Time to flee.

May 1, 2022

∙ Paid

January 1945, bone-chilling, 4-1/2 years-old.

Events flit through my memory

like a film on fast-forward:

Russian tanks on the move, villages on fire,

bridges detonated, near panic, time to flee.

What to pack? What to leave behind?

Long waits on icy platforms, hungry and cold,

I’m lifted onto a crowded train.

Wounded soldiers, seemingly sleeping,

shrouded in winding sheets

and hoisted out through open windows.

Train halting in tunnels, bombs exploding overhead.

Then trekking on for weeks.

SAFE in the West at last.

Taken in on a large estate,

a cacophony of dialects from Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia.

Girls and boys with unpronounceable names.

I’m deloused and scrubbed in a big copper tub,

then placed on a straw mattress with a blanket.

Adults shared cleaning, cooking, and gardening duties.

Preoccupied with loss and trying to rebuild their lives,

they had little energy left for us.

Thus with the arrival of spring

we children were free to romp and roam,

…

34MAG