ZGram - 3/16/2003 - "Almost 60 years ago..."

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

March 16, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

There won't be any news on Ernst Zundel's situation until March 31, 
when another immigration hearing will take place.  I am sure he keeps 
distressing things from me, but every once in a while the truth slips 
out.  Can you imagine living in a cell with no window but with the 
light on at all times, and with no sign what day it is, what time of 
day or night, what's going on outside - and if a pencil breaks, and 
the two pencil sharpeners outside the cell don't work, he cannot even 
write?  A ball point pen is forbidden!

I had sent him some articles I pulled from the Net about the horrid 
censorship in Germany.  The articles were very well researched and 
pertinent to his defense.  They were, however, kept from him, only my 
personal letter was given to him.  Today he negotiated that he will 
be allowed to see those documents, one at a time - if there are more 
than two papers in a cell, that means there is a fire hazard! 

I can see how a psyche can crack! 

Not that I think his will - but knowing him the way I do, I can 
surmise the price that kind of injustice extracts.  And all for what? 
Because he missed an immigration appointment the Immigration 
bureaucrats never saw fit to reschedule - or even to advise us that 
something was remiss?

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

Just a few days ago, I thought we would be spared a war - what  with 
all the revelations about faked documents and blackmail and 
what-have-you.  But today the news is glum, and if the war begins, 
then heaven help the children!

[START]

Back to the Holocaust in Germany

Margit Alm

Melbourne Australia, <mailto:malm@ica.net.au>malm@ica.net.au

Here is how I remember  the 1943 air raids over Hamburg.  It is a 
story far removed from Zionism but it turned into a Holocaust of its 
own kind.

It had been a particularly beautiful sunny summers day in July and a 
busy one for us children.  My baby brother, my older sister and I 
were safely tucked into bed, watched over by the elderly lady from 
next door whilst my mother had walked to the Central Station to 
collect my father, who was a conscript soldier in the Wehrmacht, but 
stationed in North Germany whilst rehabilitating from a war injury 
sustained the previous year.  This enabled him to spend his free days 
with his family.

We lived in a flat in a big block of commercial/residential 
apartments in Hamburg's inner city (CBD), some 300 m away from the 
"Binnenalster" (Alster lake).

My parents had just arrived home; my mother had put the kettle on for 
a cup of coffee and a piece of freshly baked cake when the howl of 
the sirens sounded and simultaneously the buzzing roar from the 
squadron bombers filled the air.  We were torn from our beds, hastily 
dressed, my mother grabbed her handbag with the family documents and 
some photos and we raced down the stairs from our 4th floor flat to 
the cellar.  As we passed the window between the 4th and 3rd floor I 
could see the bombs falling and the "Christmas trees" lighting the 
sky to guide the bombers.

We hovered in the cellar together with other people from the 
building, everyone preoccupied with their own thoughts and fears.  My 
father meanwhile raced up and down the four floors, scouting for 
fires.  He put out some 18 spot fires.  Eventually he reappeared in 
the cellar, took my mother in his arms, told her that everything was 
lost, and then ordered everyone out.  A huge load of fire bombs had 
hit the building next door and the fire was now spreading to 
neighbouring buildings and streets. 

Whilst our cellar was fire proof, it was not smoke proof.  Smoke 
quickly began to fill the cellar and we rushed up the stairs into the 
foyer, holding wet handkerchiefs over our mouths and noses.  There 
was only one entrance/exit to/from the building and that was 
enveloped by flames.  There was a lonely chair in the foyer, which my 
father grabbed and smashed the window, through which all of us 
escaped, the adults jumping the two odd metres, the children being 
lifted out.

The air raid was still in full swing, so my father took our group 
some 50 m down the burning street into another building that had not 
yet caught fire and temporarily "parked" us there whilst he continued 
on his way to investigate the air raid shelter another 100 m away. 
It was still intact and had room for our group.

As we left our temporary abode I cast a last glance to our building 
where my childhood dreams and toys were turned to ashes.  It stood 
there, a dark and silent silhouette in the fire-lit sky, seemingly 
untouched by what was going on around it.  However, a blaze of flames 
escaping through the roof shot skywards and I knew that the building 
was burning itself out from within.

=46ive metres away from us, across the street, a whole building came 
crumbling down and rained a shower of phosphorous sparks on us. One 
of them must have hit me in the face as my mother was for a while 
fearful that I could become blind.  Thank heavens, not so.

