Today my mum told me an amazing story...
My mum works with people who suffer from impairment in their
ears and their eyes. She has recently been looking after a lady who is
originally from Poland. This lady told my mum about how she was sent to work on
farms in Germany during the war and occupation. The lady was quite lucky and
ended up with a friendly German family and she helped to look after their son.
Upon finding out that my mum is German, the lady proceeded to tell her how kind
the German family were to her.
One day when my mum was visiting the lady said that her son
had found a German professor who had the same name and lived in the same city
as the boy she used to look after. My mum agreed to help the lady write a
letter to the professor asking him if there was the slightest chance he was the
same person. The professor replied and said he was and he remembered the lady
looking after him.
Their memories of each other are quite different. She says she
remembers him asking her why she didn't know any German and where she was from.
Apparently he used to point to cutlery and furniture and say the nouns for her
to repeat. He also made up rhymes to help her with the numbers, days of the
week, months and other simple words.
His memory of her is her saving his life and all the lives
of his family.
Though the lady didn't talk about this to begin with, the
professor mentioned it in his letter and then my mum heard the whole story. As
the Nazi regime fell and the Allies made their way across Germany they stormed
into the professor's family home and nearly put them all to death. The Polish
lady stood up in front of them and spoke to the soldiers about how the family
had saved her and treated her well. The Allied soldiers left them safely while
other families in the city were killed.
The Polish lady and the German professor have now got a
little correspondence going on (thanks to my mum's interpreting skills) and I
think it is so wonderful that these two people have found each other again
after living through such a terrible time and being countries apart.
Bravery can be found in all sorts of places!
<3
