My Life in Germany

Rosa Marie Burger’s mother was an English citizen; her father was German. Her father was
living in England when they met. They married and settled in England, where Rosa’s older
brother, John, was born. Shortly after World War I, the family moved to southern Germany.

I was born and raised in Gaukönigshofen, a small Bavarian village in southern Germany. Life
in German villages was very traditional. Women and girls wore elaborate folk costumes on
Sundays and special occasions. The women wore their long hair in the traditional style.
Families lived together in large homes built of stone. All the different generations of the
family shared the same house. They shared the household chores and the joys and troubles of
everyday life.
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Rosa Marie Burger.

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In 1938, when I was 17 years old, I began studies at a trade school in Würzburg, a university
town 25 miles away. I then got a job with the government doing clerical work in Ochsenfurt,
the county seat. In the mornings I worked for the school board, and in the afternoons I
worked for a lawyer who was the administrative head of police departments throughout the
county.

Our village had many Jewish citizens who worked as tradesmen or as farmers. Most were
prosperous. During the 1930s, as Hitler came to power, things gradually became more
difficult for Jews. By 1933, the Jewish people in our village began to fear the changes that
were happening. Jews were restricted from working and received fewer ration stamps than
other people. Soon they did not have enough food to eat. Things grew worse and worse.

My mother had retained her English citizenship. Jewish people from the village approached
her, asking her to teach them English in case they would have the opportunity to emigrate.
People tried desperately to get out. Sometimes they would ask my mother to write letters for
them, trying to find a sponsor in another country. But it was not easy to leave Germany; it
took money and a sponsor. Many of the Jews in our village were wealthy, and some did
manage to emigrate. But it was very complicated and, for most people, it simply was not
possible.

I remember Kristallnacht. A German embassy official in Paris had been assassinated by a

Polish Jew whose parents had been expelled from Germany only days before. The Nazis were
so angry, and the Jewish people were terrified.

I remember the Nazis coming in trucks to our village from other towns. They stormed the
homes of the Jewish people in the night, using their axes to chop through the doors and break
the windows. They took or destroyed all the lovely things in these homes: silver, featherbeds,
beautiful quilts, even the food that had been so carefully preserved. Many Jewish men and
boys were taken away in trucks. They were never seen again.

I remember a lady who fled out the back door with her youngest boy when she heard the
Nazis breaking into her home. She hid in the bushes all night, wearing only her nightgown.
She caught pneumonia and died.

Much later, the rest of the Jews were rounded up, the women and children. It was on a
Saturday morning—the Jewish Sabbath, a day when their religion prohibits them from work
or travel. They were told to bring their clothes in bundles and report to the train station. I hid
with a friend behind an electric pole near the train station to watch. It was very dangerous.
The Nazis were looking carefully for anyone who came to say good-bye.

I saw girls weeping—my friends, girls I had grown up with. Their bundles were placed in the
last car and the people were herded onto the train. We lived not far from Dachau. I assume
that was the destination. Before the train left the station, the last car was uncoupled and these
people’s possessions were left behind. The homes that had belonged to these Jews were taken
over by the Nazis.

After I got a job and began earning money, I decided to buy my mother a radio as a gift.
Radios were not illegal, but after the start of war on September 1, 1939, listening to any
foreign radio stations was a criminal offense and German courts could sentence people to
prison or even death if they passed on what they heard.

Despite this, my mother, being English, was very eager to listen to the British news reports.
She would get up in the middle of the night and listen with her ear to the speaker. She would
drape a big heavy cloth over her head to muffle any sounds. The news from the British was
very different from the news the Germans were broadcasting. Despite the ban, my mother
shared the news from the BBC with our Jewish neighbors and other people we trusted.

One day I noticed that the lawyer I worked for treated me a bit differently. He was dictating a
letter but did not mention any names in his correspondence. This was unusual. It made me
nervous and suspicious.

That evening, when he left to catch the train home, I returned to the office and retrieved the
file. There I read a letter from the Gestapo—a Nazi from our village had reported hearing that
my mother had been listening to the British broadcasts and telling the Jews what was said.
The file also mentioned another woman in our village who had given food to the Jews.

I was terrified. I took the train back to the village that evening. First I tapped on the window
of the woman who had been accused of providing food for the Jews. I asked her if she knew
anything. She said she did not, but I could tell by her voice that she was afraid.

