to Fraserburgh when my Granny died. There was one night when there was a terrible attack on Fraserburgh. The whole town was in flames and my dad was out helping people. My biggest fear was that he was going to be killed. Thankfully he wasn鈥檛 hurt.
Lilo: My biggest fear at the time was being bombed. I remember a man called Oscar got badly burned by a firebomb in his cellar. People had to throw water over him to put the flames out. I also saw lots of covered up dead bodies in the streets after a bomb. You never saw the bodies, but you knew they were there.

What do you remember of news/radio broadcasts?
Agnes: A lot. My family was hooked to the news. We listened to it three or four times a day. My dad had a big amp of Europe on the wall and we had German and British flags stuck to it, depending on where the troops were. We followed the news very carefully. Everyone did.
Lilo: We had no radio or news broadcasts. The airport on the outskirts of Hanover was bombed, so most of our communications were cut out.

Did you do anything in the war?
Agnes: Because the bombing was so bad in Fraserburgh, my family moved to Dumfries in 1941. On a Saturday afternoon I would help in one of the local hospitals, folding bandages and cleaning up. I did that as part of the Girl Guides.
Lilo: No I did not do anything. I was too young.

Were there any illnesses or diseases?
Agnes: No
Lilo: No

Where were you when war was declared?
Agnes: I was in church. It was 11 o鈥檆lock on a Sunday. The reverend at the end of the service read it out on a bit a paper. I can still remember what is said. It was a quote from the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.
鈥淗is Majesty鈥檚 Government has informed Herr Hitler that he should give an assurance that he would cease aggression against Poland. No such assurance has been given and so I regret to tell you that this country is now at war with Germany.鈥�
Lilo: I was too young to remember. My parents must have told me and my sister.

What did you feel like when you were told?
Agnes: I was very excited because I was only young and did not know the meaning of war. My parents were in tears.
Lilo: I can鈥檛 remember.

Were you told much about Hitler?
Agnes: I don鈥檛 know how much of it was actually true, but I really loathed him.
Lilo: No, it was forbidden to talk about Hitler. After the war at school, we were never told about the two world wars. I only learned about them later.

Did you know any Jews?
Agnes: No, but in Peterburgh there were a lot of Italians. During the war, they were taken to internment camps which were like big prison camps. They stayed there all war. My mum and dad were quite angry because we knew this nice old Italian man who was going to be sent away. My dad organised a petition to stop him going, and in the end, he didn鈥檛 have to go.
Lilo: Only after the war. We gave up our small house to a couple of Jews. Most people did. There we were told about the horrors of the concentration camps.

Did your parents talk a lot about WWI?
Agnes: Yes. My dad was in the trenches in World War I. In World War II, he was too old to fight (he was in his early 40s) and also he was a teacher, so he stayed at home.
Lilo: I was too young.

Were you excited when the war stopped?
Agnes: Yes, I was thrilled! By this time I was old enough to know what the war had really meant. There were lots of celebrations - dancing in the streets and lots of fireworks.
Lilo: I felt relieved when the war stopped. The British soldiers had always been nice to us. I think they realised that we had nothing to do with the war. I enjoyed talking English to them.

After the war, how long did it take for things to get back to normal?
Agnes: Some things changed straight away, like there were no more blackouts or air raids, and no more rears or worries. Some things took longer to get back to normal, like the rationing, and the men coming back. It was about three years before the rationing stopped, and about a year before the men came home. Within a year, the school had its male teachers back from the armed forces. They were treated like heroes!
Lilo: It took a while. The first major change was the currency. It changed from the Reichsmark to the Deutschmark. Each family was given 20 Deutschmark to start afresh. Also the shops started selling more clothes and shoes. During the war, the shops did not sell much.

That is the end of my interview. I hope you have enjoyed reading it, and have found out something new about the two completely different sides to World War II.

By Caitlin Hamilton 2TS, Hawick High School, 2004-2005

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