Bei uns war's anders

In the summer of 1945, the massacre in Aussig occurred, which went down in history. The former ammunition depot of the Wehrmacht in Schönpriesen exploded. I was at the Elbe with my mother that day, swimming, when the powerful detonations were heard and smoke rose behind the castle. Before that, a small single-engine plane flew low along the Elbe towards Aussig. My mother immediately said that something terrible had happened, hopefully nothing to my father; and the uncertainty grew as he did not come home as usual. When he finally arrived very late, he told us that he had to take a long detour on his bicycle because the Czech management had warned their German workers not to go through Aussig, as there were gangs rampaging in the city.

What happened, we learned only the next day. The explosions were seen as an act of sabotage by the Germans. A pogrom against the German population took place. Those who could not speak Czech were mistreated. There were countless dead. From the two bridges over the Elbe, defenseless people were thrown into the river and shot if they could swim. They even threw a baby carriage with a child and mother over the bridge railing. A young man had ripped the child from the carriage and slammed its head against the railing. A German Red Cross nurse saw this from a passing car. When she screamed in horror, the man shot at her. Aunt Lene later told me that all her female colleagues who had to cross the New Bridge were killed. In Aussig, these barbarians stuffed the slain into fire ponds and sewer openings. In this situation, it would not have helped my father that he was recognized as an anti-fascist; for he could not speak Czech either. He too had to wear a white armband with an 'N' for non-German, like all Germans. The German anti-fascists wore a red armband for distinction.