First we had a family from Landau. At that time the women and children were often evacuated from the cities, because the cities were often attacked by bombs. In our house every room which wasn’t needed was confiscated. They combed through the houses, and so found out which rooms were free. Then a truck full of people arrived. The major allocated them to the different farms and houses. Everyone had a chest, pots, and other household items. For example, Germans came from Slovakia. The women and girls had very beautiful costumes, which they brought with them in their sacks. Their children were sitting in handcarts. Everybody was taken to the village square, so that the major could allocate them. One day even a priest with his whole community from the Sudetenland arrived. They all had to leave, so they came to the Ries, our region and had to be distributed. Among them were teachers, architects, and other professions. One problem was the room distribution. Often the expellees and the owners of the rooms had quarrels. Then my father, who was major at that time, had to mediate. No wonder that there were quarrels, because there normally was only one fireplace, usually only one stove and only very little space for all the people in one house. It was especially hard when two families had to be accommodated in one room. Despite all this, the small apartments were always very comfortable. The bed was turned into a sofa, so you could sit comfortably.

Most of the time, however, women and children came to us because their husbands and sons were either killed in action, imprisoned or hadn’t returned from war. They came after some time to find work, but it was difficult to get to work because the nearest station was far away and you had to walk there. As long as the expellees and refugees stayed with us, the grandmothers and the women helped in the household and on the fields, for example collecting potatoes. The children also helped. They guarded geese or looked after the smaller children. This was how the expellees earned their daily bread. A lot of food was in short supply and difficult to get, but milk, bread and eggs were always on the table.

For a while, we lived with a family from what today is Czech Republic, a grandmother with her daughter and son. I was close friends with the kids and as they were my age, we went to school together. When the husbands and sons returned, the situation normalized and they started building their own houses.

One day the whole Sudetendeutsche community together with their pastors moved somewhere else because the opportunities to get a job were better there. Few, who had already married or had a job, stayed in our village, of course.