Lilli Farrow

Last night I was told some family history, which I'm putting here in the hope that this will help me to remember it.

My grandmother lived on a farm in a German village in Borodino, then in Romania, now apparently in the Ukraine.  When Hitler and Stalin decided to divide up eastern Europe between them, this part of Romania was given to the Russians.  The germans who lived there decided that it was for the best for them to leave, despite assurances from the Russians that they would be well treated.  They were given a couple of days to leave.  They went to what is now Poland, which was at this point once again German.  The journey was very tough, though until last night, I understood it to be even tougher.

In fact the tougher journey was done in the last weeks of the second world war in Europe.  The Russians were advancing and my grandma and her family were essentially on the front line.  It was not a time to be a german person under control of the Russians after what the Nazis had done to the Russians, so vast numbers of germans distributed over Europe, some having been there for hundreds of years, needed to flee from them.

Hitler didn't allow anyone to retreat, so my family and many others could only leave an area which was suffering the Russian onslaught once the Nazis in the area had left.  They were one step behind the Nazis who were themselves fleeing the advancing Russians.  According to a lady my Dad met a meeting of Borodino survivors a few years ago, my grandmother and her sister Emma were the two able bodied young people in the group and for the several months that this journey took, they would go ahead of their families to search for safe places to put their carts and to stay overnight.  Places safe from the Russian planes that would attack them.  They would also try and find food, for example digging up potatoes from the frozen ground.

The lady said that if it wasn't for my grandma and her sister, she thinks that they wouldn't have made it.  Once they made it clear of the Russians, my grandmothers shoes had to be cut off her as she hadn't taken them off for three months having walked I don't know how far in the depths of the eastern european winter.

Germany was devastatingly poor after the war, of course.  My Granddad was in charge of the NAAFI in Stuttgart having previously done the same job in Cairo.  My grandma worked there and they met and rest is history.  Well, it's all history.  They came back to England where she was warmly welcomed and made a part of the family.