It was a long journey and the weather was not very favorable. We didn’t have much luggage, one little suitcase with just enough clothing that we usually kept at my grandparents house.
Transportation was sparse and we took every opportunity available to get further away from Dresden to reunite with my Dad in Wuerzburg.
I remember walking, a lot of walking. Sometimes we were lucky to catch a ride on an old farmer’s hay wagon powerded by two horses. The hay felt nice and warm as we all were cold, hungry, and I’m sure cranky. I never heard my mom complaining. She sang and prayed with us and it gave us strength to go on.
During all this, my youngest sister got sick, very sick and we had to find a doctor for her. It wasn’t good she had to be hospitalized. What now, no place for us to stay. When every thing looked impossible and hopeless there was a silver lining to hold on to. We met a farmer who told us about a empty cabin in the woods. Oh wow, what a miracle.
Another example how God has taken care of us. The people living there just took off running, In that cabin was everything we needed, including food.
There were military soldiers around, maybe thats the reason they left in a hurry. I remember one incident when the soldiers came marching towards us with the guns pointing at us ready to shoot. My mom placed herself in the front and lined us up in back of her. It was scary and we waited in that position till the soldiers finished searching through the house. Maybe they were looking for the owner of the cabin, who knows.
After my sister got well we stayed there for a little while longer. It was a long way to walk through the woods to the nearest village to get food. Some days we got shot at, it came out of nowhere. It probably was meant to scare us. My mom told us not to be afraid we are protected. It didn’t made much sense to me at that time but now I know what she was talking about. Other times we saw bodies hanging from the trees, that was scary. It was no place to linger on. Terrible things happened in the Village — that was enough for us to start moving on. …
— continued later —