A Day At Breslau-Personal Narrative

When we left Breslau on the thirteenth of January 1945, we left in a hurry. It was two o'clock in the morning and absolutely freezing. Breslau was completely dark except for the couple of flashlights we were using to load the train. “I c-c-can’t feel m-my toes.” said Kurt as he stood chattering his teeth and shivering beside me. I knew exactly how he felt. I couldn’t feel anything from the knees down it was that cold. All seventeen of us who had gathered at that train that morning were freezing our noses off and shivering relentlessly in our boots, waiting impatiently to get this operation going and start feeling warm blood pumping through our veins again.

We spent the next hour loading the train. Back and forth we went from the secret bunker to the train, all under the cover of darkness and utterly silent. All of us were assigned a section of the bunker to clear out and carry to the train. Kurt and I were put on the left-back corner section where hundreds of hessian bags sat, tied shut. Kurt and I were

No one could know that we had buried something there. We could leave no trace. Small bombs were planted along the track from the foot of the mountain to about one hundred metres down the train track. We all took cover away from the tracks and endured the explosion. We stayed put for five or ten minutes just in case. Then, when Officer Anrich gave us the all clear we went to check the damage and leave the site.

As we made our final inspection of the site before leaving, we suddenly heard the faint sounds of shouting being carried to us by the wind. It was eight o’clock. We were scheduled to leave for Waldenburg right at that moment. Everyone’s heads jerked up to see where the noise was coming from then looked frantically at each other for answers. We all panicked as we saw the helmets of Soviet soldiers armed with rifles running and screaming towards