The Family Reunited
March 25, 2008 – 6:00 amOnce again, Helen, her mother, and baby sister, who had been born in September of 1943, were on the road until they came to Schladen, Germany. Here, they settled on a farm owned by Frau Bunze, where Helen’s mother worked in the fields and Helen cared for her young sister.
In the spring of 1945, the fields around the farmhouse were full of German soldiers, tanks, and heavy machine guns. Gunfire kept coming closer and closer. The household went to the cellar and stayed until a man from the village came banging on the door with the news, “The Americans and English and their tanks are all over the village.” We ran out to see the soldiers, who passed out chocolate bars, candy, and crackerjack.
While the family was still living at the farmhouse, they were joined by Helen’s grandmother and two aunts, thanks to the work of the American and British Red Cross. Within a short period of time, Helen’s mother and one of the aunts were offered jobs as a teacher and a nurse in a Displaced Persons camp. Here Helen was able to lead a relatively normal life, attending school, taking part in sports, and always remembering to pray for her father every evening.
Then came the amazing news. While tuning the radio one day at lunchtime, Helen heard a voice on the BBC/Red Cross, saying that her father was looking for the whereabouts of his wife and two daughters. There was great rejoicing, of course. After the bombing of his train in Poland, Helen’s father and some other men were able to travel at night to France, where they joined up with the Allied forces and took part in D-Day, the invasion of Normandy. When he finally was able to talk to his family, he was with the Allied Forces in Scotland, where the family eventually joined him until he was demobilized and given the choice of where he wanted to live.
And so it was on October 21, 1951, at 8 a.m. the family boarded the Queen Elizabeth at Southampton, England for their trip to New York, and to their new life in the United States.
To learn more about this family, go to http://www.peggeorge.com/.
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