STERNBERG, CZECHOSLOVAKIA (October, 1942 - April, 1945)

In October 1942 Mutti moves into Lisbeth’s house in Sternberg to take care of Lisbeth’s four children. She takes Heiner with her and later in the year returns to Neisse to get Marianne. As is the custom there is a teenage girl living with them to help out.

For the next two and a half years Heiner and Marianne have fun playing with their four cousins. Occasionally Marianne is sent back to visit her grandparents in Neisse. When she is in Neisse, Grusla gathers herbs for evening tea and tells Marianne fairy tales. In Sternberg Mutti meets and starts dating a soldier, Ernst Landsiedel, from Oberursel, Germany. Marianne picks some flowers and takes them to Mutti and Ernst, and tells them that she wants to be the flower girl at their wedding. Marianne feels crushed when Ernst replies that they are already married.

Lisbeth is released from prison and returns to Sternberg. Ernst is assigned a house near the train station and he, Mutti and the two children move there. The house had previously been occupied by a German officer. When he was killed his widow had returned home to Germany but left many of her belongings locked in one bedroom. Marianne and Heiner wonder what is in the mysterious locked room. Mutti loses her furniture. She has it shipped from Neisse but it never arrives in Sternberg. Ernst takes Heiner with him on a visit to his family in Oberursel, Germany near Oberstedten. In Sternberg, Marianne and Heiner are allowed to feed the stove. They throw in sawdust and nothing happens, so they are afraid they have smothered the fire. As they lean forward looking into the stove, the sawdust suddenly ignites and burns both of their faces.

Ernst is sent to the front and loses a leg. He returns to Sternberg to recover, and learn to walk with an artificial leg. Jürgen is born in 1944. Mutti is now 22 years old. She has lost one husband, and is taking care of three children and a crippled second husband.

In February 1945 the Russians have advanced into Selesia so Mutti’s father, mother and grandmother make their way from Neisse to Sternberg. They hike and hitch rides bringing what possessions they can carry. They have to cross, what is essentially, a no-man’s land, and along the way Paul catches a pig, that is running free, and kills it. He carries the pig in a hand pulled wagon. It is cold enough that the pig carcass partially freezes. When they arrive in Sternberg they butcher the pig and get the local horse butcher to smoke it. Someone reports them to the police. Ernst explains to the police that the pig was running free. Still, they are fined 21 marks and must give up their ration cards.

By April, 1945 it is clear that the war is lost and that soon Sternberg will be overrun by the Russians. All the German soldiers have left the Sternberg garrison except for Ernst and another wounded soldier named Putzig. Putzig had lost an arm. They have stayed because they continued to believe the propaganda that Hitler would unleash a secret weapon that would turn back the Russian advance. Mutti has two wooden boxes constructed to hold the family’s silver, dishes, linens and clothes. The local silk and tobacco company’s doors are thrown open to the town residents ahead of the Russian advance. Paul, along with Marianne, takes a wheelbarrow and they get a large box of cigarettes, a large box of loose tobacco and a long roll of silk, thinking these things may be useful for bartering.

Ernst and Putzig have confiscated the only remaining half-track from the army base and driven it to the house. The garrison’s money and ration cards have been left as all the other soldiers evacuated the post. Mutti thinks they should take the money and the cards and is very upset when Ernst and Putzig refuse, out of soldier’s honor. Mutti has some money that she received as widow compensation for the death of her first husband.

As shells are flying over their head and exploding in the train yards, the half-track is hurriedly loaded with Mutti’s boxes, a basket of Anna’s filled with the pig meat, tobacco, cigarettes, silk, a baby buggy for Jürgen and other belongings. Mutti has a woman’s handgun given to her by Ernst. Ernst has their money and what little jewelry they own stashed in his artificial leg.

Another woman and her two children will be going with them. Also Grusla’s sister and her husband, who have arrived from Neisse, will accompany them. There will be 14 in all; Putzig, Ernst, Mutti, Marianne, Heiner, Jürgen, Paul, Anna, Grusla, Grusla’s sister, her husband, the other woman and her two children. Lisbeth decides to stay in Sternberg in case her husband returns.

Putzig with his one arm drives and Ernst shifts gears. As they drive away during the pandemonium Mutti and the kids see 88 year old Grusla sitting on the front steps of the house. They yell at Ernst and Putzig to stop. Mutti wants to jump off to get Grusla. Ernst says they can’t go back and that Lisbeth will look after Grusla. They leave without her.