Page 47 - Lubbock Senior Link Magazine Fall 2019- Online Magazine

not permitted. When the war was over, my father just “walked” home
It was part from Salzgitter, Germany – about 220 miles. As he
of breaking neared our town and our street, he saw that our home
our spirit by was no longer there. There had been no way to let him
keeping us know that the house had been destroyed. But by some
unaware of the stroke of fate, it so happened that I was walking home
status of the from school and was behind him. At first, I just thought
war. he was a stranger, but then I realized who he was and
ran to meet him. That moment truly marked the end of
As the war the war for me.
continued,
Germany began
to run short
of soldiers,
although they
drafted every
German male
from 16 to 65.
As the war
machine moved,
they picked up every able-bodied man possible from the
occupied countries. Many families hid their sons, trying
to protect them from compulsory service. My father was
taken and sent to a German factory in 1943.

Mine was not a carefree childhood; I could not come and
go as I liked. In 1944, as the Allied forces came closer, the
Germans instigated a curfew at night. The Allies began
attacking daily, and there were nighttime bombing raids.
We huddled behind blackout curtains. Sirens blared day
and night. We could hear machine guns at night and see
tracers of the German FLAK.

Specific events marked these tense days, such as when a
INDEPENDENT LIVING, ASSISTED LIVING
British plane was downed one night in a field near our Independent Living H Garden Homes
& MEMORY CARE COMMUNITY
Assisted Living H Memory Care
home. Some of the kids and I went out the next day to
see the crash site, amazed at seeing plexiglass for the
first time. All the crewmembers had died; they were
buried in our local cemetery. In the south of Holland,
in the Margraten Cemetery, there are 8,301 American
soldiers buried. Holland remembers.
In 1943, an American bomber was shot down near our
area, and all 12 crewmembers landed safely. We tried to A Touch of Luxury. . .
help hide the parachutes but could not rip up the strong
nylon, another innovation we had never seen. The Combined with West Texas Friendliness!
survivors became POWs. We fed and cared for the waist
gunner, as he had a broken leg, but he, too, was taken
prisoner. Many years later, we were able to reconnect Bring this ad in for a free lunch with
with him in Oklahoma!
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Allied forces – the Americans, Canadians, Australians,
New Zealanders and many soldiers from occupied
countries, such as the Dutch and the French – gathered 806-368-6565
in England as a base from which to fight the Germans.
Finally, the day came that we were liberated by the raiderranch.com
Canadians on April 16, 1945.
6548 43rd Street, Lubbock, Texas 79407

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Lubbock Senior Link 47