Chemnitz contemporary witnesses: Ruth Meise
I experienced 5 March in a small cellar in Reichenbrand as a 15-year-old with a 30-year-old aunt and 20-year-old bombed-out cousin from Berlin and their two small children. The next morning, two great-aunts who had been bombed out arrived; they had run a flower shop opposite the former synagogue.
In April, a tank shell hit the Rabenstein forest next to our house, fired by American troops, while we were all eating lunch in the kitchen. A great aunt got a splinter in her knee, her cousin died immediately from a splinter in her head. A splinter went through my coat without hurting me - I only had hearing damage.
The six-month-old girl survived in the cellar, the three-year-old boy slept unharmed in the neighbouring room and the other great-aunt next to me escaped with a scare.
This is where the contemporary witness lived her story:
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