Page 46 - Senior Link Magazine Summer 2021- Online Magazine

Exceptional
SENIORS
Angel Smallwood
Her Road to
by Cheryl Goforth
t is obvious that this petite, gentle
woman with a soft German
Iaccent is well-loved. Every week,
I watch both young and old search
her out before church to embrace her
or to ask for prayer. Our paths cross
often, and upon hearing
a bit of her story, I had
to know more.
Angel was born in Berlin
in the last year of WWII,
spending her early years
of schooling under the
Communist regime.
Of Polish descent, her
father had been an
entrepreneur, owning
several businesses until
the Communists took
over and confiscated everything.
After her mother remarried, and
because of her stepfather, they were
allowed to leave East Germany.
Unlike those who had fled for their
lives, they were able to take a few of
their possessions and relocate into
the American sector (West Berlin)
before the wall was constructed.
Though she felt the hate of the
British and French forces, she also
felt the love that the American
soldiers showed for the children.
She said, “They didn’t have much
to give, but when they saw us kids,
they would reach into their pockets
and give you their chewing gum or
whatever they had. I wanted to be
like them.”
She was among the first generation
of Germans who were taught
46 Lubbock Senior Link
Texas
English in school, British English
that is. Angel remembers listening
to the American Forces Network, After the wall was built, she was
where she picked up “the way unable to see her uncle or aunt who
they talked”, which displeased her had helped to raise her. By that time,
English teacher. Angel was married and pregnant,
but somehow her mother procured
Stories of Angel’s years in her a restricted passport into East
Germany are many, but Germany to visit her aunt and uncle.
this one is very revealing She decided instead to search for her
of that time period. “I had friend whose family had lost their
one best friend, and since apartment after the Communists
I didn’t have any brothers had taken their house and had
and sisters, she was like kicked them out, along with all their
a sister to me. She would furniture and belongings.
come and visit me before
the wall was built, and “So, I looked around and talked
I always begged her to with some people, but I did not
come and stay because my realize that the East Germans had
mother was prophetic. We placed the secret police in that area.
would call her a doomsday prophet When you live in a big city like that,
because my mother knew things you live in an apartment house, and
ahead of time. She said that ‘They you have someone there who knows
are going to close that up!’ (the the names of all the people who live
border), and she begged her brother in that apartment. You would go
and my aunt, ‘Please come. Forget into the entrance of these beautiful
about your stuff … we will get your Victorian houses, very damaged
stuff again. You need to get out; you from the bombings in East Germany.
need to get out.’ And it happened So, I would go from one house to the
just like that,” Angel said. other and look for their names, but
I did not realize that I was
close to their headquarters
and that they already had me
under surveillance, so they
came and arrested me.”
She continued, “I had no
business being there because
my relatives lived in a
different area.” Fortunately,
her brother-in-law, a doctor
in Stalinstadt was called, and
she was “verified”.