During World War Two my great grandparents were alive. There were two sides of the war Axis and the Allies. The United States was on the Allied side and they won. One of the reasons for the war was the genocide of the Jews. The war exhausted resources leaving shortages in the United States and many other countries involved in the war.
According to Geoffrey R. Walden, in World War Two Schweinfurt, Germany was a bombing target which results in 1079 civilian casualties and many left as refugees reducing the population by fifty percent. Schweinfurt was the primary German manufacturer of ball-bearings which went into tanks and aircraft. The ball-bearing factories: Kugelficher-Georg-Schäfer, Fitchel & Sachs and VRF were the targets of the bombings …show more content…
World War Two started when she was five and ended when she was ten. Helga recalls being about 7 or 8 when the air raids started. Even so young she understood that what was going on was “dangerous” and caused “shortages.” Later Helga explained to me that everything was rationed; the food would come in shipments and people waited in line to get it. Times were so bad that sometimes people would wait in line for horse-meat. She said, “People lined up at night with little chairs and the women usually did their knitting then family members would take turns waiting in line.” Other issues caused by the war included a lack of coal to heat houses, or water if a bomb hit a water line, and power outages. She told me, “I remember doing homework by candlelight sometimes and it was just a horrible time.” Helga recalled that, school was completely canceled in the last year of the war, 1945. After the war any teacher who had been in the Nazi party was not allowed to work, leaving what few schools were left with few qualified teachers making for class sizes around forty students. On Saturdays, students attended school for a half a …show more content…
Slowly, people emerged from their houses to see big tanks. Helga seemed positive when relating her thoughts of the Americans. The Americans gave people chocolate bars, food and in general shared their stuff. She recalled, “I remember once standing on the side of the road on a little highway and all the tanks and the trucks came down and the Americans were sitting on them. We were waving at them and they kept throwing chewing gum to us.” School resumed in the same year the U.S. army took occupation of the barracks in town. At school she explained, “Every day the Americans provided that there was a soup kitchen coming to the school and we got pea soup and on Saturdays we got hot chocolate which was wonderful and oatmeal.” During the interview Helga pointed out some life lessons she still carries from her experience in the war. As an adult she said “I kept telling my children always when they didn’t want to eat that you know you have to eat that good food because you don’t know how it is not to have any.” She learned from the bombs and people on the run as refugees not to get attached to belongings. She bluntly expressed, “It was a time that from one day to the next you know all your belongings might have been totally gone from
According to Geoffrey R. Walden, in World War Two Schweinfurt, Germany was a bombing target which results in 1079 civilian casualties and many left as refugees reducing the population by fifty percent. Schweinfurt was the primary German manufacturer of ball-bearings which went into tanks and aircraft. The ball-bearing factories: Kugelficher-Georg-Schäfer, Fitchel & Sachs and VRF were the targets of the bombings …show more content…
World War Two started when she was five and ended when she was ten. Helga recalls being about 7 or 8 when the air raids started. Even so young she understood that what was going on was “dangerous” and caused “shortages.” Later Helga explained to me that everything was rationed; the food would come in shipments and people waited in line to get it. Times were so bad that sometimes people would wait in line for horse-meat. She said, “People lined up at night with little chairs and the women usually did their knitting then family members would take turns waiting in line.” Other issues caused by the war included a lack of coal to heat houses, or water if a bomb hit a water line, and power outages. She told me, “I remember doing homework by candlelight sometimes and it was just a horrible time.” Helga recalled that, school was completely canceled in the last year of the war, 1945. After the war any teacher who had been in the Nazi party was not allowed to work, leaving what few schools were left with few qualified teachers making for class sizes around forty students. On Saturdays, students attended school for a half a …show more content…
Slowly, people emerged from their houses to see big tanks. Helga seemed positive when relating her thoughts of the Americans. The Americans gave people chocolate bars, food and in general shared their stuff. She recalled, “I remember once standing on the side of the road on a little highway and all the tanks and the trucks came down and the Americans were sitting on them. We were waving at them and they kept throwing chewing gum to us.” School resumed in the same year the U.S. army took occupation of the barracks in town. At school she explained, “Every day the Americans provided that there was a soup kitchen coming to the school and we got pea soup and on Saturdays we got hot chocolate which was wonderful and oatmeal.” During the interview Helga pointed out some life lessons she still carries from her experience in the war. As an adult she said “I kept telling my children always when they didn’t want to eat that you know you have to eat that good food because you don’t know how it is not to have any.” She learned from the bombs and people on the run as refugees not to get attached to belongings. She bluntly expressed, “It was a time that from one day to the next you know all your belongings might have been totally gone from