Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: The USA (01/08/09)
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TITLE: LAND OF THE FREE (ii) | Previous Challenge Entry
By Annerose Shwaery
01/10/09 -
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Here we go again to the basement next door, our bomb shelter. The town siren let us know another air raid would be imminent. Mama and I running again while the night sky and stars are watching. It seems it’s always happening in the middle of the night and I am half asleep as I am torn out of my warm featherbed. Here we sit with our neighbors worried about the collapse of the building.
The year was 1944 and I was six years old. I really didn’t understand why there was a War, or why anyone would want to destroy us here in Germany. We work very hard, do kind neighborly deeds helping each other survive in a little village.
Once, while I was playing in the street, during the day, an airplane flew overhead, swept down low and started strafing. At first I was immobilized standing at a pole but I was so afraid that I ran, even though my mother shouted out the window, “don’t run, don’t run”. Yes, our neighbor dug up some shells and I lived. That airplane couldn’t possibly see a child standing there.
Mama always told me that we would someday go to the United States where my aunts and uncles lived. I believed this would happen; Mama had a lot of faith and said, “God will see us through all this”. “There we won’t have to worry so much”.
After a while though, some American troops marched in with tanks and trucks and put up camp right across the street from our house. This created another fear, but I found they were really nice soldiers and I didn’t have to be afraid of them. They always gave the children lots of candy and I learned about gum. Unfortunately, they didn’t stay too long and when the soldiers pulled out, the Russian soldiers came in and they never left.
We would go to church meetings in the evening, even though a curfew was in effect. Walking home one such night, Mama threw me in a ditch and jumped on top of me before I knew what hit me. She heard Russian soldiers on motorcycles and that meant we were not safe. As we lay in the ditch to let them pass, she said, “God will see us home safely. Nothing will happen to us. We are coming from his house”. I was crying softly and shaking as she reassured me.
When I turned twelve, a miracle happened. My brother, with God’s help, was able to arrange for us to escape this zone of Germany, just before the Iron Curtain went up. A year later, I arrived in Boston, MA to see all those aunts and uncles who lived in the United States. I was so happy. What a different world.
I feel truly blessed that God has given me this opportunity when so many of my friends and family had to stay behind, go hungry, fear for their safety, have no freedom to worship or do as they pleased, and die never knowing about this great country.
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