Written with regard to April/May 1945.

For days on State Road south of Salzwedel, the German armed forces travelled northwards. During the night one heard the thunder of guns. On the walls of houses it said: "Victory or Bolshevik Chaos", " The Enemy is Listening", and "Kohlenklau" ( a poster with a man dressed in black, stealing coal . This poster was meant to remind people not to waste coal.).

The so-called "emergency levy" had actually been collected, and consisted principally of brown garments, the wearing of which in public was becoming more and more unsuitable. Thus, one could rid oneself of these things for a "good cause", without raising any suspicion. There was no further use for them. Instead, they now lay in the collection place and no one wanted to be the owner of them. Therfore they were "buried" secretely in a big rabbit warren of clothes. The things were, into the bargain, in good shape, in good repair, and sometimes little worn. If the Americans were to come...we were well rid of the things. We were children, I was 14 years old. We still didn't ask questions suggesting criticism, questions which until now had not been without danger, but critical thoughts were already arising.

The school has already been closed. One scarcely dared to go out to the street let alone go out of the village. We children therefore hung around the village. An aircraft crashed here; a man lay with a striped suit, shot beside the railway embankment; and the tension of the adults very likely rubbed off onto us.

On one of these days someone, a local from the village, came on a bicycle out of the neighbouring village with boots on his carrier. He had to push since there were so many boots, and they were not even covered and everyone could see them. Yellow natural-coloured high boots, so-called army boots! He also revealed the source: the dance hall of an inn that everyone knew.

Now it became hectic. Get on home. Tell them. Jump on the bicycle and off. An hour couldn't have passed between the "acquisition" of the first boot and our appearance in the aforementioned dance hall. The dance hall was already as good as empty. There was nothing more available that even a civilian could have used. What could we begin to do with parachutists' steel helmets, kneepads, sheath knives, and gas masks? I could still only get hold of two pairs of gloves, leather with cuffs, and naturally, as a boy, I lifted a knife which on arriving home, I had to immediately get rid of.

Later, we children found out that along the railway tracks at each station a room had been taken over for military equipment. So much equipment that it could still have been enough for years to come! That was not consistent with the, "sacrifices of the people"-policy.

Translated from the German by John Milloy, Canada, (nimso@aol.com)