Chemnitz contemporary witnesses: Gisela Altendorf

"I lived with my family - my parents and my sister Karin, who was eleven years younger - at Walkgraben 27a." Until 5 March 1945, it was a residential complex with several houses. Kitchen, bedroom, children's room, even an indoor toilet. The houses were built by stocking manufacturer Esche. Today, his factory is one of the oldest remaining in the city.

"I had a lovely childhood. We played theatre, in winter we went sledging on the little hill that you can still see today on the Walkgraben. Until the war started." Father Friedrich worked in a special factory that made aeroplane wheels. He didn't have to go to the front. Mum Hertha was a housewife. "That was hard back then." Gisela laughs. "Piles of nappies had to be washed, then scrubbed on the washboard. It's different today ..."

She remembers the first bombing raid. Eleven American B17 bombers dropped 26 tonnes of bombs over Rabenstein on 12 May 1944. They fell near two family homes. An infant died. It was the first Chemnitz bombing death of the war. "My aunt lived there, she was lucky, she wasn't hit. Then there was a mass migration out of there, everyone wanted to see the bomb craters."

What was everyday life like during the war? "The law at school back then was that if the air raid siren went off until 10 pm, we had lessons an hour later in the morning. If it went on until midnight, it was two hours later. We sat in the bomb shelter and hoped it would be late today. We were just kids." But things got worse and worse. Daytime bombing followed, water and electricity failed. "And our house didn't have a cellar. We had to get out when the air raid alarm went off and run into empty underground storage rooms. The Esche company had made them available to protect many people from the air."

Then came 5 March. "There was an air raid alarm during the day. We were just about to sit down to dinner when the pre-alarm sounded, but it immediately turned into an alarm (otherwise you had about 15 minutes). When we ran out, the "Christmas trees" (note: illuminated bomber markings) were already in the sky. We made it into the camp shelter with great difficulty, and then the bombs started to fall." She can still remember it clearly: the thunder caused the doors of a lift leading downstairs to slam shut. "My father went out and had a look. When he came back, he said our house was gone, there were air mines in there and explosive bombs. And later there were firebombs. We were scared in the shelter. All the people. There was panic. And then there was water. A pipe burst? Everyone was shouting: 'We have to get out!'" But the planes were overhead ... When the bombers had gone, the terrified people just managed to see their houses burning from the destroyed Goethestraße. "We stood there with what we had on our bodies. And we were lucky to have escaped with our lives. But it was the most terrible experience of my life."

Where was the family with two children to go? "We ran to my aunt's house in Rabenstein, then my other aunt, who had been bombed out on Kaßberg, came too. Later we all walked up to the Erzgebirge, and at night we slept in pubs where straw had been piled up. We were given bread and jam." Eventually, the family ended up in Lichtenstein. "There we met a woman from Gablenz who had lost both her children in air raids."

The last days of the war: first the Americans came, then the Russians. "And then came the drama afterwards ... the hunger, the cold, there was no heating material. We sat as a family in a small room by a cooker, wrapped in blankets, a candle on the table." On 1 May 1946, the family moved back to Limbacher Straße in Chemnitz. There was often only food for the children, the parents were driven out of the kitchen by hunger. "We went to stubble potatoes and pick ears of corn." The city was full of rubble. "The city centre was gone, there used to be narrow streets around the town hall. Opposite, where Kaufhof is today, there was one cinema after another."

It was terrible for Gisela back then. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone. The images often come back to me, the fire, the water and the cries of 'We have to get out of here!!!'. I can't sit in the cinema surrounded by people. I feel like I'm suffocating. I have to go to the edge." She pauses. "Peace doesn't fall from the sky. You have to fight for it."

At 18, Ursula Altendorf went to Berlin to work as a teacher. First primary school, then middle school maths. She only came back a few years ago. To her homeland? "Today, Chemnitz is a new city for me."

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