大象传媒

I was born in Saxony, Germany in 1936 but spent my childhood in Arnstadt in Th眉ringen where I had the traumatic experience of the bombing of the house we lived in. We were homeless at the time the town was taken by the Americans and spent several days in a hospital bunker.

Th眉ringen is the central region of Germany. This province had been promised to the Soviet Union in exchange for a sector of Berlin for each of the three Allies. Thus we found ourselves overnight under Russian Occupation and then behind the Iron Curtain.

My father's job took him and the family to Chemnitz, called Karl-Marx-Stadt from 1953 until the Fall of the Wall in 1989. There I went to High School and subsequently was taken to West-Berlin to do my nursing training. My father did not approve of the training for sick children's nurses which was introduced in the GDR. The first of my brothers soon followed to avoid conscription into the Volksarmee and signing papers of commitment to the GDR at the University of Dresden.

My father's position in Karl-Marx-Stadt became more precarious as the years went by in spite of his medical achievements, because of his reluctance to take part in political activities.
He had two children in West-Berlin, who were no longer allowed to come home. Attempts to leave the country, if they were discovered, could be punished, according to a new law, with a prison sentence of up to three years. He foresaw a definite action of some kind by the government to stop the "brain drain" to the West completely. My father did not want to see his family split up. It must have been a very difficult decision: he was already 50 years old and knew that he would not get a similar position in West Germany.
In the summer of 1958 my parents booked a four-weeks' holiday at the Baltic coast, even sending some luggage ahead, then took a train via Berlin with some suitcases containing their most valuable possessions, left the train in Berlin and crossed over on the S-Bahn (a city-railway) as I had done. They were given asylum by a colleague of my father, thus avoiding living at the refugee-camp. They had to report there however, to be questioned and "classified". No-one was sent back but people were given different levels of credit (10-year interest free loan) - or none at all - depending upon their reasons for leaving East Germany. My father qualified sufficiently to enable him to take over a practice in Hannover, after he had worked as a houseman in L眉beck for one year. (He had been medical chief of staff in Karl-Marx-STadt/Chemnitz.)
When my second brother knew that my father had passed his assessment, he left Berlin secretly to return to his girl friend to whom he was committed. Therefore my parents did not achieve their goal of keeping the family in the same part of Germany.

I did not see my brother for 20 years and then only for a few hours at a meeting place in East Berlin. He had many problems. The authorities thought him suspect, because all his family had left. His passport had been confiscated. The VO-PO (Volkspolizei) called some evenings at his home, his post was checked. At one point he was asked to stop corresponding with his family in West Germay and with me in England. He steadfastly refused, explaining again and again that he had remained in Karl-Marx-Stadt for purely personal reasons. He was eventually permitted to visit our parents when my father was seriously ill, but without wife and child. Once he had been and returned to his family, he was allowed to travel to our father's 70th Birthday and three years later to his funeral.

All three of my brothers were exempted from conscription: one as a resident of West Berlin, the second in East Germany avoided it by performing well for the local football team, the youngest by having a brother in East Germany.

The Berlin Wall was erected in August 1961 and torn down in November 1989.

I came to England in 1962. I have two daughters and one son, five step-children and ten assorted grandchildren.

My German Nursing Diploma was not recognised here.
I retrained and worked in General Nursing for 21 years at the same hospital before retiring.
I am living with my second husband a busy and contented life.

Why did I choose to contribute to this programme? I wanted to explain that there was also suffering, innocent suffering, on the other side. I feel wars are terrible, there is nothing worse because so many innocent people who wanted nothing to do with it get involved - and hurt and killed. War should always be the very last resort.
Germany has drawn Europe into two wars, there is no whitewashing. What happened in the concentration camps was beyond the pale, however the Germans have been punished and they have learned, built up a democracy and achieved re-unification at a tremendous sacrifice to their economy. It hurts me when I learn - from the 大象传媒- that German school- children visiting this country are still called Nazi in this year of 2004! They are at worst the great-grandchildren of any Nazi and innocent of what happened then. My children were called Nazi at their secondary school in the sixties. I can't believe that it should still happen 40 years later!I have also experienced more covert anti-German vibes at work for being conscientious, too hard working and too much of a stickler with cleanliness.

I understand from the media that English school children get taught about German history with the emphasise on the Nazi-period when they should also be informed of how Germany has changed. I have read that Israelis move to Berlin in growing numbers because they feel safer there than in their own war-torne country. Isn't this saying something!

I have lived in England for 42 years, the greater part of my life. I feel at home here, my husband is English, my children are English. I feel more English than German most of the time but I will not deny my background of which I need not be ashamed.
I hate to read and hear about animosity towards the Germans of the present. I never hear anything nasty about the English in Germany. My husband and my brothers get on very well.
Having learned to see things from both sides I understand English feelings about the war-time and also realise that it takes time to overcome this, but it is about time that the Germans are seen for what they are now and not for what their fore-fathers committed - although it must not be forgotten.