Escape from the advancing Red Amy - by Horst Cerni

Greetings.   I am posting this today, because 81 years ago, on May 3, 1945, Hamburg surrendered and avoided total destruction. For us in northern Germany it was the beginning of peace.Throughout WWII we lived in the peaceful town of Allenstein, East Prussia, Germany, and experienced Russian bombardment only at the end of 1944 and onwards. Whenever the air siren sounded, we rushed down the stairs to the cellar, which served as our shelter, and waited anxiously for the bombing to finish. Every time a bomb fell, the house shook, and we weren’t sur how close a bob had fallen.

In January of 1945 the Red Army was approaching, but the governor insisted that they will be driven back, Finally, on on January 21, 1945, the Nazi authorities ordered the evacuation of East Prussia. But it was too late and became chaotic. The announcement over loudspeakers asked people to take only hand luggage and to wait on street corners where busses or trucks would pick them up. All officials had fled early and no-one was there to coordinate. There were no buses, trucks or trains.. When the people finally started fleeing, the Red Army was already ahead of them, and East Prussia was separated from the rest of the German “Reich”. Those refugees on the roads were brutally run over by the Russian tanks, machine gunned or taken prisoners.

We waited and waited until it got dark. A friend of ours, Frau Liesbeth Schmidt, had joined us with her four young girls and one boy. The oldest child was only 7 years. Everyone around us was very nervous and worried. There was a tense atmosphere in the icy winter air. Nowhere a sound of a bus or truck. No signs of soldiers. And this was a military town! Rumors were going around that the mayor’s announcement about the “temporary evacuation” was a recording and that he had left town long ago. We noticed that our waiting group was slowly getting smaller and more and more people started to walk towards the train station. We decided to do the same. It was only a twenty-minute walk. Lots of people were waiting there already, and not far from the station we heard shooting and grenades exploding. Around 8 p.m. a long train came in full of soldiers. They were surprised to see us, since they were told that they were heading for the battle line. As we learned later, the Russian advance troops, with about seven tanks, had captured part of the city already. We got into the train as soon as it was unloaded with the hope that it would leave. And we waited for hours. My mother and Frau Schmidt had secured a corner where we could make ourselves somewhat comfortable. There were no benches, we all sat on the floor. Normally the train was used to transport cattle. We waited for hours. The train did not leave. There were explosions all around us, as well as shooting from airplanes and tanks. It was very scary. Children and adults were crying and praying and worrying that the end is near. So we spent the night in the train wagon until the next midday. then we heard shouting: “Hurray, hurray” and we knew that Russian soldiers had arrived. They went into the waiting room and took money, jewelry and watches from the waiting people, but they didn’t harm anyone. They didn’t come to the train. We saw a train worker wrestle with a Russian and taking away his rifle. The Russian ran away. Shortly afterwards, German soldiers arrived and heavy fighting erupted. There was shooting right in front of us at the station. It was as if the world was coming to an end. The German soldiers were able to drive the Russians back, but the train didn’t leave. Some women in our train wagon became quite hysterical and wanted to throw out anything not essential, like dolls and other toys. Others prayed the Rosary. There was screaming and fighting and loud praying for God’s protection. In the afternoon, it seemed to have quieted down, and so we dared to go to the luggage hall to stretch out a little. It was an awful scene. Everywhere bodies, including of a horse, and bullet holes all over the wall. Just outside the station there was a big fire, The train did not move. There were no train personnel anywhere, except one woman wearing a steel helmet, who announced that the train was leaving at 20 hours (8 pm). It was Monday. So we boarded again and waited, but nothing moved. So our group of two mothers with nine young children decided to walk out into the forest. There were several sleds standing around and so we took one for my youngest sister and some luggage. .

There was no one we could ask in which direction we should go? Most people opted for the West, an apparently logical decision, since the Russians came from the East. An old man suggested to go North-Northeast through the forest towards the Baltic Sea. That was good advice, We learned later that most of those who went West perished, because the Russians had almost encircled us and most of the Western areas were already occupied.

It was icy cold, sub-zero temperature and snow on the ground. We walked for six hours and reached an abandoned farmhouse. Cows were crying to be milked, which fortunately someone in the group knew how to. And so we got some nourishment, Later that morning german soldiers arrived and took us in a truck to the next town, where we managed to get on an overcrowded military train, then another stop, and walking, and a trucks. This went on for the whole week while there was fighting all around us, We finally reached the Baltic port of Gotenhafen and managed to get on a coal freighter to Swinemunde, We were the first to leave over the Baltic after the horrendous torpedoing of two ships killing some 14,000 refugees, Everywhere there was chaos, but the Red Cross tried to provide some food and lodging, They also guided us when we reached the West and arranged to find a new home for us, which we reached one month after starting this odyssey.