大象传媒

Paula鈥檚 Story - Chapter 3
Apart from the blow of losing my dear Brother, these were about the worst days in the whole of the war for me. For the incredible miracle to have had my Mother back from the dead, I was, and still am, eternally thankful. My Mother lived to the age of 80 years, but sadly I lost her in 1964.
During that night (27th July) of intensive bombing, whole suburbs of Hamburg were wiped out and flattened to the ground. In one fell swoop hundreds of houses were demolished and burning fiercely, the smoke obscuring the sun for days. It took only two more nights of aggressive bombing which had appalling consequences, my once beautiful home town was reduced to a heap of rubble and completely paralysed. Uncountable lives were lost, street after street was littered with unrecognizable bodies, the stench of burned flesh was extremely nauseating and hung over the town for a very long time.
My girlfriend and her parents lived in one of those fated districts, their tenement building was destroyed and on their flight to safety they were separated from each other. The streets were a furnace, and in despe卢ration my friend and many other people jumped into the canal. Every time some burning debris came crashing down from the high buildings, they had to duck under the water to avoid the flames. She still to this day has phosphorous burn marks on her legs. While in the water, even in her fight for survival, she never let go of her fur-cape she had saved from her burning flat. She loved the thing and valued it very much, and it was all she had left now. It was rather funny, but very pathetic. Eventually, at 7 o'clock in the morning, it was safe to scramble out of the water, the sun soon dried the clothes. She then undertook the gruesome task of looking for her parents, fuming over all the burned bodies. Her parents had done likewise earlier on, looking over the corpses. But in the crowd of searching survivors, they had missed each other again.
Here again was a case of each party had thought the other had perished in the infernal flames. But this story too, had a happy ending. To their great joy they found each other and were reunited at an assembly-place. Those meeting points were organized in advance, from there the homeless were driven out of town in such vehicles as were still available. How anybody can endure such hell and still come out of it alive must be beyond anyone鈥檚 comprehension.
We were now surrounded by a great devastation after the continuous batterings, our little house was still standing firm, quite incredible. I had by now some relations staying with me in my flat, an elderly couple who had lost their home during the third night of the non-stop bombings. In a way I was glad of the company, as we were now the only inhabitants left in the building, because all tenants of the other nine flats had fled, one after the other, leaving their keys with us. It was solely up to us to "hold the fort". After each raid we went through all the flats in search of stray-bombs. It was rather eerie and I didn't like it very much. A few times we found some smouldering fire-bombs in the attics, which we heroically extinguished with sand and threw out into the street, thus saving the house from burning to cinders.
Later on, when things had quietened down a little, our landlord showed his appreciation for saving his precious property by giving us all a tin of sardines! "Big deal". Even the other tenants who were not even there at the time and had left the three of us to cope received their reward. It was just too ridiculous for words and I considered such meanness a great insult. I did not hesitate to tell that gentleman in no uncertain manner what he could do with his meagre offerings (in short "stuff it").
But meanwhile, the bombs still came raining down and we were still holding out, and on, for dear life. But no matter how brave we tried to be, we finally had to capitulate, give up our vigilance and were forced to leave.
When gas and electricity stopped functioning in our district, an emergency kitchen was organised in a nearby school where the remaining stalwart people, including ourselves, could eat a meal of sorts. Unfortunately this service also foundered when the water supply ceased. Suddenly, cars came racing through the streets, blaring out incessant messages through loudspeakers, urging everybody to leave immediately. Well, that was that then, we told ourselves resignedly, and with heavy hearts started to gather a few "bits and bobs" together. No transport was available for us "late-stayers", but by a stroke of luck we found an old hand卢cart in the deserted garden of our neighbour, which we "borrowed". (We gave it back to him later).

This precarious acquisition we loaded up with a few cases and some bedding, then sadly we left our home, and the three of us, who had battled staunchly through all the hair-raising attacks, trudged off by foot to we didn't know where.

It was a beautiful hot summer day again. I remember it so well, incredibly quiet and peaceful, with bees humming and buzzing all around us as we trotted along the country roads. We walked for about 20 kilometres or more, till we came to a village where fugitives like us were lucky to find a room. We did not mind in the least that we had only one bed between us, 2 slept on a mattress on the floor, we took it in turns, being only too glad to have found shelter, and to rest our weary limbs. Incidentally, this village is called "Trittau", and I had lived there with my parents in 1918, when I was 5 years old. Exactly how long we stayed there I can't quite recall, I think between 3-4 weeks. Then word reached us that all refugees had to return to their residences as soon as possible. If houses or flats were found unoccupied after a set date, those would be requisitioned and homeless people installed in them. So, with indescribable relief we speedily packed up our belongings and beat a hasty retreat. Our return journey was not quite so fatiguing, we drove home in style in an ambulance, of all things. Nobody was ill though, it just so happened that a good friend of ours was driving one at the time and came to collect us.

