Interview with Anna Williams

Interview with Anna Williams

Rosita Williams nee Semler grew up near Frankfurt during the Second World War. Her education was very disrupted by the war including her piano lessons when there were no local teachers. She was on a train when it was shot up by fighters. She was roller skating with a friend when her town came under attack and she and her friend fled to her cellar where they huddled in fear until the raid finished.
She described the last days of the war in Germany. She saw the American troops sweep through the town as they advanced at the end of the war and also recalled when a British flyer was captured nearby. A released Polish prisoner threatened her mother with guns when they were trying to steal wine from the cellar. At the end of the war when only about ten years of age she was shown the films of concentration camps which affected her for the rest of her life.

Recorded over the telephone.

2020-05-05

00:15:54 audio recording

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AWilliamsR200505

RW: My name is Rosita [Semler] when I was first born, and I lived in Munich and I came to this little town called Obernburg am Main in Northern Bavaria when I was two and three quarters old and, and then I lived there until we moved in 1950 to Frankfurt. I remember very well that on the 8th of May 1945 the war finished and I don’t know why I remember that because instances during the war were that we had a very disrupted folkschuler. During the war I had to go to piano lessons because my mother was wonderful on the piano and she wanted me to go to lessons as well but I was not as talented and there were no teachers. No male teachers. No female teachers. So a friend of mine and I had to go to the station and go about twenty miles north of where the train stopped in our town. And all I remember is that we saw planes in the air which were high high up and they looked very tiny and then they came down and shot at the train and I remember that shooting and so on and that’s why my mother said, ‘No. Rosita can’t go to the piano lessons anymore.’ And the other friend’s mother also said, ‘No. They can’t go anymore.’
[recording paused]
RW: One day I was there roller skating and had the roller skates on my feet and we again looked up into the sky. It was sunshine. It was summer and wonderful. These little planes, and suddenly they came down into our eye level almost and shot at our town and my friend and I we just ran for our house because it was nearby and we went down with the roller skates on into our cellar which was a proper wine cellar and there were lots of barrels of wine in it and we nearly fell but we were holding on on the side and that way we could manage to get down. And of course we were all alone in the cellar. There was nobody else in the cellar and it actually meant that my mother was out and we were huddling together in the, in the war.
[recording paused]
I remember when the Americans came first and rolled into our town which was only like a market town and I opened a big door which was our business door and I looked straight at a, at a Panzer and they were all black faces in it. Negroes. And of course what the Americans did when they advanced they sent the black people first so that they could be shot first and that’s what I saw and that was the first we saw of anybody strange you know being in tanks.
[recording paused]
Interviewer: Did you then speak to them? Once the Americans arrived in your village what happened?
RW: No. No. We couldn’t speak to them. That was when they were advancing. When they were rolling along and the tank was actually on the move. It had to move on through the town and on to the next village.
Interviewer: And what happened to your bridge?
RW: To the bridge? Oh, yes. Well, the Germans they were retreating into a big, forested area which was all oak forest and behind them they blew up our bridge and right on the other side of the river was our station. In other words we just had to cross the bridge to walk to the station and therefore we had no more station. We had no more bridge to go to and so on and that was what the German did for us. In other words it was terrible. We got bombed big by the Germans themselves because they were shooting at the advancing Americans and therefore they hit our town. We hated all the Germans because they did that to our town.
[recording paused]
RW: We had all this wine in the cellar which was actually meant for the troops and periodically it was being taken out of the barrels and put into bottles and collected for the German troops and I remember that very well. And also because we had a lot of prisoners of war, they were mainly Polish and they worked for the farmers and I remember that very well. And my mother had a big St Bernard dog and she would always answer whoever came to the door. She would answer the door by having the dog at her side. They gave a threatening to shoot the dog and meaning these were the Polish people. They came during the day and then in the night they actually broke in because they knew there was only my mother and I sort of protecting this wine and this was all still wine for the German troops.
Interviewer: And what happened when they broke in?
RW: Yes, they broke in and during the daytime and we had somebody who was maintaining the barrels in the cellar. They were shooting around with the pistols and so on and first of all they had threatened to shoot my mother somewhere you know, leg or something like that and shoot the dog completely and then they went to the cellar and they were shooting around there. The Americans they, they put patrols, meaning guards at night time and they actually told us they shot one of the Poles during night time when they were breaking into our home.
[recording paused]
RW: Yes. My father was ten years in the war.
Interviewer: He was taken prisoner when did you say? On VE day.
RW: Yes. Yes. Well, it must have been when the war finished.
Interviewer: Ah, so he wasn’t captured before the end of the war but then the Germans surrendered and then he was captured in Norway you are saying.
RW: Yes.
Interviewer: I understand.
RW: And he was taken to France.
[recording paused]
RW: We spent more time in the air raid shelter than on our benches in school because it was, it was there were no teachers and there were no main members of the community sort of middle age. You couldn’t get a workman or anybody because there was just nobody. Everybody was in the war.
[recording paused]
RW: Once we knew that an Englishman was captured. His plane was shot down and he landed somewhere near in the fields and he was an Englishman and he became a prisoner of war. We thought it was tremendous. Fantastic. You know, it was wonderful that this Englishman was captured by the Germans. We didn’t really know what was going on and we didn’t really [pause] there were, there were no messages between the towns and so on because, we’ll communication just had broken down.
[recording paused]
RW: Oh, the films we saw when the cinemas opened again of course they were mainly films which the Germans shot and they were German Austrian films and I remember all the Austrian actors and so on and they had to be clean. It was just humorous and funny and so on. But then we were also shown in the cinema and we had to have these shown to us about the concentration camps.
Interviewer: How old, how old were you when you were shown that?
RW: Well, I have lived with that all my life because here I live in Golders Green and the people I’ve met over the years are all the Jewish people and I have suffered from that all my life.
Interviewer: Do you think because of —
RW: All the Jewish [unclear]
Interviewer: Do you think because of the films you were shown?
RW: Sorry?
Interviewer: Is that because of the films they showed you?
RW: Yes, and because when I came here as, as an au pair in about when I was twenty years old I was working actually for a Jewish family without knowing it and one day they told me that they were Jewish and they were so good and kind to me and I couldn’t believe it. And I have always suffered under the burden the Germans did to the Jews because I was mixing with the Jews and even here where I live now in my home the neighbours were Jewish people for a period and yes, are friends of mine.
Interviewer: How old, how old were you when they showed you the films?
RW: Oh, soon after the war finished we were shown. We had to be shown also in the grammar school. We had to be shown these films.
Interviewer: But you were what? Twelve? Twelve years old?
RW: Oh no. It was perhaps when I was ten. Ten/eleven.
Interviewer: And I mean the films, you’ve seen them since, are these the same films that we’ve now seen as adults that you were shown as a child?
RW: Well, it was just, it was just terrible. I couldn’t even look at it.
Interviewer: Yeah, and who, who took you?
RW: I have to say.
Interviewer: Who took you to see it? You said you had to go. Who, who was leading this?
RW: Oh, we had to see them officially with the whole class. We had to go with our classes and go to be shown these things.
Interviewer: What —
RW: And —
Interviewer: What would you say now as an adult to those officials who made you go and see that as a school child?
RW: Well, at the very moment I’m actually in isolation and that Jewish people in my road actually caring enough to phone me. It means so much to me that they have no grudges against a German person who has lived from twenty one years to now. I’m eighty four here in this country. It’s a personal thing. It’s I and I alone because I told other people about it and I said, ‘How can you ever live that down?’ And they said, ‘Because you were children.’ It’s just my story.