The whole group made it safely to the air raid shelter where we 
waited out the end of the air raid and the end of the night.

I cannot remember whether I was scared.  This air raid was a totally 
new experience for me.  There was no time to become scared.  I also 
had 200% confidence in my father's ability to see us through safely. 
Although air raids had taken place earlier over Hamburg, they left 
only sporadic damage to the inner city and were mainly targeting the 
port and industrial areas.  They provided some excitement to us 
children.  We would tour the bombed-out buildings the next day.

But this air raid was not child's play.  It was meant to destroy more 
than infrastructure, and it certainly did just that; yet it could not 
have targeted civilians as there were relatively few civilians living 
in the inner city. Maybe it was a practice run for what was to come 
next.

As soon as daylight broke, and being summer it broke early, my father 
made his way across town to my aunt, who lived on the other side of 
town, some 5 km away, in a large residential area.  They (two aunts 
lived there and one uncle but he was on the eastern front) had 
escaped the bombings and we found shelter in their apartment - but 
only for one night.

The second night the sirens once again forced us into the building's 
cellar.  This time there was a much larger group, the building being 
residential only.  My father, now on compassionate leave from the 
Wehrmacht, again patrolled the building like a security guard would 
patrol a casino, checking every corner.   Again, he told us we had to 
vacate.  A time bomb had fallen into the small courtyard (where the 
rubbish bins were stored) and it could explode any time. But escape 
where to? The whole suburb was burning. Luckily the emergency 
services had earlier on dynamited an entrance through the walls of 
the underground, and this was the only safe spot far and wide.

The rule was that my father carrying my brother would lead the way, 
followed by my mother who dragged me along and my aunts who took care 
of my older sister.  But when we emerged from the cellar and I stood 
on top of the stairs leading into the street I could only see fire: 
all buildings were ablaze, fire was raining from the sky, and as the 
sparks were ricocheting from the stones it looked to me as if the 
road was burning.  I jerked away from my mother's hand and told here 
I was not running through that.  My mother followed my father, 
screaming "I lost Margit" (I have never ceased wondering whether at 
that moment my father was not cursing her for being unable to control 
a pre-school child), and I just stood there and watched in 
abhorrence.  To my left shadows were rushing past me disappearing 
into the firy night, following my father to safety.  No one noticed 
me, or so I thought.  Suddenly I felt swept off my feet and strong 
arms held me.  I buried my face in a broad chest.  It turned out that 
my rescuer was a young Dutchman who lived in the apartment building 
and knew us quite well.  When my feet touched the ground again at the 
dynamited entrance to the underground I looked into my father's face. 
He was about to run through the fire and air raid once more and fetch 
me.  However, he would not have made it.  The time bomb explored just 
after the last person had left the building, turning the building to 
rubble.

We were lucky, everyone in the building was saved.

We spent the remainder of the night cowering and squatting on the 
rail tracks.  At daylight my father again went on his by now familiar 
scouting trip to find the best way out for everyone.  The best way 
out turned out to be a long, long walk along the tracks until we 
reached platforms and a station in another suburb.  When my father 
investigated the devastation from the previous night, he not only 
found the rubbled buildings but piles and piles of corpses just lying 
in the streets.  He wanted to spare us such a sight.

They say, 45000 people perished during that night.

=46rom the railway station we were taken to big halls in Neum=FCnster, 
and a new episode of our lives began.  For the next four years we 
settled elsewhere, but that is a different story.

My father was a decorated soldier (and threw all his decorations into 
a river because they would have hindered his escape from a Russian 
POW camp back to Germany after the war had ended), but I think his 
greatest deed was to show leadership in those two air raids.  Neither 
our family nor all those belonging to the two groups would have 
escaped the bombing and the fires without his initiative.  There were 
mainly women and children in the cellars, but I remember a few males 
present, yet apart from the Dutchman who carried me to safety, no one 
showed initiative (maybe for that reason the men were at home and not 
at the front).

I now look forward to the book Der Brand and what it says about 
Hamburg's firestorm.

By the way, more than 30 years ago I saw a play here in Melbourne by 
Rolf Hochhuth, called The Soldiers.  It dealt with the planning of 
this air raid over Hamburg.  At the time a Swiss girl from work was 
in our group of theatre goers.  She was quite devastated after the 
play and said to me: "but they never carried it through".  I had to 
tell her that they did.

[END]