Chemnitz contemporary witnesses: Wolfgang Eckart
There was an alarm on 5 March 1945. We had to go from the rear building to the cellar of the front building and waited for almost an hour. The landlord then said: "Let's go back into the flat, but stay awake." Then the alarm sounded again and we ran back into the cellar and we could already hear the bombers coming. The bombs fell softly. The humming got louder and louder. A young girl who had just had a baby lived under the roof in the front building. She started to scream: "I've still got my baby upstairs and the bombs are already falling!" A young bloke lived with us and said, "Give me the key!" He ran upstairs. Despite the fact that the bombs were falling, he ran up and got the baby. He saved everything he could get, nappies and bottles, because the next morning the house was gone. Everything had burnt down.
That night, a mine hit the school opposite. And the blast wave was so big that it blew all the soot out of the cellar hatches and we couldn't breathe. They were already preparing to break through the walls of the neighbouring houses. The people next door wanted to escape to us, and we wanted to escape to them. Left and right, no-one could move forwards, no-one could catch their breath. Everyone up, up the stairs and the cellar door was closed.
I had been hit on the back with a brick during that night of bombing. But I didn't say anything out of fear. I could still move. One man pushed himself up the stairs against the door at least ten times until he managed to get it open a little bit and we all saved ourselves. There were no fat people.
Now we were standing outside in the open, but the bombs were still falling. As a nine-year-old boy, you had to experience that. Bombs falling all around you and not knowing where to go in fear.
We walked to Hilbersdorf. We went from aunt to aunt until they said: "There's a flat available there." We shared it. Each family made arrangements with another family so that nobody had to spend the night outside. But nobody had anything to eat. We had nothing to eat for three or four days. Everything was broken. And in our distress, what did we young people do? We went into the houses through the cellar windows. Sometimes you could still see jars of preserves on the shelves. Of course, we got hold of it. And that's how we just about made ends meet. It was a famine that nobody can imagine.
So, the best thing is not to start a war. Everything else is unimportant.
Contemporary witness brochures
The eternal March
Memories of a childhood during the war
The last witnesses
When the old Chemnitz died in a hail of bombs