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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the
2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of Christopher and Gerda Harkins and has been added to the site with their permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Gerda Pohler's Story

1939

Aged 9 and living in Berlin — Adlershof at the outbreak of war

1942

Evacuated with my girlfriend to the village of Ostendorf near Rinteln/Weser where her grandparents had a small farm. We were made very welcome and attended school in Rinteln.

1943

My friend became very ill with Tuberculosis and I moved to a very isolated boarding school in Jarocin, now part of Poland.

1944 (shortly after Christmas)

Our stay in Jarocin was cut short by the Russian advance. In the middle of the night we were told to rise and dress in our warmest clothes. Leaving everything else behind we set off on foot across the snow covered ground on the long journey back to Berlin. After many miles we came to a railway on which stood a stationary Red Cross train full of wounded German soldiers. By good fortune there was room enough with the horses in their wagons and we travelled in such luxury as far as Breslau. The remainder of the journey was done on foot with occasional use of trains when the opportunity presented itself.

1945

Arrived in Berlin after three months on the road. Continued to live there under Russian occupation during which time I went to school in Kopenick.

1947

Conditions had led my father to plan an escape to join my grandparents at their home in Hagen/Westphalia. This was an ambitious and hazardous undertaking. Eventually the time seemed opportune and the plan was put into operation. In complete secrecy the house and all its contents were left as if under normal occupation. A complicated train journey resulted in our arrival at a river boundary between the Russian and British occupied zones. After observing border patrol routines a time was chosen. The last of my personal possessions were abandoned and under cover of darkness we swam the river aiming for the refugee camp at Helmstedt. That night my father, stepmother and I arrived. WE WERE SAFE AT LAST.

Christopher Harkin's Story

1939

Aged 10 living in town of birth, Clydebank , Scotland

1941

Early in the year while doing our regular milk round in the blacked out dawn hours, my brother and I witnessed flares being dropped by German reconnaissance aircraft. This we were to learn was the prelude to a two-night 'blitz' which virtually wiped out Clydebank.

March 14

Air raid sirens sounded out at about 9pm and it soon became evident that this was no false alarm. Clydebank's strategic industrial and oil storage facilities were being targeted in a highly concentrated air bombardment which was also wreaking severe extensive damage on residential areas. We survived the night in a surface shelter and emerged to find that the tenement in which we lived was well and truly alight. The emergency services were working very well. We gathered what we could and joined the lines of people making their way from the town to seek some safety in open country. We had in some way become refugees.

March 15

As expected the raiders returned to continue the destruction by the light of the fires started the previous night. Not much of Clydebank survived unscathed and there were many casualties. In the evacuation of the town our family was split up. We spent the next five or six years in various addresses in Glasgow until being re-housed in Clydebank after the war.

Later we met in England in 1955 and married in 1956

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