MyEuropeanTouch and My Life in War Torn German - part #3

Here is the next part (and hopefully not the last part) of Monika's childhood memories.

Part three of my early youth in torn apart Germany and an eye witness account of a barely 14 year old girl, named Monika. I was there when the wall came up and was build,

he situation in East Berlin became worse for Mom’s family, everyone over there. Everything of worth was taken by the Russians, no infra structure was repaired, they stood in long line at the bakery and grocery store until they run out of food and people had to go home empty handed. The East German Mark was worth nothing....my Mom’s younger sister was gang raped by the Russian's, and committed suicide. She was so young and so damaged and could not live with this.

Mom heard after a while on the radio that visitors were allowed to come via train to East Berlin. 

While Dad worked very hard and long hours at the largest ships yard in Kiel, Howald GMBH, to make ends meet for us. At Summer vacation from school Mom packed our suitcases and smuggled coffee, oranges, tea, cocoa and bread and such that they could not get in East Berlin among-st our clothes in the suit cases.

 It was not allowed and confiscated by the Russians if found and you may be incarcerated in the East for smuggling. When I was old enough to know, I was terrified, as the Russian Border police VOPO as in Volks Polizei (folks policei) searched everyone and everything at the border. Miraculously Mom made it every time thru and they did not find her smuggled stuff. 

Her family was grateful every summer we came. They had fixed up a small Garden house, enlarged it with material from the rubble and wreckage around them and made it into a large livable home and had enough room now to accommodate us, Mom, my two siblings and I. They also had cleared some land around them from the ruble and had planted a huge garden and fruit trees to help themselves out with food, since you could not get anything in East Berlin. 

So we children ate from the garden fresh fruits, veggies, berries until we were sick to our tummies. 

Until one day in August of 1961 the unspeakable began. My Aunt had the radio on in the morning as usually after breakfast was done, dishes were washed and there it came. The radio Announcer stated the Russian Tanks had just rolled up at the Brandenburg Gate, huge rolls of barbed wire 8 feet high were going across and they would close the borders up. My Aunt and Uncle freaked out, throwing everything in our suitcases carelessly, tried to close them and Aunty said we might have to try to get out at a different spot in East Berlin, I mean they could not be everywhere at the same time. 

Until the Radio Announcer stopped the music again and announced that any visitors with passes could of course get out and go home. What a scare that was! 

At that point, we all took the train to the Brandenburg Gate ourselves to see and sure enough there it was barbed wire 6-8 feet high across the street at the Brandenburg Gate and Russian Tanks right next to us as we watched them closing up.

Some East Berliner’s tried to get to the West Berliner side risking everything and were stopped by Russian Soldiers and send back to the Eastern Side. We took a day trip to Prenzlauer Berg too and see, and sure enough there they had already started building the wall. After that my Mom decided we better get home to Kiel, it was such a shock and a terrible sad good bye. Because at that time we did not know if we ever would see Mom’s family again. 

I still know Berlin like my Jeans pocket, and always have loved that city. Thankfully we have been back numerous, numerous times and always smuggled goods. No one in East Berlin was ever allowed to leave, not even for vacations. The Russians were afraid that these peeps would not come back and work at their Russian Economy, so they can milk them for everything the owned. Especially the young and healthy workers. At some point the elderly were allowed to get out for vacation and the Russians did not care of they came back, That was a good thing for the Russian economy, they did not have to pay retirement pensions for them anymore if they stayed out and did not come back home.

I know that this is not the end of the story...because one day Monika came here, to America.

And through the wonders of on line retailing, we met.

(You can visit Monika's shop MyEuropeanTouch here).

Plus we got to meet in real life too.  You can read about our visit here...

Monika is the lovely lady in white, and I'm in purple.  And trust me, she is a beautiful inside as she is outside.  I just love her! 

How many friends have you met here in the virtual world?  And how many of you have been lucky enough to have those friends become family?  I know I'm lucky to have Monika.

God binds His family together, fitly joined, for eternity.

Be blessed,

Debbi

MyEuropeanTouch and My Life In War Torn Germany - Part 2

Here's is part 2 of Monika's childhood story...

Here is part two of my early childhood. We lived for quite some time in Berlin (East) until the Allied gave up the sectors with the exception of Russia. Now before that happened my parent made the decision to move to Kiel on the Baltic Sea where my Dad’s family was. 

Again, we found 2 rooms and kitchen, or what you could call a former kitchen in the wreckage of the after War, barely inhabitable, but others did not have it any different. So my very talented and creative parents made the best of it. 

Newspaper in front of the cracked Window glass and blankets in addition at Winter time. It was an old building in a former affluent neighborhood but had nothing to show for it now. The left side of the apartment home was livable and Mom and Dad started scrunching some furniture from the rubble and ruins around us, Dad fixed them as best as he could. Mom went to look for 

dishes and silverware in the rubble that were usable and I remember eating my food from plates with a Haken Kreuz on them.

Discarded Soldiers Canteens were our soup bowls and Dad hammered the Soldiers helmets as flat as he could at the top so Mom could use them as pots. WE had a big pot belly stove in the former kitchen and heated with wood from the rubble around us. Dad heated up a brick for everyone of us to take to bed under the covers for warmth.

