Balkan III

Balkan III

While I was encouraged to eat something Oleg’s sister prepared a bath for me and  put a clean sheet on her own be so that I could sleep. Meanwhile they caught up on news about their own family who was scattered all over the Balkans.I gratefully, went to sleep only to be awakened by the sister.”Hurry up, your train is leaving in a few minutes. Oleg will take you and we have to pack and leave here tonight, the Russians are close.So  Oleg and I dashed to the station where the train was ready to leave with or without me. I was handed through a window just as the train started pulling out heading north toward Hungary.

By daylight we were in Hungary where the sun was beating down on us. But looking toward the Austrian border we saw clouds and rain. All day long the train zigzagged toward the border-away from the border, toward it and again away.Somewhere behind us and further north lay Budapest which we could only see from a distance. It was burning.

So we  sloly reached the Austrian border and temporary safety,whatever that meant in those days. We were deposited at a Vienna  station which now does not exist anymore, somewhere in he south of the city.

The station was deserted and we had the large center hall to ourselves. Since there were only a few benches I simply layed down on the stone floor using my small leather bag which contained all the essentials, such as documents and toothbrush etc. ,as pillow.Next to me was my suitcase whose broken handle I kept in my hand so that I would know if someone was trying to take it. I was so exhausted that I actually slept, uncomfortable as the situation was  Early in the morning I woke up, looking not at the ceiling but at hundreds of legs. I was surrounded by people who had come to the station over night to flee the city which had again been hit by bombs.Somehow our guide found a train for us and we started on our final leg home to Breslau.

The trip north through Austria was totally uneventful The landsape appeared peacful. No sign  of war or any kind of unrest. We passed Prag and I waved longingly at the Hradchin up on the hill. It took me fifty years to finally be able to visit Prag.

Back in Breslau it was another story. At the school the outer office was filled  with very young  boys and old men who had armed themselves with any kind of gun or rifle they had been able to find. They were getting ready to fight the Russians who were coming closer and closer. It was a truly pityful sight watching these males  preparing to defend their city.By the time the city was actually beleaguered I was back at my mother’s and followed the defense of Breslau  via Radio Moskau. Amazingly, it took days, if not even a few weeks. for the Russian army to take the city.

I have never been back in that part of the world. Breslau is now called Wroslov and belongs  to Poland,so does the entire State of Silesia. It still took a bit more than half a year for this war to be finally over.During this time more and  more  my trip to  Greece and the Balkan receded into the background to be cherished as a beautiful memory.Though I knew then that I would never want to go back to that region. Partly because I  knew that nothing would be as it had been and I didn’t want to be disapointed.