大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Anna Hepburn and added to the site with her permission.

I was born in 1924 so I was about 16 when the war started. We lived in Latvia in a place called Adazi where my father was a farmer. I worked on the farm - I fed the chickens and the pigs and milked the cows. I churned the butter and made the cheese. There were six children in our family but my two elder brothers had disappeared. They had worked at transporting logs. We think the Russians probably seized their logging machinery and killed them at the same time.

The Authorities sent me to Riga where I worked as a tram conductress. The Russians had a reputation for atrocities and towards the end of the War when we heard the Russians were coming we began to flee. We started the trek west - there were loads of us. We were walking, hitching lifts, I only had a single case with me.

Fear was always with us. Once when we were being bombed we lay flat on an embankment and I remember as the bombs dropped the blast completely lifted my body. Once, running to a bunker, flying shrapnel tore a lump out of my coat. We never had a bed to sleep in. We slept where we could - We never had a full night's sleep. It's a good job I was young.

We had nothing, no money. I know what hunger is - We went without food for days. I tell my family now and they say, "Mum, we're fed up of hearing it!"

We reached Magdeburg. I got a job in a bread factory where they were making bread for the German forces. We had to mix bread and tidy up. We had to sweep the floor and we made pancakes with the flour we scraped off the floor. We were lucky.

I was bombed in Magdeburg. I was out on the street and remember seeing the German women and children running away - they didn't have a clue where they were running to. I had left my few belongings at the house where we had been put up and I was left with only the clothes I stood up in.

The Russians were closing in and all the bridges had been bombed over the River Elbe. The only place left to cross was a bridge that was just like a couple of planks. When we reached the bridge we could only cross one after the other leaving at three yards in between because it was so unsafe.

Some people tried to swim over the Elbe and the Russians were shooting at them. Some drowned, the heads of others just disappeared from view. I can still see those people swimming and the bullets hitting the water. It doesn't do to think about it.

The following day we were in American hands. We were officially displaced persons and we were put up in barracks. I had no dependents and got a job in the Sergeants Mess. At least I had a bed then and some food.

Later I met my husband. I came to England in 1947 to work in a sanatorium and I married in 1948 and became a British citizen. It was a long time before my letters got through to my parents in Latvia - but they were still there. I never went back while Latvia was in Russian hands and they stayed for a lifetime. I have been back once to see my two sisters and their families - but they were all strangers. I never saw my mum and dad again - only their graves.

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