大象传媒

This would be the title of my autobiography, although it begins before my birth in 1924. It is the history of Germany in the 20th Century, a country rich in culture such as most of the famous composers of classical music, of philosophers, scientists, a high standard of living, but a country which descended to a level of inhuman behaviour unimaginable for such a paragon of civilisation, and in addition started two blood-soaced world wars in quick succession.

My father, a German officer in WWI, nearly bled to death on the Western front, my Russian mother withdrew 1918/19 with the German army, ended up in Berlin where she met and married my father and lived through the most destructive economic depression the world had experienced.

Then Adolf Hitler and 鈥楳ein Kampf鈥� appeared on the national scen and almost overnight鈥攐r so it appeared to ordinary citizens鈥攗nemployment ceased, presumably much of it into the rearmament industry as in a short space of tiem the most powerful and efficient army in the world at that time was created.

My mother was Jewish and the clouds were massing on the horizon. But I , unaware as a youngster, joined the BdM (the female section of the Hitler Youth). Carried away with marching through the streets, singing, sport events and gathering around capm fires in the woods etc.鈥攗ntil my father, who had read 鈥楳ein Kampf鈥� enlightened me to the realities. We applied for emigration to the USA where my mother had a cousin, a doctor in New York, who was prepared to vouch financially to support us so we would not become a burden to the state r end up ij the gutter. The USA, quite rightly had a quota system; my father and I , German born, could have left, my mother on a Russian quota had not yet come up. And suddenly we were caught in a prison from which there was no escape.

The Jewish owner of my father鈥檚 firm had shot himself and a Nazi official had taken over, which my father found unacceptable, and we moved to a city south-west of Berlin (Magdeburg) where we were unknown and protected by a non-Nazi official in the local Registry Office despite the danger to himself as he would have ended up in concentration camp had he been found out.

From then on , being under the flight path to Berlin, our lives became increasingly dominated by air alerts, more and more frequently twice, mornings and evenings. Hitler/the Germans were reaping the results of Hitler鈥檚 famous screech that he was going to 鈥渞ub out (ausradieren) every English city and the Luftwaffe started, having previously arranged for some training bombing civilian populations in Spain (Guernica). I remember daily life, during the second half of the war, as trying to study or work somehow always carrying suitcases containing some clothing and some more or less precious belongings. Every evening came the great consoloation of news transmitted by Radio London, the radio sitting on a cushon so that the call sign 鈥� 鈥渂oom鈥� boom鈥� boom鈥� boom鈥� boom鈥︹�� and the rest could notbe heard by neighbours or anyone listening outside the front door. Quite a problem because the transmission was constantly victim to fading or sometimes attempts at jamming by the Germans. This activity would certainly landed us in a concentration camp and, in our case, shot.

We rejoiced in every air alert or raid, even after we were bombed out as late as January 1945, because it brought us closer to liberation, but were horrified at what the allied air-crewswere going through in their vulnerable aircrafts even if they survived the attacks.

My mother鈥檚 family in Russia disappeared without trace, presumably into a crematorium or mass grave. Two of my father鈥檚 siblings turned into rabid Nazia, he broke all relations with them and never saw them again. We survived and were liberated by Allied Forces. Germany was total chaos and thye were trying daily and quite successfully to maintain some order, hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming westwards, Russian prisoners of war trying to escape and justifiably trying to take revenge on the Germans, as were thousands of slave labour, German civilians searching (and looting) for food and the general unspeakable horror when the reality of the concentration camps became public knowledge.

I, as a trained interpreter, worked for a British Army Town Major responsible for troop accommodation. At an Intelligence section party on a Wednesday he took me asice and I, sworn to secrecy, (to avoid civilian panic and thousands clogging up roads with their belongings) was told that on the following Sunday the Soviet Army on the other side fo the Elbe river would cross over, occupy what was later to become the so-called German Democratic Republic, another very efficient concentration camp, this time under Communist control. To avoid being raped, robbed or even killed, he offered to smuggle me out鈥攏ot at all according to Army Regulations. And after a sleepless night I stood in the street on a sunny Sunday morning with one suitcase to be picked up and hidden in an Army truck joinging the convoy on the autobahn going westwards.

