thedrifter
03-15-07, 03:16 PM
Museum volunteer recalls childhood in WWII Germany
By Karen Middleton
THE NEWS COURIER (ATHENS, Ala.)
ATHENS, Ala. — “It’s not that we love war so much, but if not for war, I wouldn’t be in this country and I love this country so much,” says 68-year-old Margret Hoffmann Mefford.
Margret has shared her story many times of being a child in Nazi Germany and of Allied bombs falling around her family. Most Thursdays she can be found volunteering at the Alabama Veterans Museum and Archives in Athens.
As Margret says, she does not love war, but she does love the American military. For everything Americans took away from her in war-torn Germany, they have given back many times fold in the past 60 years, she says.
As a 7-year-old in Kassel, Germany, in late 1944, Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army was advancing from the west and the Russians were advancing from the east and British and American bombs were falling from the skies.
“When the bombing became so bad in late ’44, the women and children were evacuated to the country,” Margret said. “So we were put in Dingelstadt (50 miles to the east). So there we lived and didn’t have much to eat. Father came to visit us, and he was Luftwaffe. At the time he was there, the Americans came through and took him as a prisoner of war.”
“I remember it like it was yesterday. It was so noisy. That is what a child remembers — noise. They banged on the door and there they were. They took him away.”
Margret’s father, Erich Hoffmann, was taken to France, where he was to be held for a year.
"After the Americans took father prisoner, the next day mother met an American officer on the street. Before the war, she had been a secretary at the Henschel Co. plant in Kassel and she spoke English. In Germany, as in all of Europe, you have to learn a second language. You are surrounded by other countries. English is the business language of the world and you have to learn it.
“The officer told my mother there would be a border and no one wanted to fall into the hands of the Russians. We had all heard of the cruelties and atrocities against their own people (under Stalin’s rule). The officer told my mother to go back and establish a residence in her hometown. But she couldn’t take me because it was unsafe to travel with a child. It was unsafe for women, but two, my mother and another, went on back roads on bicycles.
“She left me with a lady. I sat and cried for my mother every day. The lady said, ‘Don’t worry for your mother. She’s never coming back.’ But who knows in the chaos of war? I clung to the hope my mother was coming back. I guess today they’d say I’d be a candidate for counseling. I didn’t have one, but I survived.”
“In the meantime, my mother had to register with the American Occupation in Kassel. Right away, they asked my mother to work for them because she could type and speak English. There were just so many displaced people. She said that, first, she had to find my grandmother, she had to find a place to live and she had to get me back from Dingelstadt because the Russians were coming.”
Margret said that because the family’s former apartment building had been bombed out, the Americans drove her mother through the streets and let her choose any house in which she wanted to live. When she pointed out a house, the Americans told the occupants they had to move to the third floor, and she occupied the lower floors.
“My mother had to be selfish at that point. My grandmother was living with neighbors across the street from our bombed-out house. When the bombing had started, my grandmother didn’t want to go, but we had strict orders from my father to go to the shelter. My grandmother stayed in the basement. She was dug out three days later and sent to the hospital and we were sent out to Dingelstadt.”
Margret said her mother told the American officers she needed transportation to Dingelstadt to retrieve her daughter. Because of her value to the Americans, Margret’s mother, Alexandrine Hoffmann, was given special treatment.
“They gave her a driver, guard and jeep and drove into the farmyard of the house where I was staying. I was sitting in the window. The GI’s had pockets full of goodies for children. She just walked in, took me and left and we went back to Kassel. Several weeks later the Russians occupied the area, but I was out.”
Alexandrine Hoffmann was to work for the Americans for the next two years.
“My father came back and he came into the kitchen and I wanted to know who that man was. He had lost so much weight during the war and I hadn’t seen him so much. He was limping. He had been injured and was walking with a cane. They said, ‘This is your father.’ But he was very much a stranger. Because of the war, our relationship had been lost. That is very sad, especially when I see my children’s relationship with their father.”
Margret said her father became involved, like much of occupied Germany, in black-market activities.
“I ate peanut butter for the first time. I bit into an orange, the whole thing; I didn’t know you were supposed to peel it. And white bread! I thought it was cake.”
Once her father became sufficiently established, he didn’t want her mother to continue working for the Americans. The Hoffmanns were to have two more children, sons Joachim and Ralf, after the war. Erich Hoffmann died at 42 in a car wreck.
The Germans grew used to the American occupation. At age 17, Margret had a date with an American GI. She was to meet him at the gates of the military base to attend a movie.
“He didn’t show up. He was called away and there was no phone to call me. Bobby Mefford, who was to be my husband, saw me standing at the gate. He had seen me before on base and winked at me. But he was six years older that me and I was incensed. I didn’t know him! They said, ‘Don’t pay attention. That’s old Mefford. He winks at all the girls.’
“He said, ‘So long as you’re here, why don’t you go to the movies with me?’ Well, I never saw anyone else after that. He was so nice. He didn’t have 10 hands—you know how guys are. And he liked me! I was flattered. I was 17, too young to go out with GI’s, but that’s the way it was then. It was a different time.”
Margret said that first date with Mefford was also the first time she had tasted Coca-Cola, eaten a hamburger and ate popcorn.
“I was appalled! They threw popcorn in the theatre. In Germany, if you throw down a little paper someone comes to get you. Just a different culture. Americans are just so friendly.”
The Meffords had one daughter, Susan, while still stationed in Germany. They came back to America and lived in Huntsville, raising five children. Bobby Mefford was to serve 27 years in the Army. Today, the couple lives in Harvest. One grandson is in the Army and just returned from Iraq, one in the Marines and one in the Navy.
