Werner Froese,

born 1933 in Berlin, Germany

My parents were Henry Froese, born in 1900, and Christel Fietkau born in 1911 in Germany. I am the oldest of six siblings, namely Anneliese, Jutta, Karin, Sabine and Axel, who was born after the War. My first memory is of my Opa Fritz Fietkau coming home from the field riding a horse. I was about four or five at the time. My next memory is of Opa's funeral in 1938 which was held from our house. He died in his sleep; it was a very sad day.

After Easter of 1939, I started school and continued until January of 1945. On a very cold night in January of 1945 at 1 a.m., my Mother, Grandmother and we five children were forced to leave our home in Dorbeck. The Russians were coming - they were six Kilometres away. We left by horse and sleigh as far as the Frische Haf. Because of an icebreaker going through, we had to leave the horses and sleigh with our help and walk across the ice for five hours in -30 degree weather. We ended up in Probbenau. After a few days we went to Danzig - on foot and with army trucks, trying to go further west towards Berlin. Three of my sisters got the measles, so we had to stay in Danzig for four weeks. By this time the Russian Army had closed the way to the West. In Danzig we met Dad. He had been imprisoned for making unkind remarks about Adolf Hitler. By now Dad was in the Straf Army. In Danzig we lived through many bomb attacks. One bomb hit close, about 10 meters from our bunker.

From Danzig we went by boat (Nurenberg) to Denmark. Here we stayed in camps for 2 1/2 years. Our first camp was the Ford factory where we stayed for the summer months. It was at this camp where Sabine became very ill. After the summer they moved us to a school auditorium in Copenhagen. Our Mother was hospitalized at this time. The next camp was in an Airport in Rye where we lived in barracks, sharing a room with another family. Here we started school again, with two teachers from Ostpreussen. On Sundays we had church with a Lutheran Pastor from Königsberg. All the people in this camp were refugees from Ost and Westpruessen (East and West Prussia). Our teacher found yellow toilet paper which was smooth on one side and this we used in place of notebooks. It worked. For us children Life was Good.

Dad was a prisoner of war in Russia where he became very ill and returned to Germany in 1946. He found his Mother, sister Lotte and her husband Fritz in Schleswig-Holstein. It was a difficult task to find them. Through the Red Cross Dad found Oma and two of his children in Denmark. Dad wrote a letter to Oma asking where Mom and the rest of the children were. Are they alive, he asked? This is when he found out that the seven of us had always been together. In late summer of 1947 we came back to East Germany. From here Dad came and picked up Mom, Jutta and Karin. Oma, Anneliese, Sabine and I stayed with Oma's brother on a farm close to the border of West and East Germany until Dad came for us. Dad had found work and a place to live in Breckendorf, Schleswig- Holstein.