From: Heinz Barthel (Heinz.Barthel@T-ONLINE.DE)
Date: Sat Jul 17 1999 - 10:30:40 PDT
-----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
Von: Leslie Ann Velasco [SMTP:lvelasco02@siprep.org]
Gesendet am: Dienstag, 6. Juli 1999 18:48
An: heinz.barthel@t-online.de
Betreff: St. Ignatius High School Students Questions
Dear Mr. Barthel,
Hello, we are five High School students from St. Ignatius College
Preparatory in San Francisco, California. We have just finished learning
about
WWI, WWII, and the Holocaust in our Summer School World History 2 course.
We
would like to ask you a few questions to further our knowledge on this
subject
and would like if you would help us to do this.
Did your town experience harsh conditions such as rationing?
I was born in 1936, the war was beginning in 1939, so I have had no concret
remembers on the time in peace. Therefor, I only have herd about this good
time, with filledup stores and many fruits like oranges or sweets like
shocolats. But we had no hungry, because my father was aditional working
for farmers, butchers and so on, and therefor, we had some additional food,
beside this small ration on "Lebensmittelkarte"
I was leaving in Potsdam, a little Town near Berlin. At the end of war and
after a terrible air raid to Potsdam at 1945.april.14, the last battle
begun around Berlin. My mother has fear for the arriving russian troops,
and decided to escape with my elderly sister and me. We go west, where
since weeks the US- Army was waiting on the river Elbe for the russian.
What were the significant changes from the time before, during, and after
the war?
I remember on the first air attack. From this moment I have fear and we
had alarm nearly every night and on the end of war on the day too, When the
next attack was awaiting, we has a pre alarm in school, and all childrens
has very quickly to go home in her shelter. After the war we has to repeat
one year at school.
In opposite of the ware time in the first two years after the end of war,
we had terrible hunger, my sister, my mothers and I. In this time we live
in the russian-zone of germany and my father must still to the army, called
"Volkssturm", 3 month before the end of war. He has to fight again the
russian troops and was dead by shooting through "SS-Soldiers" on 27.
April 1945, because they belived, that he would to escape.
What type of propaganda was shown in newspapers, radios, and such things as
that? Was it very convincing and
manipulative?
I was to young to understand the messages in radio and newspaper, but I
remember a feeling of fear when der "Fuehrer sprach" ( the leader was
speaking ) ! At the same time in cartoons of newspaper I saw the terrible
grimace "of our enemies", these "subhuman creatures".
But my parents said, "when this came otherwise around" and I think, they
had a realistic imagination from what was true and was was propaganda.
But for instance, I know about relatives, a young man 20 years old, which
was pilot by a elite unit of the german air force,called "Hermann Goering
Division" and he say to me, it will be more like for him to came down by
himself as to go imprisonment.
Thank you for taking your time to read our letter. We would love
to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Eril, Casey, Thomas, Mike, and Ben
I hope I can help you
best regards, Heinz Barthel
write back to me at LVELASCO02@siprep.org