DURING WAR AND AFTER

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23346, 1 November 1945, Page 5

DURING WAR AND AFTER

Life In Germany New Zealand Woman’s Experiences N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent (7.50 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 31. "The Germans naturally are delighted that the war is over, but in the British zone the ordinary German man and woman wonders what exactly the British police is. They see Nazis returning to fill the same positions that they occupied under the Hitler regime and, after being told that the British were not fighting the German people but Nazis they cannot understand it.” said Airs Al. Oertel I nee Bettv Rankine-Brown), late of Wellington. ' The wife of a German antiNazi businessman, she lived in Krefeld since 1933 and has now reached London with her two sons. Anthony, aged 20. and Bruno, aged 12, en route to New Zealand. Her husband is remaining in Germany for the time being, acting as an interpreter for the British authorities.

“Many ordiiiary, decent Germans are disgusted with the British policy,” she said. “A number of Nazis left Krefeld when the bombing became bad and went to such places as Czechoslovakia. But the people who stayed behind and took the bombing and all other discomforts are now seeing these same Nazis returning and have to give up their flats and houses to them. “Former Nazis apparently feel that they have got the British behind them, but ordinary Germans have nobody to rely on. If you ask British soldiers the reason for this treatment of the Nazis they say, ‘We can only do what comes down from headquarters.'

“The British were very efficient and thorough in restoring the public services and getting things moving again. But, although conditions are greatlv improving, the deathrate has never been so high In Krefeld as at present and there is a report that the British are expecting between six and eight million Germans to die this winter because they simply cannot feed them. Co-operation between the British, American and French zones is practically non-existent and there is no exchange of goods of any kind, even of those things which could usefully be made. The outlook is bleak.” Mrs Oertel said that life in Germany before the war was pleasant enough, but neither she nor her husband liked the Nazis. They would have left before the war broke out, but she was unable to do so owing to ill-health. Shortly after the war began her third son, Paul, was born. It was not long before the people began denouncing her to the police and attempting to get her locked up because she was English. Her son Anthony had to leave school and both he and Bruno were often set on by other children and called. “Dirty English.” Thrown into Prison She managed to keep out of prison until April, 1943. By then the R.A.F. raids were growing and the Germans were complaining. Once when the people were cursing the British she asked them what they expected since they had begun it by bombing Britain. That remark brought the Gestapo and she was imprisoned for three weeks without any explanation. Then she was told that if she promised not to do anything against the Third Reich by word or deed she could return home. Otherwise she would be sent to a concentration camp. There was no way in which she could do anything useful for the Allies so she signed a document to that effect and returned home. Weeks later, in June, Krefeld had its worst raid when it finished its life as a town. For 50 minutes one bomb fell every second, and afterwards of Krefeld’s 17,600 population 2000 people were found dead. How many were not found nobody knew. That was the turn of the war in Krefeld. People who in June, 1940, prophesied that the war would be over in three weeks began openly swearing and cursing Hitler. Many of them were hysterical after the first bombing. The Gestapo rounded up many. Rain of Bombs With her husband and family. Mrs Oertel sat in their cellar during the raid and the strain was hardest of all on the younger children. “We were terribly lucky,” she said. "We had 18 Incendiary bombs in the garden and three big bombs landed within 120 metres.” Krefeld had other raids after that, but none so intense Gradually food rations began to get smaller and smaller and life harder. The Oertels used to listen to the 8.8. C.. but never told the children lest the Gestapo should question them and they would be trapped into informing. On the night the Allies landed in Normandy she and her husband celebrated with a bottle of wine. The Germans began to retreat, so rations improved for they drove cattle before them and most had to be slaughtered or they would have starved. There was plenty of meat for everybody. For three -weeks after the Americans liberated the town there was such general confusion that there was hardly any food, gas or electricity. The Oertels lived chiefly on what the Americans threw away.

Mrs Oertel immediately applied for a permit to travel to England with her two children—her third son. aged five had died from the effects of scarlet fever—and after long months of waiting they were allowed to go. They were the first civilians to leave, excepting, of course, some who had been in concentration camps, and their Foreign Office permit was stamped No. 1. Thev travelled as part of a military unit on leave trains and across the Channel bv leave boat. “For me the worst part of the whole war was the period in prison, said Mrs Oertel. “There was always the fear that I might be sent to a concentration camp. The bombing was bad enough, but somehow I always felt we had come through that. We hope to sail for New Zealand as soon as accommodation is available in a ship and I expect my husband to follow ii> about one year’s time.”