Ingetraut Tabaka

"My mother took me from the host and then I got sick. I worked, but I had lots of strange pain. All these women matters started. Well, she was afraid of my puberty. I wanted to be a nurse and work around the villages so she went to the office to ask. The nurse had learn everything, she had to even know how to milk a cow to replace the housekeeper in case she was sick. I could also be a kindergarten teacher, you need to learn everything, even in the hospital, everything, you need to go through everything to be the nurse. Then you would have a choice whether to stay in the village, or go to the nursery or kindergarten where the smaller children were, or go to the hospital, to be a nurse. But before you could make a choice you were obligated to stay two years in household residence. I worked for the Red Cross at the train station, helping mothers and children, it was April and May. It was so quiet, so weird. It was something abnormal. I was less than 18. Woman who looked after us said: You know what, you go home and sit in the house, haven’t you heard on the radio that the Russians approaching? were You better stay at home, be with your parents. I remember many people left, some in the direction of the Czech Republic, the went to the west. They all came back in two weeks, children were sick. If you knew what they went through! Some of them never came back. I don’t know what happened to them. I just remember that. I came back home then. My parents asked: Why are you here, what happened, where the Russians are? I went out in the street and I saw that the German Army leaving. Army marches in the relatively wide line, an officer rode a horse. They walked and behind them there were women with prams, elderly people on wheelchairs, people with the prams…. but also with children and older people pulling some tracks. They stood up and told people to gather and join them, they said the Russians approaching and we all escape in the direction of the Czech Republic, and then go west. So I run home with shouting. My dad was in the house and I said: Mum, move on, move on! The officer told to escape, to go with the army! My mum said we were not going anywhere, we would stay at home, and nobody would bite our heads off. Then somebody began to shoot, we heard grenades on the other side. We hid it in the basement, but nothing else happened, only this double shoot. The roofs in the barracks across the street were damaged and that was all. Well, we went up to the apartment. We lived on the second floor in that time so the whole street was visible through the window. Well, no one moved, and I look and I saw two motorbikes, Russians motorcycles. There were some communists here as well, they were invisible but they were. I sow the motorbikes in front of our house, I do not know how to explain it. If you would get out of our yard, you could see the other side of the street, near ours. I do not know how it was called. We used to say Schmalle Seite. The spinning factory was there. Where the street divided there was a square, quite large. Three of our people stood there outside the buildings. My dad was looking as well and then he said: Well the neighbours are communists. They welcomed the Russians, those older did, they were about 60 years old. They just stood there, kept nothing in their hands, but three of them, yes, three... The Russians came up to them and these from the village extended their hands. Germans as a typical Germans had some chains tacked and the watches. So the Russian immediately pulled them out and just pocketed. Then the Russians mounted on their motorbikes and went away. The others, these from our street went to the houses, so it was welcome to them".