大象传媒

I shall begin the story of my mothers war at the end.
The end is the beginning of my life story or how my parents met.
On the 1st may 1945 the Russians famously raised the Red Flag on the roof of the Reichschancery and on the 7th may VE declared and the war offically over.The fighting may have stopped but for Berliners the war now was a fight for survival.My mother was 19 years old.
She lived on Falkenseer Chausse a broad boulevade running through Spandau in NW Berlin,with her parents in a first floor flat.On the ground floor lived her best friend Rosie Buvach.Rosie was 6 years older than her and married.
The block of flats in which they lived ran at right angles to Falkenseer Chausse ,just a stones throw away was a parade of shops including a bakery.
The devastation of the city meant that only a handfull of bakeries survied and that any still operating drew custom from several kilometres around. If the british think they are a nation of queuers then they were not in Berlin in 1945.In order to buy your bread you were required to queue. The etiquette of the queue was heavily defined.
No queue jumping
No preference for anyone.
No exceptions.
On joining the queue you would probably be number 300 or 400.As the bread was baked the 80 odd people at the front would be served.The queue would shuffle forward as the next batch was baked and the whole process repeated all day.
Early after VE day my mother had been queueing for several hours when there appeared walking down the street a Hitler Junge.
A boy of 13 or 14 still dressed in his army uniform
"Junge Junge" someone in the crowd cried."What on earth are you doing?"
" I am going home to Hakenfelve"
"You cannot,you must not.The Russians have snipers lining the whole of the street from here"
The crowd pleaded with the boy emploring him not to go on,he would not agree.
My mother stepped forward.
"Look,i live 2 minutes from here,take my place in the queue and i will fetch my tracksuit for you.If you must go on at least disguise yourself."
The crowd shouted their agreement to this unprecedented breach of their code.
"NO,NO ,I am 20 minutes from home.I will be allright"
Then as now our youth knew better than anyone else and could not be persuaded.He had not gone more than 50 metres when a shot rang out.
He was buried where he was shot in the grassy verge by the side of the street.Several weeks later his family disintered his body and reburied him in a cemetery.