My mothers experience in occupied Germany

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Marcus
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#31

Post by Marcus » 16 Jan 2013, 10:43

Let's get back on topic, that is her experiences of the occupation and denazification of Germany and only during the 1944-1957 period.

/Marcus

kathy
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#32

Post by kathy » 01 Oct 2013, 19:37

When I started this thread I said that mother passed her background check to become a war bride. I don't know what that entailed. I know there was a huge backlog of requests to marry, but I did not question whether the length of time my mother's took was any longer than anyone else's. It may have been. Due to the fact that she had been arrested and had been an aufseherin, maybe she did have to jump through more hoops. By the time she was able to marry, the war bride act had expired.

The American government took away my sister's social security card when she filed at age 64 and told her she was still a German National. She had to have a trial and pledge allegiance. They gave her a new card. (I would have weighed the healthcare plans before taking that pledge. :) )

WAst says they will send me mother's record soon.
summer of '45.jpg
Summer of '45
I assume this picture was taken after mother got out of the M.P's makeshift jail. It appears to be mocking her de-lousing.

I'll let you know if I find out where her duty assignment was or where this was taken.

Regards, Kathy


history1
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#33

Post by history1 » 02 Oct 2013, 15:16

Hi Kathy,

thanks for sharing your history! "ATA" is a well known cleansing agent produced by the Henkel AG & Company, Just a few years back they changed the name into "Bref citro" but Ata one could find in every kitchen.

Best regards,
Roman

kathy
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#34

Post by kathy » 02 Oct 2013, 16:02

Thank you, Roman.

I tried and couldn't find that piece of information for myself.

kathy

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EastPrussian
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#35

Post by EastPrussian » 12 Mar 2014, 10:36

Wow, sounds in some ways similar to my wife's experiences! She was a German woman married to an American soldier (two of her three sisters married GI's). I came along later after her first husband divorced her. The idiot - how could he dump such a wonderful woman? But thankful I am that he did!
My interest in the Axis stems from my family's unwilling involvement in the Soviet invasion of East Prussia in 1945. Our publishing house has two books about the topic.

VanillaNuns
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#36

Post by VanillaNuns » 28 Sep 2020, 12:36

I enjoyed reading all of this and seeing the photographs. I hope Kathy will provide us with more updates when she can. 👍

history1
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#37

Post by history1 » 28 Sep 2020, 13:59

kathy wrote:
03 Jan 2013, 16:39
[...] Born in 1926, Hitler was all she knew. She and her sister were BDM. Opa saw to that they kept their meetings. He did not want the SS at his door. She was of the age group that was the most difficult to de-nazify.
I re-read the whole thread now, only to find out that I missed to explain an important fact earlier: In Dec. 1936 the Law about the Hitler Jugend (HJ) was enacted. This law forced/bound every children&teenager to join this Nazi institution.
kathy wrote:
03 Jan 2013, 16:39
Sixty years after the war, she still wore dirndl's, surrounded herself with german speaking friends, german military portraits, german music, german food, german newspapers . . . . .and she adamantly refused to believe that there was ever an attempt to exterminate jews. She came from the Gurs deportation district. This allowed her to say that the jews were simply relocated. Or, "it was war . . . . people die."
A Dirndl is not a Nazi clothing/uniform nor part of it. I know also from the group "The Burgenland Bunch" (Burgenland is the most eastern state in Austria and this group is an association where Americans [several of them aquired even Austrian citizenship!] do celebrate their Austrian/German ancestry) that they do the same what you described, while their ancestors arrived often about 1900 in the USA or earlier. Thus it doesn´t surprise me what you described above.
Regarding the statement about the resettlement of Jews. As Austrian I can tell you about them here. Important is to know that Jews made out ~2,7% of the Austrian citizens of whom most did live in big cities like Vienna, Graz or Linz. There were only a handful villages with Jewish inhabitants in Burgenland. And after the Anschluß they got immedialy resettled to Vienna. And from there they got later deported to the East or emigrated. You need also be aware that the mass extermination of Jews happened not in Nazi Germany or Austria but in occupied countries in the east (eg Poland). Out of the eyes of the Germans so that they couldn´t feel sympathy with them (appart of the anti-Jewish laws which prohibited anyway contact to them). The specifics what happened in Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc also the majority of Germans learned only after WWII.
kathy wrote:
03 Jan 2013, 16:39
Among the pictures that hung on our walls were opa's reichwehr portrait and her brother's WWII portrait. Herbert was lost at Danzig and opa never gave up the hope that he would someday be returned from Siberia. [...]
Do you know that they published the German WWII soldier KIA database on ancestry (source is the German Bundesarchiv). If you have no possibility (needs a paid membership) I can look up if I find something about Herbert or other family members (eg. immigration papers, social security files, census datas, ..). All you need is to share personal informations (Names & DOB at least) either here or in a private message.

kathy
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#38

Post by kathy » 29 Sep 2020, 20:25

Hi!, Thank you for your time.

I knew of the requirement to join the HJ/BDM youth groups, particularly in the cities where they lived. It was not adhered to consistently in small towns and villages. Each village had it's own character. I think Opa's hometown was a bit more liberal than most. High school students had to travel to the next biggest town, so there might not have been a youth group at all in the village. When the Jewish shops in the village were spied on and customers harassed, I believe it was done by outside groups. But, it may have been standard to have an outside group do it.

I'll pm you for a look up.
Regards,
k

kathy
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Re: My mothers experience in occupied Germany

#39

Post by kathy » 29 Sep 2020, 21:16

Link to recent summary/update: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=252148&p=2294191#p2294191
Included there: #1 My discovery that Delora Kilvert was Opa's cousin and that her daughter was married to Laura Mae Corrigan's nephew. #2 I revealed a notion I had that Opa was at the border crossing that was intended to be the escape route from the Beer Hall Putsch. Both are probably more suited for the What If section of Axis History, but I had to air them.
k

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