Dear Alice. This is an incredibly vivid account of the experience of ordinary civilians in the immediate aftermath of war. It resonates across the years and around the globe. Not to be forgotten. Thank you, and I appreciate the way you've honoured your mother's story while respecting her desire to never discuss it.
Thank you for all I am learning from you, Alice, in such compassionate and unsentimental writing. I am heartened to read that there will be a happy ending. Your mother's "story" is painful to read.
Thanks for this background and personal story. We recently found my father’s story from the Belgian war archives up to his name change to a displaced person with Polish papers. Trying to make sense of that.
You are honouring your parents and countless others with your vivid, heartfelt accounts of their suffering, Alice. What interests me especially with this one is that my British mother was one of those thousands working for UNRRA in Lübeck in northern Germany, resettling refugees. She worked there from early 1946 to 1948, when she quit to go to New York to see if things would work out with the Yank she'd met in 1944. And luckily for me, things did.
That’s so interesting, Beth. You might be interested in Kathryn Hulme’s memoir entitled The Wild Place about her work at the same time with UNRAA. Did your mother ever speak about her experience?
Powerful. Thanks. Although nearly all of my German ancestors had left Germany by WWI, there are family stories about one family line who stayed behind - or rather, the women and girls of that family. The men were in the US and saving to bring their families over. I have several letters which tell of their harrowing experiences during WWII and the aftermath, and an oral history from my grandmother in which she shared that the women and girls had jumped to their deaths to avoid the horrors they knew were coming with the Red Army.
This piece provided so much more insight and historical context, and moved me closer to doing the hard job of digging into my family’s past. Thanks.
This is history at its most granular and affecting. Retelling your mother’s experience gives us a gift of understanding.
Dear Alice. This is an incredibly vivid account of the experience of ordinary civilians in the immediate aftermath of war. It resonates across the years and around the globe. Not to be forgotten. Thank you, and I appreciate the way you've honoured your mother's story while respecting her desire to never discuss it.
Thank you for all I am learning from you, Alice, in such compassionate and unsentimental writing. I am heartened to read that there will be a happy ending. Your mother's "story" is painful to read.
Thanks for this background and personal story. We recently found my father’s story from the Belgian war archives up to his name change to a displaced person with Polish papers. Trying to make sense of that.
Helene you might want to contact Arolsen Archives to see if you can find out more. Sounds like an intriguing story. Let me know if I can help.
Thanks. We already contacted them, but thanks for the suggestion.
You are honouring your parents and countless others with your vivid, heartfelt accounts of their suffering, Alice. What interests me especially with this one is that my British mother was one of those thousands working for UNRRA in Lübeck in northern Germany, resettling refugees. She worked there from early 1946 to 1948, when she quit to go to New York to see if things would work out with the Yank she'd met in 1944. And luckily for me, things did.
That’s so interesting, Beth. You might be interested in Kathryn Hulme’s memoir entitled The Wild Place about her work at the same time with UNRAA. Did your mother ever speak about her experience?
Your account is so visceral and unsparing. Better than anything I've ever read in an official history.
Powerful. Thanks. Although nearly all of my German ancestors had left Germany by WWI, there are family stories about one family line who stayed behind - or rather, the women and girls of that family. The men were in the US and saving to bring their families over. I have several letters which tell of their harrowing experiences during WWII and the aftermath, and an oral history from my grandmother in which she shared that the women and girls had jumped to their deaths to avoid the horrors they knew were coming with the Red Army.
This piece provided so much more insight and historical context, and moved me closer to doing the hard job of digging into my family’s past. Thanks.