Chemnitz contemporary witnesses: Renate Hähle

When I was born in 1940, the war was already underway. I grew up with the words "war" - "bombs" - "front" and heard them far too often in my childhood environment. My mother's brother Heinz was killed in action. I don't know where and I can't ask anyone about it. In 1943, my dad was killed near Sevastopol in the Crimea, in Russia. My mum always said a prayer with me in the evening: "Dear God, make me pious, let Daddy come back". He never came back and I can only remember women dressed in black crying around me. When it became too much for me, I'm supposed to have said to my mum: "But you won't cry tomorrow, because tomorrow is a new day." She later told me that she had adopted this as her motto for life.

Before 5 March, attacks also began in Chemnitz and many people - we were there - watched the bombings with curiosity and inner fear. The Müllerstrasse health insurance centre and Kaßbergstrasse were hit. We lived at the castle in Rießnerstrasse in a small, simple flat in my paternal grandparents' house. Only my grandmother was still alive and my uncle Paul (my father's brother) and his wife Liesbeth lived next door to us. We played "war" with the neighbour's children and packed our dolls and toys into the back of our house. As a result, my doll's pram was spared from the fire.

At times there were strips of tin foil - we called it silver paper - lying on the streets, which we collected. They had been dropped by aeroplanes to interfere with radio communications and to ensure the accuracy of the bombs.

There were frequent alarms and the sirens wailed terribly. I woke my mum and got dressed quickly. And my Uncle Paul picked me up and, to my delight, we were always the first in the cellar. One by one, the other residents arrived and we waited in fear for the "all-clear sirens". I was given a pouch with Aunt Else's address and my date of birth in case I got lost. Uncle Paul, Aunt Liesbeth and Mummy met at our radio in the evening (I don't know what time, it was always late for me as soon as it was dark outside) and listened - very quietly of course, because it was forbidden under penalty of law - to the station from London. The next bombing raids were announced from there.

Dresden had already been reduced to rubble. My aunt Else in Adelsberg had seen the firelight from Dresden from Chemnitz. Her house was on a hill and we had a good view. So we knew that the attack on Chemnitz was imminent.

Aunt Else wanted to take us up to the mountain, but my mum didn't want to leave her modest little flat. She had made provisions and brought duvets, crockery and everything we thought was important to our back house. Just like we children had always played.

When I was put to bed in the evening, I was fully dressed except for my winter coat and hat so that I could go to bed quickly when the time came. I fell asleep and it was the middle of the night for me (9.00 pm) when the sirens went off. I don't think my mum had slept at all because she knew what was coming. My uncle Paul picked me up as usual and everyone gathered in the cellar.

The worst thing for me was when the gas masks had to be put on. I cried and was terrified when the familiar faces around me disappeared behind the horrible masks.

My mum didn't torture me with them. She tied damp cloths soaked in vinegar over my nose and mouth to protect me from gas or dust clouds and thus ensure my survival. There were terrible noises around us as the many (they say hundreds) of aeroplanes approached. There was crashing and hissing and it was worse than the worst thunderstorm. Many bombs must have fallen in the city centre.

That evening, my Matthess grandad suddenly turned up at our house. He was a full-time firefighter. The firefighters had been sent away as it would have been pointless to deploy them anyway. He knew that we could use him. He then fetched Mummy's sewing machine from our flat on the first floor. He was a strong man and suddenly my grandad and the sewing machine flew or floated away. And the cellar door down the cellar stairs to our little group of anxious people. The air pressure carried him. At least that's how I remember it. Then there was a terrible crash and the whole house shook, right down to the cellar. "Now it's hit us" - I remember these words from the adults very clearly. Now we had to get out of the cellar as quickly as possible, because nobody knew when the house would collapse or when firebombs, phosphorus bombs or whatnot would fall into the cellar.

I don't know how we got to the street. I was a small child and would fall asleep from time to time because I was overtired. Then we were standing on the street opposite our house. It was snowing a bit and there was slush on the road. We saw our house on fire. I don't know what the others next to me were doing and saying. I just looked into the flames, mesmerised. The whole street was on fire. Every layer of roof was coming off one by one. The roof tiles, the roofing felt, the rafters. Everything flew up as if lifted by a ghostly hand and was suddenly gone in the flames. It was ghostly. There were firebombs on the streets and footpaths. My mother had provided a pushchair for me to make better progress on the run. But it was gone when we needed it. She carried me like a bundle under her arm and we wanted to go to the Luisenschule in the cellar. Then the low-flying planes came and shot at everything that moved in the small streets. My mother had to climb over firebombs and at Luisenplatz we crawled under a park bench to be safe from the bombers. My grandfather was probably with us, but I don't remember. Only my mum was important to me and I felt safe with her. The sounds of the aeroplanes and burning houses were terrible. I don't remember when we got to the Luisenschule or what time it was.

At some point we walked on through the night in the direction of Glösa or Borna. An acquaintance (an employee in Uncle Wolfgang's company) lived in a housing estate there - Mr Clemens. We found shelter there and stayed. I don't know how long.

At some point we made our way to Aunt Else's in Adelsberg. A fully loaded handcart, my mum, my grandad and me. The pram had returned to the ruins of our house and Grandad and Mummy had already brought a few stored things to safety. I think we spent a whole day marching along Reichenhainer Straße towards Adelsberg with hundreds of other people from the town. The town centre was impassable and completely blocked by piles of rubble that burned for days.

In the meantime, my grandfather had discovered that his house in C.-v.-Ossietzky-Straße was still standing. A huge bomb crater with a huge bomb in front of the house made it impossible to live there for the time being. We then found accommodation with Aunt Else in Adelsberg.

I only know that my mum often had to go into town to our ruins to get her things. It was also looted and stolen. I always wanted to go with her and hung on her coat-tails. She always told me that the town was still on fire. That was the only reason I didn't want to go with her.

That was 5 March 1945 for me.

Then the post-war period began. But that's another part of the story. I remember the mountains of white cabbage in front of the few shops, the queues in front of the drinking water dispensers, the work assignments to clean bricks, the Russians marching in endless lines on horse and cart along Zschopauer Straße. I remember that my 14-year-old cousin Anita had to be hidden in the neighbours' hay and that as a child I had to bring the Russians water jugs for their horses and soldiers. It was well known that Russians loved children and nothing could happen to me as a 4-year-old.

I will never forget everything I wrote down. I also don't like words like "bombing weather" and the like and don't use them. Because it wasn't "bombing weather" in our town at the time, otherwise the bombs wouldn't have hit our houses but the Hartmann factory (armaments factory).

Where women like my mother got the strength to start again is a mystery to me. But they loved life and what little they had left and, of course, us children.

This is where the contemporary witness lived her story:

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