Crossing Borders: Memoirs and Anecdotes of an Immigrant

By Adelheid Schimmele

This is a story about my life in Germany during World War II and afterwards. It touches a bit of history of Silesia, how we had to move around and why I emigrated to Canada. I never had the urge to return to Germany except for occasional visits. I lived 20 years in Germany, but a lot longer in Canada, my chosen second home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490735733

Adelheid Schimmele

During my high-school years in Germany I always had good marks in essay assignments. As I got older I wanted to leave my memoirs to my children and as soon as I had the time I started writing down what I remembered. This is also explained in my introduction to the book "Crossing Borders". I am now retired and live with my husand in the city of Surrey, a suburb about 45 km east of Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

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© Copyright 2014 Adelheid Schimmele .

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isbn: 978-1-4907-3574-0 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4907-3573-3 (e)

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CONTENTS

Introduction

What Happened To Silesia?

Transportation And Housing

Some Secrets

A Scar For Life

A Taste Of Eduction

The Distant War And Forest Treasures

A Lot Of Changes

A Different Way Of Life

Disturbing Events

The Collapse Of The German Reich

First Encounter With The Enemy

On The Move

A New Friend

Russians Out, Poles In

Stealing Or Starving

More Consequences Of A Lost War

New Roommates

Mass Evacuations

East-Germany 1946-1947

Bare Existence

Escaping Communism

Family Re-Union

Learning Facts Of Life

Currency Reform

Living In The County Of Bentheim

A New Experience

School Life In General

Moving Again

My Apprenticeship

Marriage And Emigration

Life In Canada

INTRODUCTION

Although I have never written anything longer than a six-page letter or some extensive essays in high-school, the idea to jot down my observations on such common topics as war, peace, love, and the human race in its behavior, has fascinated me for a long time.

Here, as I am wrestling with English as my second language, I am trying to recollect my past, mainly for the benefit of my two now grown up children. Dates of events are as I remember them and may not always be exact or correct. Some names have been changed as well.

If one of my ancestors had taken the time to leave behind a written account of his or her life, I would not merely have considered it an auto-biography or memoirs, but a legacy of their domestic and historic existence. However, time was probably the least they had, since modern technology did not aid them with their daily chores of providing food and clothing for the family. How fortunate I am today . . .

I am writing this as a heritage to Tanja and Chris and to my grandchildren with all my love.

WHAT HAPPENED TO SILESIA?

People often ask me where I am from originally.

You mean, where was I born? I question and without waiting for a response, I hear myself saying, Waldenburg in Silesia, with my mind already wandering off to the northern foothills of the Karkonosze and Sudety Mountains . . .

Waldenburg first became known for manufacturing linen. This industry spread into the surrounding hills and villages. Later, particularly at the beginning of the 19th Century, the pit coal mines took priority, but there were several china and ceramic factories also, as well as glass and iron works. A refining process of coal initiated the building of a power plant as early as 1897. The generation of electricity replaced kerosene lamps everywhere, except in some out of the way regions. These industries together provided enough jobs and an adequate living standard for about 65,000 inhabitants of Waldenburg before 1939, not counting the rural areas.

Then there were several spas in the vicinity, Bad Salzbrunn for one was within walking distance from my home. The hotel ‘Schlesischer Hof’ surrounded by a park with lots of rhododendron bushes, a large gazebo with musicians playing concert music, and an adjacent golf course remain clearly in my mind. The seltzer-water from the natural spring was even bottled and shipped to Breslau, the provincial capital. People with lung ailments came for the healing qualities of the springs.

If you had to look up Waldenburg on an atlas printed after World War II you would not find it, unless you knew the Polish word for it.

With the Polish occupation of Silesia in 1945/46 all cities, villages, streets, rivers, mountains, etc. were re-named or translated into Polish. History was being transformed in front of our eyes. None of the German women, children, and mostly elderly men left behind after the war, knew what would become of them.

The soldiers who had not returned home were either dead, prisoners of war, or had been released in the West. Nobody could tell you anything about them. The women, in a desperate attempt to find out what happened to their husbands or sons, tried squeegee boards and things like cards and tea leaves. I remember my mom moving a glass turned upside down on a board with a moist surface and letters on squares. Due to the warmth of the hand, the glass would move around the board and suddenly she yelled,

Joe is alive!

I suppose she had asked in her mind, if my father was still living and then the hand moved to say ‘yes’. This kind of imagination gave us all hope to carry on.

