Death in Poland
The Fate of the Ethnic Germans.

Chapter 1:
The Beginning - September 3, 1939

September 3rd was one of those summer days one only finds in the East: the sky devoid of clouds, its blue a bit faded, and with a dry wind blowing in from Russia. In the gardens the trees were weighed down by fruit, along the fences the dahlias were bursting into bloom - if this weather held a bit longer it would make for a bountiful harvest. But would there even be time to bring it in, seeing as war with Germany had broken out two days ago?

Just as an impending thunderstorm on a hot day makes itself known in advance, a strange, gloomy tension lay in the air. For months already the Germans had suffered under Polish trespasses, but now there was something new evident in their manner: why did they suddenly look so strangely at the Germans, why did even close acquaintances no longer speak to them? It had still been possible that Sunday morning to attend church in Bromberg without coming to harm, if one avoided speaking German loudly enough to be overheard. At most one had to get out of the way of groups of singing soldiers in the streets, but most Germans did get back to their homes unmolested. And so they now sat in their Sunday best in their rooms, or if there were gardens around their suburban houses, they also sat in the small garden pavilions while the children set the tables for lunch.

Admittedly, since the first day of the war many had been arrested again, primarily of course the known leaders of the ethnic German movements, but so far no complaints about the treatment of the arrested Germans had been heard, since most of them had not returned from the prisons and one could therefore only conjecture about what was happening to them. Might the upshot of it all be a new border zone law, after the first had already expropriated so many of them? And so the German citizens continued to sit silently beside their radios and listened with pounding hearts to the German stations and to the reports of the German army's rapid advance. It's only a matter of hours, some said, before we too will be liberated here! And even if it takes a few more days, said others, all in all our time of suffering is over...

Death
in PolandThe
Fate of the Ethnic Germans.
Chapter
1:The Beginning - September 3, 1939
September
3rd was one of those summer days one only finds in the East: the sky devoid of
clouds, its blue a bit faded, and with a dry wind blowing in from Russia. In the
gardens the trees were weighed down by fruit, along the fences the dahlias were
bursting into bloom - if this weather held a bit longer it would make for a
bountiful harvest. But would there even be time to bring it in, seeing as war
with Germany had broken out two days ago?
Just
as an impending thunderstorm on a hot day makes itself known in advance, a
strange, gloomy tension lay in the air. For months already the Germans had
suffered under Polish trespasses, but now there was something new evident in
their manner: why did they suddenly look so strangely at the Germans, why did
even close acquaintances no longer speak to them? It had still been possible
that Sunday morning to attend church in Bromberg without coming to harm, if one
avoided speaking German loudly enough to be overheard. At most one had to get
out of the way of groups of singing soldiers in the streets, but most Germans
did get back to their homes unmolested. And so they now sat in their Sunday best
in their rooms, or if there were gardens around their suburban houses, they also
sat in the small garden pavilions while the children set the tables for lunch.
Admittedly,
since the first day of the war many had been arrested again, primarily of course
the known leaders of the ethnic German movements, but so far no complaints about
the treatment of the arrested Germans had been heard, since most of them had not
returned from the prisons and one could therefore only conjecture about what was
happening to them. Might the upshot of it all be a new border zone law, after
the first had already expropriated so many of them? And so the German citizens
continued to sit silently beside their radios and listened with pounding hearts
to the German stations and to the reports of the German army's rapid advance.
It's only a matter of hours, some said, before we too will be liberated here!
And even if it takes a few more days, said others, all in all our time of
suffering is over...