Person Page - 102

You enquired how we fared during the war. I was [over the age limit] in the first World War so I didn't have to go. ...My brother Wilhelm had three sons. Two were at the University in Marburg and one in high school. Two were killed right at the beginning in France; the third, an officer, was wounded and was a prisoner of war in France for two years. After he came home he continued with his studies and is now an M.D. in a large city in our community.
Two of my sons died a few years before the Second World War: one at the age of 4, the other 17 years old. My only living son Walter was in it from the beginning. He died in 1946, a war casualty. So now I only have my married daughter, Berta, who lives in this vicinity.
The only son of my sister Emilie was a flier in the war. He crashed and injured his lungs. He spent two years in the hospital. He is well again and is now City Manager in a small town near Siegen. His mother (my sister) died in 1943. A year later her house was completely ruined by a bomb... Fate has been pretty hard on us.
We live in the province Westfalen. At first we had American occupational forces but now we have English...As you have probably read in your newspapers, everything is rationed. It is not as bad for us in the country as it is for those in large cities. At least we have potatoes and bread. A farmer gets three zentner (one zentner equals about 220 pounds, I believe) potatoes per person per year as against one or two zentner per person for people living in the city. If we did not have America and Canada's help we certainly would starve.³

Russia has taken possession of about one-third of Germany and has driven the people from the eastern provinces into western Rheinland and Westfalen. We are, therefore so very crowded. We had to take a farmer and his family into our home. They did not have a thing; only the clothes they had on their bodies. The harvest of peas and beans was very small because of the extreme drought. Such small amounts of coffee, rice and tobacco that are being sent in to Germany all go to the black market and we are not able to buy them.