In Berlin in 1939, Michael Tradowsky celebrated his fourth birthday with his parents by helping his father tack up blackout paper over their windows. Germany was at war. For the next six years, the Tradowsky family endured the nightmare of the German home front. Intense and powerful, War Children shares the incredible saga of an ordinary German family during World War II. Looking back from the vantage of seventy years, Michael's memoir directly confronts how his childhood experiences, despite his parents' attempt to give him a normal upbringing, were shaped by an epoch of rampant evil under Hitler. Michael shares how each member of his family had his or her own way of fighting against the regime. His courageous and outspoken aristocratic mother was determined to protect her son from Nazi brainwashing and sacrificed everything but her love and honor to keep her children alive. His father, a promising theater director, rubbed shoulders with the great entertainers of the time-until his refusal to join the Nazi Party destroyed his aspirations. But perhaps Michael's love for his baby sister exemplifies the tragedy of a childhood spent in war, for her very life depended on him carrying her to the bomb shelter. From winding roads twisting through the tall pines of the Black Forest to trucks crammed with refugees, War Children offers a sobering testimony for children victimized by war, past and present.

War Children

A MemoirBy Michael Tradowsky

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Michael Tradowsky
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-5427-2

Chapter One

The day of my life I remember best and try to forget most isWednesday, April 11, 1945. The morning of this brilliant day inErfurt, my mother, sister, grandmother, and I, along with all thewomen and children who lived in our four-story apartment building inthe Louisenstrasse 21B, hid in the cellar. Now and then, someone hushedthe group, and all listened for any sounds coming from the outside; nomatter how we strained our ears, we heard nothing. This was the third daythat we'd huddled down there, driven into our dim shelter by the soundsof approaching battle. For two days, the sound of gunfire and tanks hadgrown ever closer. Then, at last, at midnight, all noises faded to silence. Asmorning approached, the silence taunted us. Finally, around eleven, mymother stood and declared she would climb to the attic to find out what wasgoing on. Everyone knew that once my mother had made up her mind, shecould not be stopped. I begged to come along, thinking she might allow it.The air attacks had ceased for several days now. The bellowing of artilleryand the rumbling of tanks from the southern hills of the Steigerwald haddied down during the night. Besides, I was almost ten years old. Duringalerts, out of a strange mixture of fear and competitiveness, I was alwaysthe first to reach the cellar. Surely, if we were surprised by an attack, Iwould be able to make it down here quickly enough. She looked at mewith her big eyes, "brown as a doe" as my father described them. I sensedher pleasure with me.

"All right, come," she said, her low voice still deeper with concern, "butif we hear planes, we'll have to get back down immediately."

With that, she started up the concrete cellar stairs, sliding her shoeson each step with those quick chip-chip sounds. Curious and proud, Itrip-trapped behind her up to the basement door, which she flung openresolutely. The blinding light flooded through the tall windows onto thestaircase.

The attic was the most dangerous place in the house. I never had beenpermitted up there before. The roof, our only protection from the sky, wasso highly pitched that even my tall mother could walk standing up. Therafters and the clean floor smelled of dry, warm wood. I followed, lookingcuriously into the far corners, and was surprised to find them totally empty.According to air safety regulations, all rummage had been removed. Onlya zinc tub full of sand with a little hand shovel stuck on top had beenprepared in the middle of the spacious room. I had learned in school duringair safety instructions that this sand was called Luftschutzsand (air safetysand). We third graders had been taught, if we saw an incendiary bomb,to cover it with sand, never with water. When unknowing people hadcarelessly put water on these bombs, the burning phosphorus had floatedon top of the water, down the buildings, and along the streets and ignitedother houses.

My mother and I took a few creaking steps and then stopped andlistened. All was quiet. Over the last weeks, our family had confinedourselves to our first-floor apartment so that we could rush into thecellar quickly enough at each wail of the siren. During the last days, theAmericans had moved their airfields very close; attacks came at any time,often before the warning sirens could be sounded, so we had moved intothe cellar entirely, putting bunk beds into a small side room. We allowedourselves only short periods upstairs until the approaching battle soundskept us below permanently. Only our nagging curiosity could make usdisregard all caution and drive us up to the attic.

Following the direction of last night's battle sounds, my mother wentto the hatch facing south. She lifted the glass cover, stretched her neck intothe open gap, and looked toward the Steigerwald. I observed her scanningthe horizon. Two long, vertical wrinkles crossed her brow, starting fromthe base of her nose and making her most prominent feature look evenlarger. These furrows meant either concern, anger, and determination ormerely deep concentration.

"See anything, Mutti?"

She reached down, boosted me under my arms, and I grabbed hold ofthe sharp, metal rim of the hatch and chinned myself up. Stretching intothe opening, I saw the tile roof, the gutter, and our garden right belowme.

A checkerboard of vegetables spread to the white picket fence. Behindthe fence was the river, the Walkstrom, a small branch of the Gera. On theother side stood the frayed facade of the neighbor's house that had beenhit two weeks ago. From up here, I could follow clearly the path the bombhad taken. It had blasted off half the roof and the exterior walls, rippingoff parts of the five floors. Then it had burrowed into the cellar, where itgouged out a dark, bottomless funnel and spewed a wall of white rubbleover the backyard.

"Look to the left, to the Steiger," my mother said.

I cranked my neck toward the hills but could not make out anythingbefore my hands hurt too much and I had to drop to the floor. We listenedagain. Was there a distant hum? We did not wait to determine whether thesound was real or a result of our frightened and worn-out imaginations.We rushed downstairs.

While we were gone, the women in the cellar had busied themselvesstraightening cots, folding blankets, checking flashlights, replacing candles,and stacking magazines on crates that served as tables. They sent thechildren into the next room to play their usual cellar games. My motherand I rushed down the flight of concrete stairs into the cool, musty air.Our eyes adjusted to the light of the one naked lightbulb, and we saw thewomen scramble over the cots to gather around us.

"What's going on up there?"

"Tanks," my mother gasped. "The Steigerwald is full of tanks. Thereis no shooting. It's totally quiet."

My grandmother, Omi, pushed close while the others made roomfor the stately old lady. Her lifetime servant, shriveled, little Martchen,followed in her shadow. Omi turned her right ear toward my mother,cupping her hand behind it. My mother raised her voice.

"Tanks, Mamusch, tanks, up in the Steiger."

"What did she say?" said Omi, bending down to Martchen indisbelief.

The maid lifted herself on her toes to shout into Omi's ear. "Tanks,gnädige Frau (gracious lady), up in the Steiger."

"Tanks?" Omi repeated. "That close?"

Many years later, I would find out the historical facts of this day. Iwould read that the tanks belonged to the XX Corps under General WaltonH. Walker, who had permission from Patton to take Erfurt, although itwas east of the line the troops were expected to reach by this date. Thatday I understood only that the tanks besieging Erfurt were American, andthey would attack.

As if to prove my mother's report, we heard right then the dark, hollowsound of gunfire, like the rumbling of dirt falling on a coffin. Everyonethought the attack was beginning. We waited for the next barrage, but itdid not come. Instead, we heard a sound that, after a few moments, couldno longer be wished away—the humming of approaching planes. Mymother pushed me in front of her into the small side room. She picked upmy little sister, Monika, who was sleeping in the lower bunk. She wrappedthe thumb-sucking child tightly into her arms and sat down on the edge ofa chair. The grinding of the motors bore directly down on us; we sat withlowered heads, prepared to throw ourselves onto the concrete floor with thestart of the thuds and the tremors. We held our breath. Every fiber of ourbeings followed that lowering in...