Karen Middleton writes for The News Courier in Athens, Ala
Ellie
By Karen Middleton
THE NEWS COURIER (ATHENS, Ala.)
ATHENS, Ala. — “It’s not that we love war so much, but if not for war, I wouldn’t be in this country and I love this country so much,” says 68-year-old Margret Hoffmann Mefford.
Margret has shared her story many times of being a child in Nazi Germany and of Allied bombs falling around her family. Most Thursdays she can be found volunteering at the Alabama Veterans Museum and Archives in Athens.
As Margret says, she does not love war, but she does love the American military. For everything Americans took away from her in war-torn Germany, they have given back many times fold in the past 60 years, she says.
As a 7-year-old in Kassel, Germany, in late 1944, Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army was advancing from the west and the Russians were advancing from the east and British and American bombs were falling from the skies.
“When the bombing became so bad in late ’44, the women and children were evacuated to the country,” Margret said. “So we were put in Dingelstadt (50 miles to the east). So there we lived and didn’t have much to eat. Father came to visit us, and he was Luftwaffe. At the time he was there, the Americans came through and took him as a prisoner of war.”
“I remember it like it was yesterday. It was so noisy. That is what a child remembers — noise. They banged on the door and there they were. They took him away.”
Margret’s father, Erich Hoffmann, was taken to France, where he was to be held for a year.
"After the Americans took father prisoner, the next day mother met an American officer on the street. Before the war, she had been a secretary at the Henschel Co. plant in Kassel and she spoke English. In Germany, as in all of Europe, you have to learn a second language. You are surrounded by other countries. English is the business language of the world and you have to learn it.
“The officer told my mother there would be a border and no one wanted to fall into the hands of the Russians. We had all heard of the cruelties and atrocities against their own people (under Stalin’s rule). The officer told my mother to go back and establish a residence in her hometown. But she couldn’t take me because it was unsafe to travel with a child. It was unsafe for women, but two, my mother and another, went on back roads on bicycles.
“She left me with a lady. I sat and cried for my mother every day. The lady said, ‘Don’t worry for your mother. She’s never coming back.’ But who knows in the chaos of war? I clung to the hope my mother was coming back. I guess today they’d say I’d be a candidate for counseling. I didn’t have one, but I survived.”
“In the meantime, my mother had to register with the American Occupation in Kassel. Right away, they asked my mother to work for them because she could type and speak English. There were just so many displaced people. She said that, first, she had to find my grandmother, she had to find a place to live and she had to get me back from Dingelstadt because the Russians were coming.”
Margret said that because the family’s former apartment building had been bombed out, the Americans drove her mother through the streets and let her choose any house in which she wanted to live. When she pointed out a house, the Americans told the occupants they had to move to the third floor, and she occupied the lower floors.
“My mother had to be selfish at that point. My grandmother was living with neighbors across the street from our bombed-out house. When the bombing had started, my grandmother didn’t want to go, but we had strict orders from my father to go to the shelter. My grandmother stayed in the basement. She was dug out three days later and sent to the hospital and we were sent out to Dingelstadt.”
Margret said her mother told the American officers she needed transportation to Dingelstadt to retrieve her daughter. Because of her value to the Americans, Margret’s mother, Alexandrine Hoffmann, was given special treatment.
“They gave her a driver, guard and jeep and drove into the farmyard of the house where I was staying. I was sitting in the window. The GI’s had pockets full of goodies for children. She just walked in, took me and left and we went back to Kassel. Several weeks later the Russians occupied the area, but I was out.”
Alexandrine Hoffmann was to work for the Americans for the next two years.
“My father came back and he came into the kitchen and I wanted to know who that man was. He had lost so much weight during the war and I hadn’t seen him so much. He was limping. He had been injured and was walking with a cane. They said, ‘This is your father.’ But he was very much a stranger. Because of the war, our relationship had been lost. That is very sad, especially when I see my children’s relationship with their father.”
Margret said her father became involved, like much of occupied Germany, in black-market activities.
“I ate peanut butter for the first time. I bit into an orange, the whole thing; I didn’t know you were supposed to peel it. And white bread! I thought it was cake.”
Once her father became sufficiently established, he didn’t want her mother to continue working for the Americans. The Hoffmanns were to have two more children, sons Joachim and Ralf, after the war. Erich Hoffmann died at 42 in a car wreck.
The Germans grew used to the American occupation. At age 17, Margret had a date with an American GI. She was to meet him at the gates of the military base to attend a movie.
“He didn’t show up. He was called away and there was no phone to call me. Bobby Mefford, who was to be my husband, saw me standing at the gate. He had seen me before on base and winked at me. But he was six years older that me and I was incensed. I didn’t know him! They said, ‘Don’t pay attention. That’s old Mefford. He winks at all the girls.’
“He said, ‘So long as you’re here, why don’t you go to the movies with me?’ Well, I never saw anyone else after that. He was so nice. He didn’t have 10 hands—you know how guys are. And he liked me! I was flattered. I was 17, too young to go out with GI’s, but that’s the way it was then. It was a different time.”
Margret said that first date with Mefford was also the first time she had tasted Coca-Cola, eaten a hamburger and ate popcorn.
“I was appalled! They threw popcorn in the theatre. In Germany, if you throw down a little paper someone comes to get you. Just a different culture. Americans are just so friendly.”
The Meffords had one daughter, Susan, while still stationed in Germany. They came back to America and lived in Huntsville, raising five children. Bobby Mefford was to serve 27 years in the Army. Today, the couple lives in Harvest. One grandson is in the Army and just returned from Iraq, one in the Marines and one in the Navy.
Karen Middleton writes for The News Courier in Athens, Ala
Ellie