Margarete F

Margarete F

Margarete F's account of the events at Schäfergasse 39.

1944-03-11

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Record 23

BKasselVdObmv10023

Translated from the original in German: Present is Mrs Margarete F., born 3 March 1895, formerly of Schäfergasse 39, now of Menzelstraße 4, c/o Möller and makes the following statement:
When the alarm came, we went to the cellar – right? – and it came blow upon blow, there were no breaks, and so everything around us was hit, everywhere. Ours was not hit directly but it caught fire. Only one incendiary dropped into the small rear building but we put it out. The people in the cellar were very orderly and quiet. The youngest was nine years old and we all got out. The street looked really nice (sarcasm); we’d gone up a few times, everything was on fire. All around us, all houses. Our house also caught fire but only later, through the flying sparks. We stayed in our cellar during the whole raid. The people from the neighbouring houses also came to our cellar, they were standing up to the second floor; the whole house was full. When our house also started to burn, the block leader, Mr Euler, said: “We have to get out, all of us!” And because people did not have anything with them, we used the hose to soak them so that they could get through the fire. They did not even have blankets with them. And then, all the people got out, towards the embankment and they all got through, some even to the shelter at Henschel’s. We then worked to get the women out on the street who had fled to us with little children. And my landlord, Köhler, the baker, and his wife and niece and a nurse and I, us five, we left last.
We left the house as it was, it just started burning. And as we got out, we had a difficult job because the tarmac was on fire, we got stuck, phosphorous splashes everywhere, but we kept our wits about us; we fought through. We had taken wet blankets. The suitcases we couldn’t take because the cellar too was on fire. Then we had to climb over burning beams and also over many people who had burnt to death who were lying there. One woman had had a heart attack. Is was about half eleven.
Then we went across the embankment to the school. It looked terrible. There were lots of people there. They were however fairly sensible and quiet. That’s where we stayed until half six the following morning. Then we went out but fled back in because a dud exploded. And from there, when it eased up a bit with the duds, we walked through the rubble to Obervellmar. We couldn’t see anything and had lost all our belongings. In the school, we received emergency treatment. We were given eye drops, rations and received our papers as bomb victims. My husband died five years ago. Our only son died in a military hospital in Vienna. And now I’m on my own. Of course, all this happened with great commotion, what I’m telling here calmly. It was hell down there where we were. There were also two children in the cellar, we took them with us, three and five years old, two boys, probably Mrs Peter’s from Schäfergasse 18? We took them with us, the other people in front of us, and I don’t know where they went. I don’t know where their mother was, she wasn’t with us. She had six children. I’ve heard that she’s been saved. A girl was at the hospital at that time. She was only a few weeks old.