Prologue

There once was a land of green meadows and blue lakes; of fields where seas of wheat and rye swayed to the rhythm of the summer winds; and of dark forests where the wild boar, the doe, and the stag roamed. This was the home of my ancestors, where in the 1930s I spent the happy, carefree years of my childhood.

Our village in Pomerania, a province in northern Germany, was small, with tidy homes and well-kept yards. Most of the dwellings were single-story homes built of brick or stone, some still with thatched roofs while others had the newer shingled ones. In the summer months, each front yard was a sea of flowers surrounded by a stone or picket fence. The one and only street winding through the village was lined on both sides with large chestnut trees. In spring, when the trees were in bloom, it was a beautiful sight.

With the population only around a hundred, our village was far too small to support a church or any type of store. Mostly on weekends, we walked or bicycled to a much larger village less than a mile away to do our shopping at a variety of stores. Two large ballrooms held dances on weekends and even occasionally showed a movie. There was a foundry where some of the local men worked and a busy railroad station where numerous trains stopped daily on their way to and from Berlin. For the children, it was always a day of fun when walking through the village and snacking on ice cream and candy.

As for the people, they were a hardy breed, proud and hardworking, with perhaps a streak of stubbornness about them. The majority of them were farmers, while a few men worked outside the village at different jobs to provide for their families. They were God-fearing, but for them it was still an eye for an eye in this predominately Protestant region of the country. Somewhat superstitious, they strongly held on to the belief that shortly after death the deceased would return one last time to assure the family that all was well in the afterlife. It might be in the form of a shadow or an unexplained knock at one’s door. The residents spent many long winter evenings telling old wives’ tales by the flickering light of an oil lamp, with knitting needles clicking softly in the background and children listening intently, hanging on to every word. It was a simple but good life.

For the children, it was a time of laughter, running through the meadows trying to catch a butterfly and swimming in a nearby creek or riding home from the fields high atop a wagon loaded with fragrant hay. As summer turned into fall, it was time to harvest what had been sown in the spring. The threshing machines were humming day in and day out while separating the grain from the chaff. Soon the fields were barren and the colors of autumn spread their beauty across the land. A nip was in the air as nature once again prepared itself for the onslaught of winter.

The winter months were spent skating on a nearby pond or building castles of snow with passageways and courtyards. There was a snow queen and her court regally ordering everyone around. But as soon as the warmer winds of spring began to blow, our castles went by the way of the wind and all that was left were dirty heaps of snow.

As the days grew warmer, the miracle of spring once again unfolded, painting the barren landscape a light green. It was time to plow the land and plant the seeds for the next harvest.

In the summer of 1939, to celebrate my tenth birthday my mother surprised me with a weekend trip to one of the beautiful resorts along the Baltic Sea. A lighthearted atmosphere prevailed and the resorts were doing a booming business.

We took a swim in the ocean and strolled along the promenade where dance halls and cabarets were packed with fun-seeking crowds.

While everyone was dancing to the latest tunes or swaying to the rhythm of a Vienna waltz, war clouds were slowly gathering on the horizon. Rumors of war had been circulating for some time, when suddenly in September of 1939 German troops crossed the Polish border in a surprise attack known as the blitzkrieg. It marked the beginning of World War II, and overnight the party was over.

Chapter 1

The beginning of the war brought few changes to our way of life. We continued to work the land, celebrate weddings, welcome the birth of a child, and send the deceased off on their last journey. But gradually we were beginning to feel the effects of the war as it began to encroach upon and change our way of life. Daily, the radio programs were repeatedly interrupted with special reports that brought us the latest news bulletins from the front lines, recounting the victorious feats of our troops. At day’s end, the station always concluded its broadcast with a popular vocalist, Lale Anderson, singing Lili Marlene in her deep, throaty voice. It was a very nostalgic song that was reminiscent of the time. It was the song of a soldier late at night bidding his ladylove good-bye, under a lamppost in front of his casern, before going off to war. She promises to wait at the same place, same time, under the lamppost for his return.

It was my mother, Anna’s, favorite song. Every evening she listened to it faithfully before turning off the radio and retiring for the night. She was a slender woman with fine facial features and was of medium height. Her shoulder-length hair was not one of her better features. It was very fine and did not take well to perms, which always left her hair in a somewhat frizzy state. I think she would have looked far more attractive if she had let her hair grow out, braided it, and gathered it up in a bun, but perms were all the rage then. Long, braided hair was on the way out. Therefore, my mother continued with her frizzy hairstyle. She had a mellow personality and was slow to anger, but if you really tried her patience, then her temperamental side emerged. Once when an ornery old neighbor provoked her to no end, she all but smacked him over the head with a broomstick.

