When the Russian Army invaded our hometown, the younger people fled out of town, but the older ones stayed there in the basements and air-raid shelter, where they were safer than being on the road. My mother, she told me, tried to walk out of town, after staying in the basement for some time. My mother was then almost seventy years of age and couldn’t walk very fast; nevertheless, she walked about eight miles into a small village, where she was shot in the forehead by a Russian soldier. Nobody had the time or the courage to bury the dead, though some friends of ours brought back my mother’s purse and kept it until my sister returned to town with her children, after fourteen days of wandering from farmer to farmer, begging for food and shelter. On her return to our town she found her house and our parents’ house burned to the ground. Only a few survivors remained, and their ordeal was just beginning. My niece told me how my sister had to work for the Russian soldiers to get food for the children.
Hunger destroys human values. Some of the people in our town turned Communist as soon as the Russian Army entered the town, trying to be friendly with the soldiers. My family and the family of my sister were considered among the upper ten thousand, for we had four houses of our own, and my sister’s husband was a jeweler and optician. My father’s business was only a few blocks away, and our family was well-known in the town. Those who sought to collaborate with the Communists told the Russian soldiers that my sister had diamonds and gold in her possession. The Russian state police took my sister and her children into custody, questioning her about the jewelry, finally beating her and confining her in prison. She and the children were displaced to Siberia, where my sister died of starvation after six months. My niece was kept in prison until 1949.
I promised my niece that I would take care of her, for I was the only male survivor of the family. Back on my job, my mind occupied with all these terrible experiences in our family, I found it difficult to work. Homeless, without friends, a stranger uprooted in West Germany—what future was there for me here? Perhaps I could start a new life in the United States; I determined to try. I went to the American Consulate and made my application to enter the United States as a refugee. I had to wait six years until my dream came true, six long years that seemed an eternity.
But now I am living in a free world, free of fear and anxiety, free of the past and looking forward toward a better and happy future. With all my heart and soul I can say, “God bless America.”
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Text originally published in 1960 under the same title.
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Publisher’s Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.