We were in Kiel and escaped before the Russian closed the borders and refused to get out like the French, American’s and Brits did.

So that was good. During World War II, Kiel’s importance grew. The town was where Germany’s deadly “Wolf Pack” of submarines was born, and the city became a major U-boat base and production center. The U-boat menace made Kiel a high-priority target for Allied bombers.

By the end of the war, the town had been pummeled so many times—there were almost 100 heavy raids on Kiel between 1940 and 1944—that 80 percent of the town’s buildings were destroyed and 167,000 people were homeless.was also bombed to shreds as this was the city containing the largest U-boat Ships building yard for Hitler's Regime.

Can you imagine?  Your whole world being changed in an instant.  Could you survive?

Be blessed,

Debbi

MyEuropeanTouch and My Life In War Torn Germany part #1

I am a firm believer that we need to face our past before we move into our future.  And I have been blessed with a wonderful friend who grew up in Germany during the time of WWII, Monika from MyEuropeanTouch.  She has graciously allowed me to share her story here.

This will be a 3 part series (so far).

This is where and how I grew up in Berlin after WWII just ended. The rubble and wreckage around me were my play ground, where I found all the beautiful broken China plate pieces and tried to make imaginary whole plates to eat from with my wooden doll.

.My Mom was one of the "Rubble/Wreckage" woman, cleaning bricks for re-use and rebuild.

I was on my grandma's hand when the American Candy Bombers came and got candy and chocolate.

We later moved to a city called Kiel and it was much the same there. Kiel was the biggest U-boot ship yard for Hitler's fleets and they bombed the crap out of that city too.

Come back tomorrow for part 2, and Saturday for part 3.  It's an amazing story from the real life of someone who was there, not just a chapter in a history book.

Be blessed,

Debbi

A 50 Year Silence by Miranda Richmond Mouillot

I want to share with you this wonderful book I just finished reading, "A Fifty-Year Silence" by Miranda Richmond Mouillot.

Published by Random House, this is the story of Miranda's grandparents, and their life during, and after WWII.  Through conversations, and letters, and documents, Miranda spent most of her life tracking the ebb and flow of her aging grandparents broken relationship, and gave us a glimpse of how their lives affected hers.  It is truly a love story, and while it may not have the required "happy ending", it is real, and it is captivating, and it is worth remembering.

WWII is more than just a time in history, a school lesson, or a documentary.  We must never forget that it was life, peoples lives, and families, that were forever changed by the circumstances of war.  Any war.  Every war.  There were times reading this book that I almost forgot about the war part of the story, and became more involved in the people part of the story.  But that is what life is about...the people, and how circumstances change people.

Usually, once I am done with a book, I will pass it on.  But not this one.  This will be in my bookshelf, for another read in the future, and to share with my kids when we study WWII in our homeschool.  Because it matters, and we all need "to remember".

So I highly recommend this book.  And I also challenge you.  Once you finish reading this book, think about what happened during the Holocaust, and then look around you.  See what is still happening around the world, and try to make a difference.  One life at a time.

Be blessed,

Debbi

 "I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

what happened to our history?

Todays post is a bit of a rant...first let me tell you the background story/reason for my rant.

I am a firm believer that "those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it" (Winston Churchill), and while our American history is full of evil...it is also full of hope, and love, and justice, and when our children are not taught the full history of their heritage, they are bound to make the same mistakes.  I am very proud of my military family...past and present...that give their lives for our freedom...the freedom to learn from our past and to bless the future of our children.



This is my dad...Chester Raczka.  He served in the navy during WWII, and was stationed on the USS Lexington and the USS Wasp, both of which sunk.  He also fought in the Battle of Midway.  I am so proud of him.  My husband Chuck was also a navy man, as is my grand-daughter and her husband, and another grandson-in-law.  I also have a grandson in the army, plus numerous nieces and nephews.  And I am so proud of them all.  Now the reason for my rant....last night at the dinner table, Hannah and I were talking about all sorts of things.  Somehow we got on the subject of my dad, and I told her that he served in the war.  She asked if it was like the show M.A.S.H. and I told her that was the Korean War.  She asked if that was the one with Hitler, and I responded, no, that was WWII, to which she responded "oh, that's Hogans Heros".  How sad that she is learning history from sitcoms on our classic tv stations and not from her teachers at school.  I had asked her before about her classes at school, and today they are not teaching American history, but they are teaching about world cultures and land masses and people groups.  Really?  People groups?  How can our children avoid our past mistakes as "people groups" if we don't tell them, and teach them, our history, good and bad.  I remember being in elementary school (grade K-6) and learning the 50 states, and their capitals, and even the flowers, trees, and birds.  I also learned about the pilgrims and the Revolutionary war, and the Indians and the move west, (including the wrongs we did to the Indians), and so much more.  When,and where, are our children learning that today?

I for one will be teaching my children more myself.  Time for visits to museums, and history videos.  What about you?  How will you help teach our future to not repeat our past?

Be blessed,

Debbi