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This story was submitted to the WW2 People's War Website by the London Borough of Harrow Housebound Library Service on behalf of Mrs Lilian Walker, and has been added with her permission.

Friends of mine, Alice and Reene, working in Berlin were advised by the British Embassy to leave Germany. Alice and her Swiss husband left, but Reene stayed as she thought the war would blow over. One day at work a German girl took her for a walk and showed her a lovely house which had been taken from her family by Hitler. She said ‘What a shame your lovely London will be bombed’. Reene said ‘The British will retaliate and your lovely Berlin will be bombed.’ ‘Oh no’ said the girl, ‘Goering has so many planes, your people will not get near’. One day while at work, Reene was told that the Gestapo would collect her, and as her employers liked her, they would not want to watch that happen, so asked her to leave. Reene spent the next few days meeting other girls, sitting in cafes drinking terrible coffee. Then one morning she heard the gates to her lodgings being undone, the front door opened and her landlady, followed by some men, came to her bedroom door. ‘We are the Gestapo’ the men shouted. ‘You come with us, Frau Rainer’. ‘Oh, I’m not dressed’, said Reene. ’Come back in half an hour’. They were furious, stamped their feet and banged on the door. So she got dressed and was taken to a prison where there were other girls. They had one knife allowed between ten of them to eat their food. When they went to the toilet they had to leave the door open and a warden stood there. After some days they were told that they could go, and to be out of Germany in twentyfour hours. Reene went to the station but found the trains were packed with soldiers. Eventually she made her way to Italy and decided to call at an address given to her by an Italian girl. She found the family, who were sleeping in with the cows for warmth. Later she looked round some shops and bought some silk Italian underwear. Eventually she made her way to France and joined some English people who planned to spend the night in an hotel and then travel on the first ferry to England. Reene said that she could not afford the hotel, and so these people had a whip round and got her a bed for the night. In the morning she went to the British Embassy where they lent her the money to get home, saying that she must refund it!

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