It began in April 1945 ...

This is a rough English translation (mainly by Google) of a handwritten letter/report of Gilla. These 17 pages were originally addressed to Gilla’s sister Lilo, undated, but obviously long decades ago. Lilo, who had been my godmother, and is now 95 years old, mobile and clear. I recently got these papers from her, when she and her husband moved in an old people home. I guess these reports from the past might be of some interest from the younger family as well. If so, I’d be very happy to get some assistance to improve this simple Google translation. You are welcome with hints and comments. George 6.7.24

For days and nights, refugees move through Beilrode, most of them on foot, sometimes with a cart or a bicycle, carrying suitcases or bundles or something else, all sad, full of fear and desperate. - It's like a dream, yesterday we had won the war, and today? Nothing, everything broken, confusion. We help as best we can, make ersatz coffee for the "refugees", or sometimes a little soup. We never ask: Where do you want to go, always only: Where do you come from?", and we don't need a map to see that the names of their hometowns are getting closer and closer to us. So close that we realize first with concern, then with horror and horror: The Russians are coming! From what we hear from the refugees, there can be no doubt about what is in store for us, should the Russians actually advance to us!

A few farming families from Beilrode have already made their decision before us, we see some of them leaving with heavily loaded horse-drawn wagons (furniture, beds, household goods) in the direction of Torgau. And the Russians are getting closer and closer.... With a heavy heart, we make a few preparations to leave our homeland, always with the thought of returning soon, although we have no idea where to go and for how long? - but do not fall into the hands of the Russians! Mother packs dishes and other things (father's guns!) into boxes in the cellar room (why do we think our things will be safe in the cellar room?) One night, towards the end of April, I buried as deep as I could in the garden a metal box with father's SS shirts, in which I had wrapped the small revolver he had given me for "defense" (practice shooting in the forest!) (I even oiled it!), together with party and Hitler Youth insignia. (In case anyone is interested: I dug the hole exactly at the intersection of the two lines from the third lime tree on the road to the garden and from the back door to the garden!) The next morning the final decision is made: The station master sends a message to families he can still reach: in a few hours he will have a locomotive, a few goods wagons and a few passenger compartments ready for departure to the west, if you want to go with him, you have to hurry! Mother doesn't want to or can't decide at first – just leave everything behind, and what if father comes back?

I, also only 18, have only one thought, away from the Russians, bring us all to safety! So we take our bikes, mother, Lilo and I, Helga is only nine and doesn't have one yet, pack a few things in rucksacks (I still have my children's photo album and my two recorders [flutes ed.] today, everything I "saved"!), coats over the handlebars, and we can load everything onto an open goods wagon. Mother, Lilo and Helga sit with some others in the passenger compartment, the windows of which are nailed up with wooden boards, I stay on the goods wagon to "guard" our bikes and rucksacks. I will never forget the moment, a jolt, the train starts, a last look at the house, the granary, "our" slope – over. My last farewell thought, no matter what happens now, in any case we are all together and away from the Russians!

Then I hear gunfire – there are still a handful of German soldiers sitting in the Zwethau Woods and they are shooting at Russian tanks (T34?) rolling on the causeway in the direction of Torgau! I can't believe it, but my eyes don't deceive me—the Russians are here! Apart from me, only the train driver saw the tanks? Is he convinced, just like me, that we will all blow up together with the Elbe bridge? In any case, he does not stop, and I agree with him, flying all together into the air is better than falling into the hands of the Russians! So we all drive towards the Elbe bridge – it's almost over! We reach the bridge, drive onto the bridge, and it's not over, we drive over the bridge and into Torgau! Whoever was responsible for the mines installed on the Elbe bridge either didn't know that the Russians were already there, or simply didn't feel like it anymore!

We collect our bikes and rucksacks, and then let's get out of Torgau, the Russians are already on the other bank! We push our bikes until we arrive in Döbern [village on the western bank of the Elbe ed.] (maybe because that's where the Kartheusers, relatives of Starkloff, live?) (I don't remember where we stayed for that first night.) The whole village has turned into a refugee camp, food is served everywhere and everyone is assigned an emergency lodging - we stay somewhere in a cellar room. Overnight we hear the Russians coming across the Elbe with a lot of noise, women screaming, soldiers hooting, horses and wagons, (now and then also shots) – is someone trying to escape?, and what will become of us if they find us here in the cellar room? We are terribly afraid, but our guardian angel remains faithful to us, nothing happens to us. The next morning – silence. The commissars brought their soldiers back to the east bank of the Elbe, where they were to stay until the official meeting with the American Armed Forces - on April 25. Of course, we didn't know anything about it at the time, and they certainly came across the Elbe every night to demonstrate their "winning role" in the villages, but we certainly didn't want to wait for that. So we start our march west, towards Thuringia, where Otto and Gretchen Schmidt live. I don't remember much about this part of our journey, we are many days – or was it weeks? - on the road, move from one village to the next with bikes and rucksacks, report to the mayor in the evening, get accommodation for the night, most of the time we also get something to eat, we rarely have to pay, the money is already worth nothing. Refugees are moving westwards everywhere, most of them don't know where to go, just away from the Russians! It is hard to believe today how people helped each other back then! It was a hard time, but we only realize that much later – what our mother, and with her all the other mothers, must have gone through at that time, no one will ever really understand. We live from one day to the next, eat what we are given, sleep on straw or on floors, sometimes we get a bed or even two for the night. One day we just don't have anything to eat at all, mom and Lilo sit desperately by the side of the road and cry, Helga is very confused because she certainly can't understand why the carefree life in Beilrode has changed so quickly! Because I feel responsible as a "grown-up", I take a few potatoes from a rent and ask at the next farm if we can cook them for us on the stove – I still remember today how terribly difficult that was for me! How long will it take until we finally reach the village in Thuringia, where Otto Schmidt is pastor, and we might find a place to stay with him and Gretchen, until we can go home again? In any case, much longer than we thought!

