Chemnitz contemporary witnesses: Christiane Schumann
Christiane Schumann, née Wagner, was on the night shift at Bankhaus Metzner on Johannisplatz and went to her flat on Schillerstrasse, now Straße der Nationen, early on 5 March. "The early attack was felt quite strongly in the city. I had the unmistakable feeling that something had happened here. And when I arrived, people from the house were already telling me: 'Don't be scared, everything's gone'. My relatives were in the cellar. And when we shouted downstairs, 'Is anyone still alive here? But everything was gone. So we loaded bread and what we had onto the sledge - it was a snowy day - and went to Rottluff. Our relatives were there."
In the evening, the families fled to the Rabenstein rock dome: "When we got up there, it didn't take long for them to plant these Christmas trees. They were used to mark where the bombs were to be dropped. And when we came out of the rock domes - I'll never forget it for the rest of my life - the city was one big inferno and the sky was glowing red."
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