Camden County History Alliance

The Camden County Historical Alliance has put out the calendar for OCTOBER HISTORY MONTH. I tried to paste it here but no luck! Still haven't quite got the hang of this new software on blogspot. Only just mastered paragraphs with html - had to buy a book.

Meanwhile, if you have followed the posts, you know I have become immersed in the years after the end of WWII in Europe. As if to support my interest, PBS Masterpiece, to which I subscribe through amazon.com prime video, has run several series, the most recent of which LINE OF SEPARATION follows a small town which is divided right down the middile, into the Easter Soviet Russia sector, and the Western American setor. This divides everyone, families which find themselves half on one side and half on the other other, farmers forced forced into Communist collectives against their will, large land holders dispossed, and their ancestral lands divided into small parcels. It is a great series, well acted and very authentic in every way.

At the same time, I looked up Best Books about Postwar Europe and found a 5 BEST BOOKS reviewed by experts site. I have ordered two books, and one has arrived. The one that hasn't arrived yet is an overview of the postwar years in Europe whereas the one I am reading is one woman's diary of the first few months after the war when the Russians occupied Berlin. It is gripping and fascinating. The author who was anonymous in the years of the first publication due to the controversial subject matter, was a journalist before the war and has an eye for the most moving details of daily existence when there is no food or water or electricity, and people group up in bands of strngers in whatever parts of bomb shattered dewellings can still be used for living. Mostly they congregate in basements for bomb shelters.

The book was controversial because the author details the widespread rape of the German women by Russian solders during the occupation. For instance, I didn't know that as a rule, Russsian soldiers didn't get 'leave' so most of them by the time they reached Berlin, had been at war for four years non-stop! Like many a woman before and since, the author survived by alligning herself with a higher ranking officer who offered his protection from the roving bands of predatory drunken soldiers who went on the hunt at night for women to gang rape. he also provided hard to get food stuffs, canned goods, coffee, butter, and most importantly BREAD. At the time of the first publication, the author was scorned and her book was lambasted. She was called a traitor and a whore, because although hundreds of thousands of women survived this way, the Germans returning from war didn't want to know about it and th women kept their mouths shut. This author has provided a remarkable and unique look at survival in a land destroyed and bereft of any civic order, police force, fire department, or any organized way to get food or water. Many women were raped when they ventured out to the few sources of water in the public domain. This account is in Berlin. In other places, civilians were rounded up and put in concentration camps, slave labor camps, and murdered en masse. This author survived to the age of 90!

Well, tomorrow is Labor Day and ususlly I would be paying a visit to Peter Murphy's grave, not too far from me, but I don't know about this year, car not in great shape! Still I wish all a Happy Labor Day and let's not forget the man and the unions who made a Labor Day possible! Also, let's all say a silent thank you for all the veterans, mostly dead now, who saved the world 75 years ago!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com