Escape
Page 26
The apartment block has been rebuilt and there is still a bakery on the ground floor.
Hammer Park
Our little house was pulled down on 18 November 1955 and the park returned to its natural beauty. All trace of the British soldiers and the families who shared the park with them are gone. When I walked around it recently I tried to find the exact spot where our home stood, but even the fruit trees have gone and the lush grass bears no imprint of the shallow foundations. The allotments have also long gone, and the kindergarten building.
The park is, as it always was, the centre of the area’s social life. There is a giant chessboard, with pieces the size of human beings; there is a hill called the Liebesberg, the love hill, because it seems to be the exclusive preserve of courting couples; there is a rose garden, a children’s playground, a roller-skating area, tennis courts, the athletics track that was there in my youth, minigolf, and (how about this for a beautiful German word) a Kleinkinderpinkelwinkel. It means a ‘little children’s wee-wee corner’ and is a small screened toilet area for little ones only.
The trees we climbed as youngsters remain: the park is justly proud of preserving some very old trees. There is a linden tree that is hundreds of years old and a very ancient oak that was damaged by a burning brand from a building during the bombing, but which is still standing.
Our house may not be there, but Hammer Park still feels like home.
Joanie
My son Meiki’s wife has remarried, another Brit. She now lives across the road from the house that she and Meiki shared. We stay in close touch.
Ray’s Four Sons
Stephen lives with his wife Patsy and their two sons James and Luke in Oxhey near Watford, Hertfordshire.
David now lives in Australia, near Perth, with his second wife Jane and two sons, Luke and Matthew. His first wife, Nicky, and their two children, Simon and Rachael, live in Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire.
Andrew and his wife Jo and their son Sam and daughter Jodie live in Bushey, Hertfordshire.
Matthew, the youngest, was at the time of writing this book on a world tour, spending some time in Australia with his brother David.
So, you see, with my two, AJ and Amy-Lou, and Graham’s sons, we have thirteen grandchildren, and a lot of birthdays and school events to attend. They keep us busy and happy.
Barbie’s parents, Norma & Waldemar on their wedding day, 5th October 1922.
Left to right: Eva, Barbie, Mutti & Ruth, 1942.
Barbie & her best friend from Kindergarten, Inge, celebrating Mother’s Day. Hamburg, 1942.
Barbie aged 4, topping and tailing gooseberries on the balcony of their apartment in Hamburg, 1942.
Barbie and Lumpie, her beloved puppy given to her by her father as a parting gift before he left to fight on the Russian front. Wartegau, 1944.
The brick factory house at Wartegau, 1944. Left to right back row: Mutti, Eva, Aunt Irma, Aunt Hilda. Left to right front row: Barbie, Henning, Volker.
Barbie in her red cardigan with the mother-of-pearl buttons and the red and white head scarf that just months later she was to wear on the trek with Eva. Lissa, Poland, 1944.
Eva wearing her ski clothes that she would later wear on the trek with Barbie. Tabarz, 1944.
The diary Eva wrote in throughout their trek and the little train given to Barbie by Miss Ramelow in Tabarz.
Inside pages of Eva’s diary showing her entry for what she called their ‘war Christmas, 1944’ and Barbie’s Christmas card to Eva: Luttens erster brief - ‘the little one’s first letter’.
Eva & Kurt on their wedding day, 29th November 1947.
Barbie in the sandals made for her by Kurt, outside Casper Voght High School, Hamburg, 1948.
Father lighting the candles on the tree. Hamburg, Christmas, 1960.
Barbie at university in Geneva, 1961.
Barbie with baby Meiki, 1964.
Left to right: Eva, Mutti and Barbie celebrating Mutti’s 70th birthday, 22nd April 1974.
Barbie in the national German costume & her husband Ray in the uniform of Her Majesty’s Band of the Welsh Guards, August 1981.
Meiki in his Springfield police uniform outside his home, The Firehouse, late 1997.
Left to right: Amy-Lou, Graham, AJ, Ray, Babs & Barbie, Christmas Eve, 2005.
Acknowledgements
For many years I have been saying that one day I would write down the story of my childhood but somehow I have never found the time. Then my husband Ray heard an announcement on Richard & Judy on Channel 4; they were looking for the best true-life stories to publish. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you have no excuse. You have to write it.’ So I did – and this is the result.
I have to thank Ray for the initial impetus, and for his patience and support during the months that I have been preoccupied with writing this book.
I must thank Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan for coming up with such a brilliant idea, and for being so lovely to me when I made my first (very nervous) appearance on their programme. I must also thank the thousands of viewers who voted for my story to be one of those published, and I want to give a big thank you to Käte Elton, Emma Rose and everyone at Arrow Books for all their fantastic support and encouragement. I also want to thank Zoe Russell-Stretten, who made the mini-documentary about me and my sister Eva, which so captured the feeling of those times.
A very big thank you goes to Jean Ritchie, who is such a pleasure to work with. Jean, this is our book.
Most of all, I want to thank all the unnamed people, many of them soldiers, who helped us when we needed help so badly.
Finally, I give my thanks to my extended family and my many friends, for all the love I have enjoyed throughout my life.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Published by Arrow Books 2006
Copyright © Barbie Probert-Wright 2006
Design: Ceara Elliot
Images: Arcangel and Getty Images
Barbie Probert-Wright has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Dr Eva Brües for permission to reproduce ‘Koln. Allerseelen 1944’ by Otto Brües, and to Morag Perrott for her design of the map on p. xv.
First published as Little Girl Lost by Arrow Books in 2006
This edition published by Arrow Books in 2019
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781473573673