I simply could not face the prospect of, having barely escaped from one murderous dictatorship,. To fall into the clutches of another equally murderous regime. My parents, initially reluctant to let me go as their only child, agreed. Little did we know that from then on all contact was totally cut, no telephone, no post, no trains. What Churchill later called the 鈥業ron Curtain鈥� and what he had already warned about during Yalta to a dying American president, had come down. Until, nearly a year later, my fearless mother put on her rucksack and started marching, preferably by night and through forests, to where she knew the relevant British HQ mgith help her. She relied on her Russian knowledge which was not always helpful because the Soviet soldiery shot first and then asked questions and as a Russian speaker in the West, they automatically suspected a 鈥榳hite Russian鈥� who had fled the blessed Revolution of the proletariat in the 1918s.

I met my husband, who had come via the Battle of the Bulge (not very successfully) through Germany from the West, we married two years later in Londno#鈥檚 Caxton Hall on 23 July 1947 and joined his parents who had fled to Rio de Janeiro. I was very reluctant to be that far away and would have preferred to have remained in London. But鈥� Love! It enabled me to start sending food parcels to my parents in the Soviet Zone, where there was near-starvation.

In 1957 I returned鈥攐n a holiday鈥攖o Lnodon to visit my parents who had since divorced, but ultimately found it impossible to use my return ticket on the Royal Mail Line ships (flying had begun on only a limited scale, from England on converted bombers, at first ie in 1947). After the Berl Wall went up it became a question of going endlessly through military check-points, field-grey uniforms and machine guns, quite apart fvrom death strips, barbed wire, watch towers visible from the railway line leading into Berlin/. Trains leaving from East to West were thoroughly searched from top to bottom (underneath lest someone clung to the train), sniffer dogs and, again soldiers with pistols and machine guns overlooking the platforms. In fact, a nasty return to Hitlerian methods this time based on an idealistic version of Marxism which years later, for some unfathomable reason became the holy grail of Western youth.

I never returned to Brazil because I somehow knew I might never see my parents agin. I was then and have remained traumatised and periodically suffer fr4om anxiety attacks, especially as my marriage and my subsequent relationship鈥攕till ongoing鈥攚as bedevilled by mental affliction of one kind or another on the part of my partners.

London, still visibly struggling in 1957, and my own state of limbo was nevertheless heaven鈥欌�� kindly civilised people, an ever growing cultural richness (I sang with the famous Philharmonia Chorus for many years in national and international performances), very pleasant colleagues at work, ultimately in the marvellous NHS, and repeated visit to my solitary mother in East Berlin who however, as a Victim of Nazi Persecution (VNP for short) was given a more than adequate pension by the Communist state.

My situation is now precarious again, as London turned into a rich man鈥檚/woman鈥檚 paradise and with failing health and a fraught relationship my new escape route seemed to be to join what was left of my German family, ie their descendants, including two doctors, but find a somewhat ludicrous situation, despite our marvellous European Union, that although born in Germany but due to circumstances entirely ddue Germany鈥檚 disastrous recent history and not having worked and therefore contributed to their health insurances I, as an OAP, would have to pay for private health treatment whereas a German settling in UK has free treatment in the NHS available, paid naturally by the UK taxpayer including myself.

I am tired鈥� With no family of my own, what is the point of it all? I would like to think that I would have the couraghe to end it when I end up ill, old and probablhly penniless---or almost so.

On 8th May 1945, at 21 years, we were unable to celebrate VE Day, since more concerned with survival, and I badly missed the opportunity. At last, on 8th May 2005 in Trafalgar Square I was able, now at 80 years of age, to join a much younger crowd, natrulaly unaware of the real suffering of a previous generation, of thousands cheering and waving the Union Jack.

Thank you, Great Britain, a country and once great Empire which, like other great empires, admittedly initially through conquest, brought great benefit to many tribes of different mentalities and customs.

On reading the above, I find, to my horror, thyat it is not so much a description of daily life during the War but more a personal cri de Coeur. Sorry.

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