Chemnitz contemporary witnesses: Siegfried Kemter
On 6 February 1945, the southern district around the Luther Church was attacked in the morning. Our house on Senefelder Str. was hit and part of the house was demolished. Nobody was injured, but the house had to be evacuated immediately. My mother and I found shelter in my mother's parents' house in Annenstrasse. We transported the remains of our furniture there by handcart over a period of weeks.
We were in Annenstrasse on 5 March 1945 during the major attack on Chemnitz. When the alarm went off in the evening, we had to go to the central air-raid shelter in the Reitbahnstrasse / Annenstrasse school because the windows in our cellar on Annenstrasse were lower than the street. Phosphorus actually leaked in. There were about 600 people in the central air-raid shelter. You can imagine the conditions in terms of air, fear and noise from outside. Despite the alarm still sounding, we had to leave the cellar as quickly as possible because the school had been hit. The sight when we came out onto the street was terrible. Everything around us was on fire, it was a storm. After everyone had left the school, large parts of the school collapsed. We couldn't get back to our house on Annenstrasse. We fled in the direction of Bernsbach Platz Reichenhainer Strasse, over rubble and past falling houses.
We had lost everything. My mother only had a bag with papers, I had my school bag and a net with wet sheets. We had folded the sheets over to protect against fire.
Before reaching Reichenhainer Strasse, we walked across fields near the technical college in the direction of Erfenschlag. It had snowed and everything looked white. Low-flying aircraft came and shot at those fleeing. We lay down in the snow with our sheets. Then we continued towards Erfenschlag. We were turned back at the railway bridge (line towards Aue) because Erfenschlag and Einsiedel were also bombed. It was now midnight. We now headed in the direction of Annaberger Strasse. On Schulstr. we rested with people we knew until 6.00 am. Our starting point was the town hall in Harthau. There we were immediately sent on in the direction of Klaffenbach, where we were told to report. We were welcomed there and put in touch with a family who gave us something to eat and allowed us to sleep for the night. The next day we walked from Klaffenbach to Markersdorf, where we had relatives. But there were already a lot of people there, so we had to move on after we'd had another night's rest. Our next destination was Hohenstein-Ernstthal. We walked from Markersdorf to Siegmar-Schoenau and waited until a train left for Hohenstein-Ernstthal. We arrived in Hohenstein-Ernstthal at around 18:00 on Thursday. At the station we were told to leave immediately. We were only allowed into the town because we had relatives there. Anyone who has experienced this knows what war means.
Contemporary witness brochures
Memories of a childhood during the war
The last witnesses
When the old Chemnitz died in a hail of bombs