HOME > SHOWS > Silent Night

I was twelve years old, when on a night in April 1944, a heavy bombing raid on the city of Aachen left my family homeless.  My parents’ bakery had burned like a torch and together, we all were evacuated out of the smoldering ruins to a village near the river Rhine, where we found shelter.
    
    Ten miles away was Neuwied, a town where my father was placed to supervise the operation of a large bakery, owned by the chief master of the local retail bakers’ guild.  Then, a few months later, this bakery, too, was war damaged beyond repair.  Father, then 48-years-old, was about to be drafted to become a soldier, but fortunately, the chief master knew the right people and was able to have him conscripted as a “field baker,” to bake bread for the German army.   more