abduction

My mother was born Lodz, Poland in 1925.She was
13 years old when Germany invaded.During the 1st year of the occupation, on her way home from school she was abducted by German soldiers and sent to work as a housemaid for a German Officer, his wife and family near the town of Munster in Westphalia.
She always said that the officer was civil and kind but the wife was very cruel and used to beat her regularly for any slightest misdemeanor.
My mother ran away on numerous occasions but was always caught and returned.

The German officer was called Hartmann (Hauptman or Sturmbahnfuhrer) and he was in the SS and also a pilot. He must have been involved in the v1 project as during 1943 my mother was sent with the Hartmann family to Peenemunde. She said to me that she heard these strange noises during the day and night but never knew what caused them.
The family moved back to Osnabruck the night before the RAF bombed the V1 rocket site off the face of the earth.

After the war ended in 1945, she was in a displaced person camp run by the British and asked if she would like to go home to Poland or come to Britain. She chose the latter as she had a passionate hatred of the Russians who had obviously occupied Poland by now.

I will never forget the look on my mum's face when in about 1961 her mum and dad walked down our street on a visit from Poland.

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