We were very happy to be home again, and I was especially lucky that I still possessed my home, and we soon settled down again into our daily routine. All supplies such as water etc. had been restored, and cooking could be resumed, with such food items as could be obtained. Once again fortune smiled at me. I was offered a part-time job in our little corner shop across the road, which was very welcome indeed.

Bartering had become almost a way of life, as money wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. One pound of butter had more value than a whole month wages. Anybody who had anything to exchange could acquire almost everything. I, for instance, used to barter my coffee and cigarettes coupons for stockings and such like. One of my colleagues would give her last shirt (so to speak) for a few coffee beans. One of our customers, I recall, could lay her hands on some real sheep's wool, which she was willing to swap for sugar coupons, and for a few butter coupons she would knit up a cardigan into the bargain. I had one of those "sugar-butter garments" which I wore until a few years ago, and it was still good enough to go to a jumble-sale. I think those were the first steps to the black-market racket which flourished out of all proportions after the war. But that is another story, and it's jumping ahead.

As time marched on, there seemed no end in sight yet, battles were fought on all fronts. The days passed relatively comfortably, although we were still plagued by air raids, the bombing had abated somewhat. Since most of the town had already been demolished, there was not much left worth bothering about.

Then came another unforgettable day, July 20th 1944, when the incredible news was broadcast over the radio that Hitler was assassinated. We were rather dumbfounded at first, then suddenly everybody went quite mad with joy. I had not seen such jubilation for a long time, one person shouted it to the other "Hitler is dead, the war is over"!!! But to our consternation these glad tidings were retracted only a few hours later, a statement was issued that the "despot" (my word for him) was only slightly wounded and still alive and kicking. With that, our premature rejoicing received a terrible blow and we were plunged right back into doom again. It would have been too good to be true. Words fail me to describe my own feelings, but I can remember that I broke down with disappointment and just cried my eyes out, it was such an anti-climax, one minute I was dancing on air and the next back in despair.

After all the excitement had died down again, we plodded on as usual, while the vicious battles and senseless killings continued for nearly another year. Only this time, ensuing repercussions of the attempted assassination added chaos to the panic-stricken nation. Atrocious retaliations followed
immediately and many lives were in peril. All our brave officers and countrymen who had been involved in the plot against Hitler, were brutally murdered by the hands of their own compatriots, or, as in the case of
Field Marshall Rommel and others, forced to take their own lives. To my mind these courageous men should have been decorated with medals for bravery instead, and not suffered such degradations. But of course they knew what they were doing, and that it was, as we call it, "ein Himmelfahrt-Kommando" (Ascension-command to heaven) in short, a suicidal enterprise.

Nothing significant occurred during the following months in Hamburg as far as I can recall, though fierce fighting now went on all over Germany right left and centre. We knew Hamburg's respite was limited and in due course our fate would be sealed. Naturally, one is always first and foremost concerned about ones own life and affairs, nevertheless one does not lose one鈥檚 compassion for other people and their plights.
In the ruins, where the cellars had defied all the bombs, people were quick on the mark to take possession of any four walls still standing up, even if they were half underground. The cellars would soon be cleared of any debris, a ceiling fixed up and windows put in, enough building material was lying around anyway, free for the taking. Having achieved to make some sort of living-quarter habitable, one would find they were surprisingly comfortable, considering the unusual circumstances, even little rags of curtains adorned the windows. It always struck me that those people were living like little moles in their holes, but they were content for the time being, at least they had a make-shift roof over their heads, that was more than lots of other people had. Gradually, the enterprising "do-it-yourselfers" gathered more bricks and sticks together, were building a little more "on and up", and like mushrooms, little houses were sprouting out of the ground again. Walking among the mountains of fallen bricks which had so recently been houses with happy families living in them, one would encounter lots of notices. Written on boards which were stuck into the rubble, it said 鈥淢r./Mrs. so and so are now living at such and such a place鈥� in case friends and relations came looking for them. To me they looked and seemed like crosses in a cemetery.
The fact that 60% of Hamburg was destroyed is well known, it has been published often in the newspapers and been seen on television. In the town centre some sort of life and activity was still pulsating, whereas some suburbs had the resemblance of ghost-towns. The worst sights to my mind were the window and roofless empty shells, still standing silhouetted against the sky, like pointing avenging fingers. It really was an awesome sight and quite spine-chilling. At that time one could not, even with the wildest imagination, anticipate that any sort of civilization could ever arise out of the ashes again. And yet it happened. Hamburg was built up bigger than ever, but it has lost most of the historical old buildings, which is a great shame.
Of course, these are only my personal observations of Hamburg's fate. Most major cities of Germany were equally afflicted by the same or even worse disasters. There are so many and it would be superfluous to mention them all, as most people know about them.
In Hamburg's largest cemetery, called "Ohlsdorf", which really is more like a beautiful park, vast areas of mass-graves can be seen, with hundreds of crosses where all the innocent bomb victims have been laid to rest. There is no sign of neglect, the graves are still beautifully tended, and they are a constant reminder of the senseless war.

See Chapter 4 for the rest of the story.

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