A hard, angry pounding came at the front door. I crawled underneath the bed and nestled into the space between the floor and the mattress. I curled up into a ball, trying to make myself disappear. My mother had hidden herself in a kitchen cupboard.<\/p>\n
It was June 1945, and I was 17 years old\u2014too young to fully understand what was happening around me in Berlin, the city I\u2019d grown up in. The war had ended a month earlier. Mutti, my mother, told me that life would go back to normal soon. Papa would come home any day now. We\u2019d have more to eat.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019d heard other rumors. Stories of Russian soldiers hurting people. I was terrified that any moment now, a soldier would march into my room.<\/p>\n
The banging at the front door grew louder. I held my breath. The knocking stopped. Maybe whoever it was would give up and go away…<\/p>\n
The door burst open. Loud footsteps filled the apartment. I peered out from underneath the bed and saw two pairs of boots. Soldiers! <\/em>The men paced back and forth in the living room, calling out to each other in harsh, angry tones, and worse, in a language I couldn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n I pressed my body closer to the wall, as far under the bed as I could get, and prayed as Mutti had taught me.<\/p>\n One man paused, his dirty black boots so close I could have reached out and touched them. After what felt like an eternity, the soldier turned and walked away. He and his comrade left out the front door, just as freely as they had come. I was safe. For now.<\/p>\n \u201cMutti!\u201d I called, wiggling out from under the bed. I ran into the kitchen. Mutti emerged from her hiding place.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry, baby,\u201d she said, wrapping me in a bear hug. \u201cEverything is going to be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the fifth time soldiers had entered our house in less than a month. How much longer could we survive like this? Alone. For over a year we\u2019d waited for Papa to come back to us. Would he ever return?<\/p>\n Our lives had been so simple before the war. Papa was a professional organist and owned the apartment building we lived in. I grew up a savvy city girl and loved riding my bike around the neighborhood and visiting my girlfriends from school.<\/p>\n But the war changed all that. Toward the end of 1944, Papa devised a plan to get us out of the country. He took a train to northern Germany to scope things out. We were to join him once he was settled. We didn\u2019t know how soon the Russians would arrive, trapping me and Mutti in Berlin.<\/p>\n In the kitchen, Mutti and I comforted each other. We talked about the good times we would have when we were reunited with Papa. \u201cEverything will be better once we\u2019re together again,\u201d Mutti assured me. \u201cThings will get back to normal. Like they were before the war.\u201d<\/p>\n Before the war. That time seemed almost like a fairy tale. These days the streets of Berlin were mayhem: Stores were raided. Women were abused. Children were terrified. We were all hungry. Try to leave the city? Mutti and I were afraid to leave the house. Trying to find Papa up north would be impossible.<\/p>\n The first time the soldiers broke in, they plowed through everything, overturning tables and chairs. They rifled through Mutti\u2019s jewelry box and china cabinet. What they didn\u2019t steal, they broke on the floor. What little food we had left, they took.<\/p>\n The raids and the chaos were scary, but the hunger was worse.<\/p>\n \u201cPapa will be back soon. We just have to hold out for a little longer,\u201d Mutti repeated, patting my head. \u201cUntil then, God and his angels will protect us.\u201d I worried we couldn\u2019t hold out long enough. Sometimes I imagined Papa finally coming home, only to find it was too late.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The next day I woke up, still shaken from the raid. My stomach grumbled, but it was too risky to sneak outside to forage for food today. Die on the street or starve to death in here, <\/em>I thought miserably.<\/p>\n