I feel that I need to clarify a few points based upon some of the reviews I have received. It could be that I was not clear enough in my books or perhaps, some readers simply missed them.

One of my readers commented that he did not know about the KLV ( children evacuation)  camps.  I cannot say for certain why he never heard about them, but I do want to remind my readers that  I am writing about my personal experiences in Berlin and in that respect, I have firsthand knowledge of the camps.  There is also a great deal of information about them on the internet as well.

Berlin, as well as Dresden, Hamburg  and a few other cities were the major target of the allied air attacks. In some of the cities, like Berlin, these air attacks lasted over two years. Dresden experienced a fire storm which lasted for three days nonstop, causing the asphalt to melt. Because of this, individual school administrations initiated the  air evacuation system. The camps were located in selected parts of Germany and German occupied Poland, which were not on the list of the allied air targets.

Long after the war, I personally met school children in my age group who lived in Western Germany, along the Rhine River, who never experienced a single air attack. It was almost as if they had been in a different war. Thanks to the Americans they never saw a single Russian, let alone a Mongolian or a Russian Kommissar..

Western Germany was spared a bloodshed, thanks to a civilized enemy. Parts of Eastern Germany, by contrast, were slaughtered.

One of my reviewers wrote that I “toned down” my writing which clearly did not sensationalized the brutality or the horrors after the Russian occupation.  He’s absolutely correct, I did tone it down. While I personally witnessed the atrocities, I see no reason to repeat that which had been reported or white washed to no end. By now everyone alive knows that “War is hell.”

This brings me to the mindset of my classmates during the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945.

There was no doubt in our minds that once our father was drafted …we would never see him again. We literary buried our father in our mind while he was still alive. There was also no doubt in our mind that we would lose our mothers too. It was not a question of “if” but a question of “when”.

I had many eight and ten year old children come up to me in the camps. They came in the evenings, when the few activities of the day slowed down, and they asked me: “Horst, when my parents are gone, will you still be my friend?”

I simply wrote the first three books to give a voice to my age group which did not survive. I have no agenda other than trying to convey what it was like when you were 14 years old and asked to do the job of an adult……at a time when the adults in your life disappeared. Arrested, killed in action or by suicide.

Another reviewer remarked that “the author did not once mention the extermination camps.” He is correct. I did not mentioned the camps because as a 14 year old in Berlin I did not see them or hear about them. None of these camps existed in Berlin and because I did not have firsthand knowledge of them, I could not write about them. I did, however, write about the Germans who disappeared because they wore sandals and were therefore called Jesus imitators. They offended the SS and this alone  was a crime in itself.

My own grandfather disappeared one night and was never seen again. I still don’t know why. My best guess is that in spite of his wisdom he did not know when to keep his mouth shut.

Well,  I hope that this clarified some unasked questions.  If I still missed something please feel free to leave a comment below.

And, thank you for reading my books.