The Personal Memories of Sr. Anna Bittner, DW, Part 2

I remember our house once barely missed destruction. We were in our shelter, but Dad was still in the house, retrieving something he forgot. He was spotted on the porch, and a hand grenade of sorts was thrown at him by a soldier. It exploded and caused a small fire on the roof, but Dad was unhurt, thank God.

A few doors down from us lived a Slavic family whose oldest daughter, Lank, had joined the Partisans. When her life was in danger, Dad allowed her to hide in our cellar. At night he'd often check on her because she had nightmares in which she relived the gruesome tortures she and others inflicted on their ''enemies." Dad used this as an example to teach us that we cannot expect to live with ourselves if we do evil to others.

Then one fine day, the war was declared ''over." What relief I felt hoping for peace at last. But instead, the unrest only continued and even escalated. We were continually reminded of our German heritage and that we would have to pay for Hitler's invasion of Yugoslavia.

Our relatives made the difficult decision to leave our homeland.  We were encouraged to join them since we did not have a horse and carriage. After a great deal of thought, Dad finally agreed. For most people, leaving one's homeland is a last resort. For us, it certainly was. The meeting time and place were set, but when we arrived at the destination, they had already left. There was nothing for us to do but go back home and hope that the unrest would settle soon.

Prior to our capture, Dad was taken away twice with other men from our neighborhood, by Tito's soldiers. Both times, after what seemed like an eternity, he did come back, thank God. I can't begin to imagine the anguish he must have felt, and Theresia's fear of equal proportion (she had been harassed and terrorized by a Russian soldier).  I was too young to grasp it all and too distraught about the recent deaths of my newborn brother Jacob, my oldest sister Mary, and my mother. My brother John was in Czechoslovakia in the service. We spent the nights at a neighbor's house, a mother with three young children around my age.

Eventually, what we had long feared did happen. It was around 10:30 in the evening of Good Friday 1946 that we were captured. We were given 15 minutes to get out of the house, so we grabbed what we could carry. We were taken by truck to my school. Still not comprehending the severity of the situation, I was excited to have been in a motorized vehicle for the first time. Early the next morning we were taken by freight train to Sremska or Srem Mitrovica to a concentration camp. It was a large fenced in area around an old silk factory. The old buildings were used for our lodging.

Upon our arrival, our heads were shaven so we could not escape. Everything we had tried so hard to save was taken from us, everything except the clothes on our backs.  Men, women, and children were separated. The children were cared for, of sorts, in a separate area away from everything.

Men and women, young and old, were taken by trucks like cattle to work in fields. Many did not return. The soldiers' brutality was severe, and beatings were common.