Mother gets sick on the way, just gets listless! We are allowed to stay with a farmer in the next village in a room lined with straw, the mayor has allowed it. A few days later, the Americans arrive. They first send their ambulances, marked with large red crosses, into the village, and when they find no resistance from the population or any remaining German soldiers, vehicles with American troops come and "occupy" the village. I am ordered to the mayor a few times to make myself useful as an interpreter. In the meantime, mother is getting worse and worse, she has a high fever and is only lying apathetically on the straw – we absolutely need a doctor! But he lives a few villages further away – so I cycle to the doctor, who of course "under no circumstances" can make house calls! He gives me a little quinine "for the fever", so, thank you, on the bike and back to "our" village and the straw chamber. On the way back, I have to pass a long column of American vehicles stopping on the road, which, to my horror, are equipped with colored – black! - soldiers, they grin at me with their thick lips, huge white teeth and rolling eyes, and don't even notice that they are scaring me to death and that fear gives me wings – I have to go back to my sick mother with the medicine! All fear is in vain, no one tried to stop me or even do anything to me (yes, what do you think?)!

Then comes the day when the American soldiers tell me that they will soon move west to a certain line on the map. I don't think they can give up their conquered country so quickly, but I don't get an answer, not even to the question of whether the Russians will now move up – "we are soldiers and follow orders!" Shortly afterwards, the unbelievable happens: one morning it is very quiet in the village, we run from the yard, and it is true: the Americans are gone! Quietly and secretly disappeared during the night, just gone! What now? The whole day is incredibly quiet, no one knows what will happen, there are no newspapers and mail, no radio and news anyway, we are left with only certainty and fear.

Towards evening, the farmer pulls himself together and makes plans to hide his women – and us – in case the Russians do come! Helga stays with mother, who is still lying quite weak in the straw room, Lilo and I have to go with a few maids in a shed at the back of the orchard, we climb up to the roof and lie flat on the wooden planks, then the farmer takes away the ladder, locks the shed and goes away, - and we wait. The eerie silence, uncertainty and fear, it is evening, we freeze and wait. Something makes me look outside through a knothole in the wood – and then I see the first Russians coming! An unforgettably eerily beautiful sight: against the red evening sky, silhouettes of wild riders stand out, yes – they are Cossacks! I can hardly recognize the men, they hang on the other side of their horses (in case someone shoots at them?) and gallop across the fields and gardens behind the houses into the village, in the red-gold sunset, a scene like in a movie! When the Russians realized that there were neither German soldiers nor any other resistance in the village, the eerily beautiful scene turned into a picture of horror that we can't see, but can hear all the better! It was like back then on the Elbe, the Russian commissars send their wildest troops ahead, who create fear and terror through much noise and violence and conquer everything! We are very grateful to the farmer for his precautions, we were not found! The following Russians are better disciplined, sometimes even friendly. During the day we are safe, but at night, when the soldiers start drinking after duty, there are often incidents that are terrible for many villagers, especially women, but we are spared because we spend every night together with other young girls and women in a new hiding place, barns, haystacks, hedges and ditches – we must have a guardian angel, every morning we return to the farm unscathed!

After a few days, mother finally feels a little better and insists on continuing our trek to Thuringia. - With bicycles and our rucksacks we start hiking. Refugee life on the streets becomes a habit, walking during the day, the streets are never completely empty, people like us are everywhere moving around, looking for relatives, friends of a place to stay -. At night, as always, we stay with helpful residents, who usually give us food, we are happy to pay, but nobody wants money, which is hardly worth the paper it was printed on anyway. Once a shepherd takes us across a small river with his boat, which is so small that he has to sail twice, for which he gets 2000 Reichsmarks from mother, for which he cannot even buy a pound of butter the next day.

Shortly afterwards our escape is over – we arrive at Schmidt's, are warmly received – and now the memory leaves me for a while! I remember how much I hated Otto Schmidt's sermons—how could such a fellow preach in church as a pastor of the congregation, when I knew him much better! In any case, I thought I couldn't stand it there any longer, mother and sisters were safe, without me there was more space in the house, and the Schmidts would certainly be happy to get rid of me!

There I happened to find my former labor service camp leader, who had found shelter with the farmer nearby and now wanted to go home – but not alone! She came from Schwarmstedt near Hanover, where her father was a country doctor. So I started my second long walk with Gertrud. We loaded everything we owned onto my bike and set off, mostly on foot, occasionally hitchhiking, and reached Schwarmstedt after about three weeks – and with that the next story begins, which may also be written down at some point.

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