Frau Claessens Story
Life in East Germany During the War
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Frau Claessens was a child during the war in Eastern part of Germany, in a place called Stolp in the Pommern province. She was the oldest with 6 other siblings, from the early age of 4 she was babysitting her 1 year old sister, helping out her mother while her father was working. Her father was a civil servant, helping to build railways and help look after them, therefore having a large family and his job; he was not forced to be a soldier. One of the good friends, who was 2 years older then her was a Jew and as Hitler came to power she noticed her friend disappear, and never knew what happened to her. In eastern part of Germany she as a child and many others didn't know what was happening, and it became clear that there were very big differences between West Germany (i.e. Berlin) and Eastern Germany.
She remembered marching three times a week and although she knew she had to do it she had no idea why; however they never discussed it as it was too dangerous to question things or talk politics.
At the beginning of March 1945, they tried to avoid the Russians and marched to the coast to catch a ship. However they missed the ship and faced a problem, they couldn't return to Stolp and had to stay in a farmhouse which was very small, especially for such a large family. The Russians soon came and chucked them out. Ten to thirteen days later they tried to get back to Stolp, during this march back to Stolp, her father was captured by Russians and became a prisoner of war...to this day she has never seen her father again. They went 6 days without food, trying to get back to Stolp, once back they found their house had been taken, they lost all their possessions and they had to find a flat they could stay in for a few months. In October 1945 the Polish pushed them out and they went on another march to find somewhere to live.
They marched to Berlin, however the authorities in Berlin wouldn't let them in but the British helped them out like they did with many Germans and their families. People who came from Eastern Germany couldn't get ration cards to begin with; they stayed in a camping site which gave them a bowl of soup and roll of bread once a day. Once they were given ration cards, children were given small ones, and so were women; however men were given bigger ones. Frau Claessens therefore did extremely heavy labour in order to gain a man's rations.
Frau Claessens was not affected by any bombs and knew very little of concentration camps, she did not even learn of the word until the Americans taught her.
In 1948 Frau Claessens was given an opportunity that considered to be "a new life". She started to learn, she was unaware of the persecutions. After 1948 and 1949, she lost all contact with her family out of choice. She went away as she was given the chance to learn, and gained books and clothes from this which to her meant a lot after the trauma she'd been through. She stayed in touch with one sister, who updated her about the rest of the family. Her brothers and herself were so traumatized by their war experiences, as were many other families at this time, that they felt it was the best thing to do.
Her mother died a few years ago due to a depression illness, it was soon after that through some friends she found out that her father was her "adoptive father". It was also known that even long after the war it was rare to hear people talk about their feelings as they had lost the war and were told they couldn't and they shouldn't share their feelings.
She shared with us her views towards Hitler and the young people today. She had one strong view on Hitler, He wasn't German, however many times he claimed he was she knew he was actually Austrian, that was all she had to say on Hitler as they never thought about him when they were younger and didn't know too much about him and in a way didn't want to. She finds people today are lucky and have a much better chance to understand things. She also made the point that it was the Americans that told her and made more sense of her history through education, more than she ever learnt in Germany.
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Page last updated: 25th February 2014