A Different Story

Monday morning we went over to a hospital near us to visit with a friend and her family while she was in surgery.  Her Step-Father was there also and I got to spend a little time with him that turned out to be the highlight of my day.  He was born in Germany before the start of WW 2.  He still has a pretty heavy accent.  I am not real sure how we got on the subject other than me asking him when did he come to the States.  1952 was when he came over and he was an adult then.  As it turns out he was 14 years old around the end of WW 2 as he referenced the Bastogne offensive.  What a treat to hear a perspective from that side of the war.  He is now 87 and his memory hasn't faded and is still as sharp as anyone I know.  The thing that struck me most was his attitude.  His telling of events he remembered had no animosity, was mostly matter of fact and even jovial at times.  I just listened, mostly without comment so as not to interrupt the flow.  

A little more into his reminiscences centered around his small hometown in the western part of Germany.  His mother listened to the BBC which was illegal.  They could only pick it up by him holding on to the connection on the back of the radio and he became the antenna.  From these news casts his mother determined that they needed to get out of there.  They were evacuated on trains into central Germany where they would be safer from the bombers that had hit his school at least once.  He was sent to a farm and worked there along with others.  One thing that stuck out was his recollection of being on a train and it was full of German soldiers.  He asked why and was told that things were going so well on the Eastern front they were all given furloughs.  It was a few days later when he heard about Bastogne and figured out then that was what was really going on, troops being transferred to support that last ditch offensive.  

He also described the retreat of the German army and all the cast off guns and ammo that littered his town.  They would use the cast off handgrenades to fish in the river.  One of the few things they had to eat then.  He got tickled telling the story about one of his friends firing a cast off bazooka and was standing too close to a wall.  The backblast sent him running down the street with his pants smoking.  They also would set bricks of 9MM ammo on fire and watch the fireworks.  Boys will be boys everywhere it seems.  

He spoke of the many air raids and how when in school they would head down to the second level of the basement and school would continue on while the bombs fell.  The hunger he endured near the end and after the end of the war was a major issue it seems.  The treatment by the various armies, American, French and British.  The French apparently still hated them enough to make things more difficult.  He said the treatment was 'ok' by the Americans and British as they passed through various zones, but not the French.  He ate a lot of K rations the Americans handed out.  Although as each American unit left his town they burned all the leftover food stores in a pit as per orders.  A few Americans also let them know ahead of time and let them scavenge some food before it was destroyed.  

There was more but I can't do justice to his story, it will just have to remain in my memory as I perceive it.  I wish I was a great story teller in order to set his story out better for others.  I found the entire impromptu session to be fascinating and will treasure this memory. 

Happy Trails