Next I went and tapped on the window of the butcher’s house. He was an important man in
the village, and I knew him well. I asked if he knew anything about the Gestapo. At first he
denied knowing anything, but I could tell he was lying. Then he confessed that he heard the
police chief say, “They should just leave that old lady alone.”

So next I went to the police station. Once again I tapped on the window pane. The police
chief was also anti-Nazi. He, too, denied knowing anything, but finally he admitted knowing
that my mother had been reported. The butcher was one of our circle, but it turned out he had
a nephew in the Gestapo. He promised this nephew all the meat he needed for his family until
the end of the war and offered to pass down his son’s clothes to his family as well if he would
promise to make the file disappear. Sure enough the file became lost.

As the war went on, life became very difficult in Germany. Everything was rationed. Each
month I was told to help the mayor of our village organize the ration cards for each family. It
was a very dangerous time. Everyone—including Christians—was very afraid of the Nazis
and dissension of any kind was severely punished with harsh prison terms or death.
In those days many foreigners were assigned to work on the farms. They worked for the
farmers and ate their meals with them but then returned to camps at night. Some were POWs,
French and English soldiers, and there were also many Polish civilians who were forced to
work for the Germans in this way.

I remember one incident in particular. One of the Polish workers got into an argument with a
farmer and threatened him with a pitchfork. The farmer was not hurt, but he reported the
occurrence to the authorities. The man was sentenced to death and was hanged in the center
of town. The lawyer I worked for was required to witness the execution. When he returned to
the office, his face was white; he was sick to his stomach.

Still, some people were quite brave. The woman who worked at the post office sometimes
received mail and packages for the Jewish people who no longer lived in our village. She
forwarded these packages on and tried to smear the return addresses to protect the senders
from the Nazis.

As the war progressed, the bombing became more severe. I remember once looking up at the
brilliant blue sky and seeing the bombers emerge from behind clouds. I watched as the bomb
doors opened and the bombs rained down from the sky. Our village was not damaged in the
bombing raids. However, the Allies bombed a neighboring village about two miles away.
Many bridges were destroyed, most of them by the Germans themselves as they fell back
retreating from the Allies.

The Americans entered our village on Easter Sunday 1945. On the previous day, there had
been a lot of shooting. That evening, the last of the German troops had pulled out. They told
us they would not be back.

During the night we took refuge along with 20 or 25 other people in the cellar of a
neighboring farmer. In the morning, the farmer knocked on the cellar door and told us the
Americans were arriving. We took pieces of white cloth and hung them everywhere. Since I
spoke English, it was decided I should approach the soldiers and ask them if they wanted
anything.

I remember clearly walking up to a tank. The hatch at the top of the tank opened and a soldier
emerged, with his gun pointed directly at me. I asked him if he wanted anything. He didn’t
seem to understand. I explained again that the farmer’s wife wondered if they needed
anything. After talking to the other soldier in the tank, he said they would like fresh eggs.

The farmer’s wife filled a large basket with eggs, and I handed them up to the soldier in the
tank. As he lowered the basket through the opening, I explained that the farmer’s wife would
want her basket back. He understood, and in a few moments he reappeared with the basket. In
the basket were several bars of chocolate, something we had not seen in six years since the
war began.

These soldiers moved on, but they were replaced by other soldiers who took up residence in
the village. The soldiers were kind for the most part (especially the black soldiers), but they
took what they wanted. The beautiful furnishings of the lawyer’s office quickly disappeared
—the rugs and tapestries were rolled up and taken. It happened in the village, too, though on
a smaller scale.
Not long after the Americans came, a lieutenant came looking for me. He knew my name.
Someone must have told him that I spoke English. He told me that he had a job for me and
that I was to report to work on Monday morning.

The Americans had set up headquarters in the lower floor of a bank in the town. One of my
first assignments was to accompany a soldier to find office furniture for the headquarters. His
name was Freddie. He was a small, wiry man, always chewing gum.

I knew that some government furniture was stored in a barn. As we approached, a woman
came out and spoke to me in German, begging me to take him elsewhere. The furniture stored
there was very valuable, and she had wanted to keep it for herself. The American soldier I
was with was a German Jew and understood what she was saying. We went ahead and took
the furniture.

I worked for the American lieutenant for some time. Among his other duties, he was
responsible for settling disputes and civil matters in this town.