My grandmother (83) told me the following:

Refugees came from the Sudetenland (a region in the Czech Republic where many Germans lived at that time) to our village. We, as many other families, accommmodated a refugee family in our house. No, even three families were with us. An older couple also stayed with us, but not very long. The room in which they stayed wasn’t big, so the refugees never unpacked much. They came with their boxes. I remember that a woman with her daughter also stayed with us. The father had not returned from war yet. They had been with us for a very long time, and when the man came home, he joined. So there were three people who lived with us. Soon they moved on to a neighbour’s house. But they didn’t get on well with this family, who also had a small farm like us, and so they moved on to the next village. I was about nine years old, so I didn’t get much of the things happening round me.

Many of the refugees went to school with us. Others were looking for work. The woman who lived with us with her daughter was a seamstress. There was always a school lunch at our school. Most pupils ate there. The refugee children always brought a jug with them, in which they filled the food. I can remember that clearly.

 

I can also tell you something about the war. For example  when the aircrafts flew over Rohrbach. We always had to go to the basement with our teacher. Rohrbach itself wasn’t bombed, but as soon as the low-flying aircrafts came, we were hiding, I can clearly remember. And when the Americans came, my father went out with a broom and a white flag in his pocket. I will never forget that.

He ran up the hill. He hung the flag on the broom, and shortly thereafter the Americans stormed out of the houses. If he had not done that, they would have killed him. The soldiers also came to our house once. They were upstairs in the living room while we were hiding in the cellar.

When we wanted to go shopping, my mother usually sent me. I got a backpack and then I walked to the next village with my teacher.

I also remember that I once had an ignition of my appendix. In our village, however, nobody had a car. Only one teacher in the next village had one. So I went with him to Neuburg where the next hospital was. I was operated there. In the middle of the night my father took me home with a cart which was pulled by an ox. This was very dangerous because Neuburg was constantly bombed and my wound had not healed yet. But we managed to get home safely. I was sick the whole week after that. I still remember that because my teacher always visited me.

At that time there was no television and we did not have a radio. We could not afford it, since we had only a small farm. So our neighbour often put his radio outside on the window sill and turned up the volume, so that we could all listen.