Life in the village was a lonely one for her. Now in her thirties, on rare occasions she would attend a dance in one of the neighboring villages. It was a far cry from the big city life she had become accustomed to in her early twenties when she followed her older sister to Berlin. Neither of them had wanted to stay in the village and marry a farmer. Instead, both of them moved to the big city and went to work for an electronics firm.

She eventually met and fell in love with my father, a dashing army officer. I am sure she thought they would live happily ever after, but soon after I was born, her mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer, an incurable illness. Since there was no one to look after her needs, she volunteered to move temporarily back to the village to take care of her while my father, of course, had to stay with his army unit in Berlin. We traveled back and forth to see my father, but after my brother Kurt was born, the trips to Berlin became less frequent. My grandmother was bedridden by then and had to be cared for around the clock. By the time she passed away at home at the age of sixty-two, my mother almost devoted two years of her life to her mother’s care.

The long separation ultimately took a toll on my parents’ relationship. After seeing my father a few more times in Berlin, they separated and went their own ways. Though he continued to support us, we had very little contact with him. After the age of five, I saw very little of my father. My mother decided to stay on in the village where she had grown up. I guess it was of some comfort to live out her days among the people she had known all of her life instead of in the big city among strangers. I am sure single motherhood was not the kind of life she had once envisioned, but life can be very unforgiving sometimes, and the choices we make while young tend to have far-reaching consequences.

At the age of thirty-six, her social life was very limited until she met a very nice young man named Ernst at a local dance. After a courtship of several months, they eventually got married. By the time their son Gerhardt was born, in January of 1941, Ernst had already been drafted at the age of thirty-nine and gone off to war. There was hardly an able-bodied man left in the village. Almost every man had been drafted. Some of them were wounded or missing in action, while others had lost their lives on the battlefield. Many people wore black those days, the color of mourning.

Ingeborg E. Vetter (Ryals), 1941

12 years old

Anna Vetter Hasselmann, 1928

Chapter 2

As the war continued, we were issued ration cards for certain commodities, but since we lived in a farm region, food was plentiful, especially fresh vegetables, meat, and dairy products.

The government brought in forced labor from countries occupied by our troops, mainly France, Russia, and Poland. We desperately needed help with our farm work since most of our men were off fighting this dreadful war. The farmer provided room and board, but the workers received no compensation. Since their movements were not restricted, they were allowed to mingle freely with their fellow countrymen on evenings and Sundays after work. They seemed to adapt well to their new way of life, even playing games with the local children in their free time; however, a few ladies in the next village were a little too friendly with the charming, good-looking Frenchmen and promptly had their locks shaved off as punishment. It was frowned upon for women to socialize with them on an intimate basis.

Most of our best horses were gone, confiscated by the government to replace those lost in battle. Usually on short notice, cavalry officers in their smart-looking uniforms and polished boots showed up at our village, where the farmers had been instructed to gather at the schoolhouse with their prized horses. The animals underwent a thorough examination before they were selected for military service. In the end, the farmers were left with a few sway-backed mares and young colts. It was a real hardship on them since most of the heavy work, like plowing and tilling the land, was still done by horse-drawn machinery.

It would even affect our little volunteer fire department, which solely consisted of a horse-drawn wagon outfitted with a large tank. Parallel handlebars were attached to each end of the tank. It was so antiquated that it still had to be manually operated. In teams of three, the men positioned themselves at the front and back end of the tank, taking hold of the handlebars and moving them in rapid succession up and down. This created sufficient pressure to force the water out of the tank and into the attached hose. Since the mayor had the only telephone in the village, each volunteer had to be notified individually in case of a fire. By the time they had all assembled, hitched the horses to the wagon, filled the tank with water, and rushed to the site of the fire, in most instances, the volunteers arrived to find the building already consumed by the flames. One tank of water was of little help in a roaring blaze.

Such was the case when lightning struck Herr Bock’s barn. Since it was filled with hay and straw, the fire spread rapidly. All efforts failed to save the barn and its contents, including a large pig that Herr Bock was fattening up over the summer to butcher in the fall. Most of our fires were caused by lightning strikes in the summer months. The thunderstorms were often quite severe. At times, we could hear the rumbling of thunder throughout the night.

On the outskirts of the next village, rows of single-story barracks were constructed out of wood with concrete flooring. The buildings were in stark contrast to the quaint, old dwellings of yesteryear, many of them built of brick and stone and some still with thatched roofs. The little compound was soon swarming with college-age girls from all walks of life. The majority of them were city girls in their late teens or early twenties who were pressed into service by the government to help with the farm work. Upon