66 Years ago Today we Fled the Russian Front . . .

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The date is etched on my memory, 11th. of August 1944. a
bright sunny summer's day with fear tangible in the very air
like an invisible leaden weight. We three children were bundled
into a horse drawn buggy and driven home with haste from the
farm where we were spending the summer.
*
This was no time to have the family split up. Already on the
drive we could hear the bursting shells on the horizon and flashes
of fire....the poor horse was urged along faster and faster as the
wheels rattled on the unsealed road. Mother was at work at the
post office, she hurried home. A few hours later, about seven
o'clock, a message arrived from the German imposed director of
the post office saying the last train would be at the station at nine.
He also sent his wife's address in Germany so that we would have
a destination to go to. I think he was rather sweet on our mother.
*
Two hours to pack and organize our posessions to be stored in
a safe place for of course we would return as soon as the Russians
were beaten back again. The Russians had taken my father four
years earlier.We did not know whether he still lived or not. In any
event, it was not safe for us to stay. Mother worked like a whirling
dervish packing up food, bedding, our silver and her precious
portable Singer sewing machine.
*
By nine o'clock we were at the station with what we courld carry
and a big wooden box. Naturally the train was full to bursting but
wonder of wonders, an industrialist from Riga had his own private
goods waggon and a kind heart and took us in with our goods and
chattels.
*
During that night, or the next, while we were passing through a
large railway junction, there was an air raid. In the dark, with blue
light reflecting on the tracks from an unknown source, we ran across

track after track to the wail of the air raid sirens until, totally out

of breath, we reached an underground concrete bunker.

I had mumps.

*
Fate decreed that we were never again to live in our homeland.
We lost, on this one day, all that was familiar and dear to us, our
home and homeland, our extended family, our language, our

culture, the way the light glistens on a dew cup, auroras in the

midnight skies, the scent of choke cherries in June and people

who brake into song at the drop of a hat.
*
Others of our family who stayed or had no possibility of escape

were sent to Siberia. Some came back after twenty years of slavery,

others did not.

*
God grant that men learn to be less greedy and appreciate what

they have instead of killing others for that which they have.
*