Amelie - unwanted and unloved E-Book

Anni Reinhardt

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 87

Beschreibung

Short summary: Shortly after the end of the war, Tina, the daughter of a Slovenian family resettled in Germany, is raped. She wants to take her own life but is saved by a young man. The family returns to Slovenia shortly afterwards. Tina discovers that she is pregnant. She marries the young man who saved her life and has a daughter. Little Amelie is not loved by her mother. She reminds her of the rape. Amelie has a difficult childhood. Only her grandfather and her brother stick by her. Despite her difficult childhood, Amelie goes her own way, leaves Slovenia and lives in Germany, where she is welcomed with open arms and finally finds happiness.

Leseprobe

After a hard day's work in October 1941, the farmer`s family sat on the oak bench in front of their straw-covered house. All the family members were happy to have managed the hard work in this godforsaken area of Slovenia, the last corner of Lower Styria on the border with Croatia. The farmer, a former soldier on horseback in the First World War, was of medium height and had thinning hair. His very slender wife wore her hair, already streaked with silver threads, braided into a plait. Their two sons were named Anton and Franz. Anton, the elder, was later to take over the farm. Franz flirted with a profession in uniform. The 16-year-old daughter, father's favourite, was always at the top of her class and wanted to go to secondary school. She was her father's pride. She was a pretty young girl with beautiful thick black hair and brown eyes.

The harvest that year was good. The granaries were full and the cattle healthy in the stables. Full barrels of red wine were stored in the vineyard. They tasted the wine for the first time that evening. “It will be good, but it still has to mature for some time,” the farmer announced. It was getting late that evening when a beautiful sunset red appeared in the sky. An evening glow predicts good weather for the next day, which they could well use. But the farmer's wife cried out: “Don't rejoice. The sunset red is blood red, there will be war.” And she was right. They had no radio and no newspaper. They orientated themselves on nature and its change in the cycle of the year. A week later Hitler annexed Slovenia. Lower Styria was a thorn in his side.

So the order was given that all the inhabitants of this region had to assemble at a certain place within a week. Everyone was allowed to take what they could carry. Crying and complaining, swearing and cursing could be heard everywhere during the following days. A whole year's work was in vain. The cattle had to be sold quickly to Croatia so that the animals could continue to live. The news that Hitler had already ordered foreign settlers into the area became a sad certainty. They, too, had to leave their homes and their belongings. The farmer's wife packed her bags with her daughter.

The sons took care of the farm with their father. She only had to put together the most necessary things for each of them individually that would fit into the suitcases. She wrapped the wooden carved cross from the corner of the Lord's God in a towel and placed it carefully under the laundry in her brown leather suitcase. The daughter went to help her while the mother-in-law, beyond 75, sat on the wooden bench by the brown tiled stove and wept bitterly. Now everyone left their houses and went to the meeting place. Many people were already there and did not know where the journey was going.

After about 10 kilometres they reached the station. They were exhausted from the long march on the gravel road. The old people and the small children had been put on the oxcarts. The forests they marched past already wore their bright colours and were shone on by the autumn sun. The long train was already waiting for them. Some people from the Sava area had already taken their places. It was not a passenger train, but open waggons in which cattle were usually transported. They were padded with straw and the people were loaded in like animals. The night was cold, but leaving home was more painful. They drove all night and reached the railway station in Aulendorf in Baden-Württemberg the other afternoon. They all had to get off the train.

Hungry and exhausted, they were now herded into the Saint Johan Blönried monastery. Here the families were separated. The men remained here in the camp until further notice. They were assigned to certain jobs. They were also medically examined, measured and weighed. If they met the Führer's required measurements, they were lucky. So the farmer got a job as a stoker on the steam locomotive. His two sons had to go to Russia as soldiers in the Wehrmacht and never came back. In the cemetery chapel in Aulendorf, their names can be read on the plaque of the fallen. One relative was a butcher and was urgently needed in this camp. He did not have to suffer hunger like so many others. The women came with their children to the convent of Sießen near Saulgau, which was also converted into a camp. Most of the nuns were expelled by the SS leadership. Some were allowed to stay. The large crowd of expellees was housed and bedded on straw sacks. They, too, were measured, medically examined and sorted out. For example, the farmer's mother-in-law was sent to the Neresheim convent, which had also been converted into a camp. She soon died and never saw her family again.

Life in the camp was not easy for the displaced persons. Everything was foreign to them. The young people did not speak a word of German, but the old people spoke it very well.

Before the First World War, German was the official language in Lower Styria. The farmer's daughter came to Aulendorf as a domestic helper in an inn. The owner, the wife of an SA officer, took her in. She first taught her the language by taking each object in her hand and naming it or explaining it to her. The young woman learned quickly and was gradually entrusted with bigger tasks. Home was far away, but at least she could see her beloved father more often.

Slowly the camp cleared. The young boys came to the farmers to help the women because their sons and husbands were at the front. Some never came home again. At first the strangers were met with suspicion, but over time things smoothed out and people were glad to have capable helpers. One young man called Hans, at the age of 18, came to a family where the sons and the father were serving as soldiers in the German army. He was lucky as he had been used to farm work since childhood. He was tall and slim and even resembled one of the sons. On Sunday afternoons he was allowed to visit his mother and siblings in the Sießen camp. The farmer's wife gave him all kinds of food. Hunger was the biggest enemy in the camp. Years later he told about it again and again.

The war became more and more cruel, the people more and more despondent. Faith in God gave them strength and stamina. Night after night, the farmer's wife took her cross out of her suitcase and prayed the rosary with her roommates. Praying gave her strength and support. She was firmly convinced that one day they would be heard. It took another four long years until the war ended in May 1945.

Summer had come. The sun heated up mightily at the end of June. To wash themselves, the camp inmates had to fetch water from the farm well with a zinc bucket. So the farmer's wife had her daughter, who was already back in the camp, fetch water late in the evening. The day was long over and night was not far away. She filled the water bucket to the brim when she was suddenly held by a strong man's hand. At gunpoint, the SS officer forced her behind the monastery wall, tore off her beautiful, colourful summer dress and went to town on her. “If you scream now, I'll shoot you!” he said. He also punched her in the face, so hard that blood dripped from her injured lip.

“Finally I have achieved what I had planned for a long time,” the SS man said and hit her so hard that she lost consciousness for a short time. The perpetrator disappeared into the darkness. When she slowly regained consciousness and tried to sit up, her whole body ached. Half-naked and covered in blood, she staggered in the darkness towards Wagenhauser Weiher, where she was later found by the search party. She did not want to go back to the camp. She wanted to end her young life here in the lake. She jumped into the lake in front of everyone. A young man jumped in and saved her. He took off his shirt, covered her bruised body and brought her back to the camp. It was agreed that nothing would be said about what had happened.

The Slovenians were now free to decide whether they wanted to go back to their homeland or build a new future here. They all wanted to go back. Here they would be strangers among strangers.

Exactly four years after the expulsion, there was great excitement in the monastery. Finally the time had come. Packed full, they waited to be taken away. Families moved together, helping each other. But some had died. The young woman stood with her family with the man who had saved her from drowning. The farmer's wife did not like the connection because Hans came from a poor background. His father was a railway worker and a farmer on the side, his mother an efficient housewife.

They returned the same way they had come. A thousand questions now arose. How will they find their properties? How will they survive the coming winter? The weather suited them that October. But it would get colder soon.

Back at the farm, they did not know whether to cry or to scream. The settlers had left chaos in their absence. The granaries were almost empty. There were no cattle in the barn and rain dripped through the thatched roof right into the parlour. The farmer, by now suffering from asthma, did not let himself be put off.