What we didn’t realize was that the men were not able to reach their families behind the suddenly erected ‘Iron Curtain’, neither in person nor by mail. How, for instance, should my father know that Waldenburg was now called ‘Walbrzych’ or that Breslau was translated into ‘Wroclaw’? Therefore my father’s letters never arrived and we too did not know if he was really alive or not. It took the Red Cross Organization many months and in some cases several years of painstaking work to re-unite families, a most admirable accomplishment in a post-war chaos like ours. Not all stories had a happy ending. We were lucky . . .

Going back to the question of my birthplace, it would be a lot simpler to just say,

I am from Poland, but I cannot say that, it would not be correct. From the end of the Tenth Century until the year 1163 Silesia was governed by Poles, although the settlers were of various German, Bohemian, and even Dutch, descent. After that, Silesia became something of a dice in a game of numerous wars.

It wasn’t until 1740, when Frederic the Great incorporated Silesia into his Prussia, that the uncertainties and turbulences stopped. The now Prussian province ‘Silesia’ (‘Schlesien’ in German) became a constitution of two regions: UPPER and LOWER Silesia. The upper part, with its many coal mines, bordered partially onto Poland and most of its people had some knowledge of the Polish language. We, in the lower section, lived approximately 300 km West of the Polish border, just Northeast of Prag (now called Praha), the capital of Czechoslovakia.

That region of Czechoslovakia was once Bohemia and belonged, together with Silesia, to Austria. Therefore many people there were of German/Austrian descent. Historical records tell us that the first University of Prag was established by Germans in 1348, during the reign of Emperor Karl IV. Many buildings in the old townscape of Prag, the once called ‘Golden City’, are still admirable remains of those prosperous years.

TRANSPORTATION AND HOUSING

Well, back in Lower Silesia before and even during World War II a 300 km distance in any direction seemed like traveling into outer space. The main means of transportation were trains. A trip to the capital city Breslau (with about 630,000 inhabitants) from my hometown meant 75 km northeast and that was far away! My Mom took me there once on a train ride. We stayed with a friend for one night and went to the large town square with its well known city-hall, built in a late Gothic style. We saw a part of the 912 km long river ‘Oder’, which runs right through the city. Breslau had one of the most important ports for commerce and trading all over Europe, since the Oder was connected with the Elbe and Weichsel through various canals.

For transportation within and around Waldenburg we mainly used streetcars, horse-drawn buggies, bicycles, or we just walked. Yes, we walked a lot. We walked to the bakery, the butcher, the cinema, the theater, the doctor, the hospital, we walked to visit friends and relatives, and of course we kids walked to school. Other than a few delivery trucks there were hardly any cars on the roads.

The snow plough, pulled by a team of four or six horses, always attracted the attention of the children in the neighborhood. We could not wait getting outside to run behind it as it created sort of a tunnel along the street. Snowfalls of fifty to one hundred centimeters were not uncommon. Some mornings you had to shovel yourself out of the back door first in order to reach the yard.

Mom, please get my toboggan from the basement, and as soon as my mother handed me this wooden structure, metal runners on the skids and a steering handle with a long cord, off I went to the nearby hill. After a while the boys in the neighborhood didn’t just want to slide downhill, no, they quickly piled up enough snow to create moguls.

Come on, let’s string our sleds together! they suggested.

So, instead of in single file, we all rode down on sleds tied to one another, flying over the moguls left and right, laughing and screaming all the way. Before we knew it, the street lanterns came on. It was time to go home. We never felt how cold it actually was. Some kids stayed longer, but I had to leave as soon as it got dark, mother’s orders, or she would come and get me.

Take off your wet clothes right away! was my mother’s greeting, as soon as I arrived at the door. My two-piece suit was made out of dark-blue heavy cotton with a fleece lining; cap, mittens, and shawl were my mother’s hand-knitted wool creations, also the stockings. These I hated to wear, they always itched terribly. Now everything was soaked. Mother carefully hung up each item to dry on the handlebar around our stove for next days’ use.

Meanwhile a large kettle of water was boiling on top of the stove. This was carefully emptied into a portable zinc tub, cold water followed and in I went in the middle of our kitchen. There was not enough room to stretch out in that small tub; I could just sit in it.

Your legs are full of bruises, what did you do? Mother questioned.

Oh, we had so much fun jumping the moguls. Sometimes we went so fast that we hit the fence on the bottom of the hill—you know, across the street, where people have their backyards, I chattered.

Yes, yes, I know, just be more careful next time. You could get hurt hitting the fence, was mother’s advice, while she lathered me off and dumped a pot full of cold water over my back. I