The greatest great-grandmother!

Anna, June 2010, a few weeks before she died

Journalist’s note: I wrote the following article largely from what I remember of the stories Anna used to tell me...

My name is Anna. I've been lucky to have been very happy in my life. I've lived with a wonderful husband, I have beautiful and talented children, and I've done everything in my power to make this life easier and better for everyone I love.

I was born on the 17^th august 1913 in Pfastatt. I’ve spent all my life in the Alsace. God knows it wasn’t easy every day. I grew up a few kilometers from the battle fields, in a family impoverished and bereaved by war. I hated the Germans as much as I hated the French. My father fought on the French side. I remember spending hours, during my early years, my nose to the window waiting for him. He never came back. I grew up without my daddy. I helped my mother, Victorine, on the farm, and I took care of my little brother.

By the time I reached school age, I had already met Joseph, your great-grandfather. When I saw him for the first time he was throwing pebbles against a tree on the other side of the wall, at the boys’ school. We grew up and graduated. Then we got married on October the 24th in 1937, we were both twenty four years old. It was certainly the most beautiful of day of my life.

By the time your grandfather was born, in August 1938, our life was wonderful. It was just like the entire world had opened its arms to us. We couldn’t imagine that only one year later, we would be plunged back into the horror of war…

Joseph went to the battle fields. He fought for France but I know that secretly in his head he was neither French nor German. On the 30th of September 1941, two men in uniform knocked on the door. I hid my children and, as I saw that these two soldiers had the tricolor flag sewn on their chests, I cried. The tears came streaming down my face, I opened the door and they told me my husband had been made prisoner by the German army in Flanders…

And here is something I'm proud of; here is what I want to tell you. I took the first train, the one which stops in Lille. You might know that we were not rich and that travelling was rare and expensive, people never left their native town, your grandfather did not see the ocean before his 20th birthday, but that's not the subject.

So, I took this train, I got off at Lille, and I walked. I walked for an entire week, following the rails so as not to get lost. My ankles ached and hunger gnawed at my stomach. It was hard to sleep; I only thought about my husband. I feared the state in which I would find him. I remember every detail of that journey, each gust of wind that hurt my face, each sound of the waves hitting the rocks on the coast. With each step I took I became more aware of the mistake I was making and that I would not survive. But I was too much in love to give up…

When I arrived in Flanders, thirteen days after the soldiers' passage, I was greeted by French Resistance fighters. To liberate Joseph, I had to negotiate with the German authorities. They gave me his freedom against his promise not to return to fight for France and to come and work in Germany. You can say that that is a horrible end but, you know, war is the worst invention of the human race. We went home, together, and that was the best ending I could expect. This story makes me proud; I had freed my man from the clutches of the Nazis.

Article by Alice EMBERGER