Memory Office: S. Gronau
German Siegfried Gronau tells us about his native Königsberg, and the war that came, changed the life of his wonderful family beyond recognition and turned him into a weak orphan begging for bread in a strange land of Lithuania, the language of which he did not know. Despite all the difficulties, Siegfried calls this country his second homeland.
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“We, children, were brought out from a burning house. We were sleeping, and we would have been burned alive; that would have been the end of us. We had to live... We were running further, it was deep winter. We ended up in a village with very large buildings and lots of peasants and refugees running around, who scared us saying how horrible Russians were. They said that Russians eat people, that they are cannibals. We were afraid of them so much... A lot of families squeezed into a large house. German soldiers would then walk around that yard. An intensive bombing started. /.../ The entire house was shaking, and the next day, there were no Germans, just women and children.”
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“I did not want to die. I pulled out myself out of her embrace and stood at her feet. She started to scream, she was insane. I saw a lot of insane people in the streets, walking around looking for food just like my sister. I was afraid to return to her embrace, the embrace of death: I did not want to die... We got separated, I left her at her deathbed, in her death den, that stinking basement. And I ran to Lithuania to find bread, in case she recovers. I was several times thrown away from a standing and moving train.”
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“Just at the outskirts of Kaunas, I was dug up by locomotive firemen and picked up like some kitten. It was the spring of 1947, the weather was still cold. The men asked me in German: “How did you end up here?” I told them: “I want nach Litauen, Kowno, Brot holen. To Lithuania, Kaunas, bring bread back to my mother.” The train stopped in front of Nemunas and the railway bridge. The main said: “You would not cross this bridge. We would cross it, bring you over and leave you in Kaunas.” And that was what they did. I saw clean, neatly dressed people walking around. The city and the station were full. I thought to myself, that I was probably dead, because my mother told me that we were “close to our graves”, and if people died, both children and adults, they went straight to heaven.” And when in Kaunas I saw one Russian and then another one, I woke up from that dream. My new life had started. When I started writing a book, I told people and to myself that this has been my second homeland. I was in Lithuania for the second time.”
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“The woman made me clean the stables. /.../ I was weak, I could not do it. She told me: “So you cannot do it, you slacker?” She started yelling at me. While working, the pitchfork twisted, and I stabbed her leg. She started yelling and wanted to beat me up. Then I ran away.”
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“I learned one word only. A beautiful one. If I visited some person and they would give me some thick potato soup, they would ask: “Ar dar įpilti? Ar dar įpilti?” ("Would you like more?") I did not understand anything... It was the most beautiful Lithuanian word to me.”
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“I ended up at some farmer with a large house and four large children and one small boy. I asked for a place to sleep, and the hostess told me nothing. It started to get dark outside and I was so afraid... I was standing with one shoe, white trousers, so tired. A young man came out, village teacher, speaking in fluent German. He asked me in German, would I like to stay here in their village? I shouted “Ja!” and stayed. There was a big herd of cows that I had to shepherd. When they felt the spring, they started jumping and I became scared of how I was going to manage them. Me, so weak, with such a herd of cows... That teacher was an interpreter for me. He told me: “The boy is on vacation, he is going to help you.” So, one nice day, we herded those cows. I was so weak, but I tried so hard to do everything. Later, the boy had to go to school and I was on my own with those cows. I got help only herding them to and from the pasture. I got stronger... Those cows did not obey me, they did as they pleased.”
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“I heard people saying not to go, that he was going to trick me. I went to work for that person anyway. His son was going to school and I asked: “When could I go to school?” He said: “Women in Aukštieji Šančiai need some men’s work to be done. When you finish there, you may get back to me and go to school.” I felt that it was a deception. That was slave’s work. I needed to thresh all sorts of rye and barley with flail. /.../ I had to work on the thrashing-floor for other villagers. It was an awfully hard work to do. You must thresh while kneeling and then winnow the grain. It was such a chore I would not wish it to anyone. When I finished this work, I got very sick. I was lying at the stables, could not stand up. They fed me tomatoes they were carrying to the market to sell, and what they would not sell, they would bring back. They were rotten or something... I spent time at the stables with animals. I heard some of them saying “Get up!” But I could not, I probably had a fever. At the stables, I saw a braid of garlics. I tasted one clove, then another, and then eventually ate the entire bulb, and the fever probably disappeared. Next day I was sober and felt better. /.../ These garlics brought me back to my feet. And then they continued to torture me with more chores.”
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Siegfried Gronau
Siegfried was born in 1936, the family of German evangelicals Ernst Artur and Erna Gronau in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). While father was at home, the boy and his three sisters Hannelore, Christel and Ilse had a wonderful childhood and knew nothing about the war. But when it broke, Siegfried’s father was conscripted, was heavily wounded several times and eventually died in Leningrad. Siegfried had just completed the second grade, when in 1944, the bombing of Königsberg started. People were fleeing the city. Boy's aunt Frieda encouraged the family to do it, but his mother obeyed the mayor who forbidden to leave the city, as she did not want to leave her parents behind. Together with his mother, sisters and other people who could not leave the city in time, Siegfried lived in horrible conditions, robbed, beaten by Russian soldiers, starving and suffering from constant cold, hiding in the basements of broken houses. All of his three sisters died of starvation and exhaustion. When he heard that there was bread in Lithuania, ten-year-old Siegfried went there to bring some bread for his starving mother. Asking for bread, going from one house to another and taking the hardest jobs in the areas surrounding Kaunas, Pažaislis, Rumšiškės and the territory which is now flooded and at the bottom of Kaunas Reservoir. Doing the chores, he reached the age of majority, received a passport with the name of Kazimieras Mačiulskis in it, was recruited in the Soviet Army and worked in the labour battalion in Murmansk. When he returned to Kaunas, Siegfried met his wife and when a chance presented itself, returned to Germany in 1973.
He described his war and post-war experiences in the memoir “Klyksmas vaiduoklių mieste. Vilko vaikai” (2017).
Date of the interview: 27-02-2018