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Woof1701 · 02-16-07, 05:45 AM

I never met my maternal grandfather and so I don't know any specifics, which might be a blessing. Only what my mother and grandmother told me. He was a German Army Medic on the Eastern Front near the end of the war, and was captured by the Russians and served as a medic in the POW camp under very bad conditions. Most injured soldiers died already on the way to the camp and were simply left lying next to the street. There was little to no medication and if you got infected or ill you had very poor chance to survive the labor camp. My grandpa was among the "fortunate" to be released after only five years. Many German POWs stayed far longer or never returned.
During the last months of the war many people - among them my grandmother with my one-year-old mother - had to flee their homes in Eastern Prussia, where her family had been living for ages, from the advancing Russians. Luckily my grandfather had managed to arrange for them a place to stay in Garmisch in Southern Bavaria. So my grandmother packed the stuff and her two children and set off on a journey into the unknown. They were lucky to leave in time since the Russian soldiers made little difference whether you were a civilian or a not. Many of her neighbors never made it out of East Prussia. The 1500 km trip took almost two weeks on foot and parts of it by train, where the railway system hadn't been destroyed and they arrived in Garmisch shortly before the war ended and were lucky to be in US-occupied territory.
My grandmother raised her two children in Garmisch alone until my grandfather returned from POW. Apparently he had changed a lot but never lost his kindness until he died in 1970. My grandmother never returned to her home in Eastern Prussia - now in Poland - not even for a visit after the "Iron Curtain" was drawn back in 1990 and visits were possible. Her son - my uncle - however went back for a visit in the mid 1990s and found many places still intact and even several people of Polish ancestry he knew are still living there. No Germans though. They either fled or were killed. My grandmother died in 2004 at the age of 97.

02-16-07, 05:45 AM	#40
Woof1701 Commodore Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Munich, Germany, Home of U-96 Posts: 633 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	I never met my maternal grandfather and so I don't know any specifics, which might be a blessing. Only what my mother and grandmother told me. He was a German Army Medic on the Eastern Front near the end of the war, and was captured by the Russians and served as a medic in the POW camp under very bad conditions. Most injured soldiers died already on the way to the camp and were simply left lying next to the street. There was little to no medication and if you got infected or ill you had very poor chance to survive the labor camp. My grandpa was among the "fortunate" to be released after only five years. Many German POWs stayed far longer or never returned. During the last months of the war many people - among them my grandmother with my one-year-old mother - had to flee their homes in Eastern Prussia, where her family had been living for ages, from the advancing Russians. Luckily my grandfather had managed to arrange for them a place to stay in Garmisch in Southern Bavaria. So my grandmother packed the stuff and her two children and set off on a journey into the unknown. They were lucky to leave in time since the Russian soldiers made little difference whether you were a civilian or a not. Many of her neighbors never made it out of East Prussia. The 1500 km trip took almost two weeks on foot and parts of it by train, where the railway system hadn't been destroyed and they arrived in Garmisch shortly before the war ended and were lucky to be in US-occupied territory. My grandmother raised her two children in Garmisch alone until my grandfather returned from POW. Apparently he had changed a lot but never lost his kindness until he died in 1970. My grandmother never returned to her home in Eastern Prussia - now in Poland - not even for a visit after the "Iron Curtain" was drawn back in 1990 and visits were possible. Her son - my uncle - however went back for a visit in the mid 1990s and found many places still intact and even several people of Polish ancestry he knew are still living there. No Germans though. They either fled or were killed. My grandmother died in 2004 at the age of 97.