Anneros Valensi's Blog – May 2015 Archive (4)

In the 1950s the Red Cross was working hard to reconnect families, and they actually found our father. I didn’t remember much about him at that age, I was about fourteen. Many German men were drafted into the army during the war, and our father was no exception. I must have been five, when I last saw him. I only recall him being home for a few days and then gone again. That was it. My memories of him were so few that I was wondering how to handle the situation. It was strange meeting him…

Despite my newfound perspective, self-doubt still clouded my mind. I still felt isolated, like being a stranger not belonging there. My mother’s overprotectiveness didn’t help either. My life was school and home and caring for my two younger sisters. There wasn’t any time or opportunity to make friends.



Speaking of school, in the 40s West Germany was Catholic and Lutheran and our public school was Catholic, and we were in the minority being Lutheran. Unfortunately, out pastor didn’t…

The war may have been over, but nothing had changed. We still had no home to return to. We didn’t know where to sleep, where to get food, where to be safe. We had lost everything. I often found myself wondering:  “Why don’t the Russian leave so we can go home?”



When we were ordered to get off the train in Winterberg, West Germany, I didn’t know what to think. I was too tired and weary, and still afraid. Fear was a constant companion of mine ever since the day we were evacuated from…

Living in Europe during the 1940s wasn’t easy. My home was lost, and with it, my childhood.

War. War never changes. The innocent always suffer during armed conflicts, and it is no different in Germany during the 1940s. Life was good to me when I was a child growing up in Falkenau, Silesia, East Germany, however, it soon changed in January 1945. With the Russian and Polish army approaching, my family – my mother with us five small children ranging in age from one and a…