Hello!
The child with the white ribbon is the little Helga; next to me is my brother. The photograph was taken because our grandmother wanted it. She took us to a dark , grim photographic studio in Berlin where we were lent a ball and a soft toy with which to have the photograph taken. Once the photograph had been taken, the soft toy caused a minor drama, because my little brother did not want to part with it – he screamed and cried out of anger.
We were in 1941. My brother was little more than one and a half years old and I was four. It was a difficult moment for us children because our mother had just abandoned the family in order to dedicate herself, body and soul, to her duties as member and auxiliary of the SS. Our father, on the other hand, was at the front fighting for “the Fuhrer and the Fatherland” which, for him must have been an unhappy duty seeing as in 1938 Austria, his native land had been annexed to the Third Reich.
With great solidarity, our father’s mother, aware of our family tragedy rushed over from Poland so as to attend to my brother and I.
My grandmother was an exceptional woman, loving and severe at the same time, rational but also impulsive, intelligent and with a simple heart, practical and at the same time just as disarmingly poetical. My brother and I understood for the very first time the meaning of the word love, total love, disinterested, generous, maternal.
One of my deepest pains was that caused by my grandmother’s leaving.
When she found out that my father intended to get married again she returned to Poland, and managed a small farm together with some relatives.
Life with my stepmother was for me, a war in a war. She had only accepted my brother. With a futile excuse she put me, first into an institute for problematic children, and then into a re-educational college. Bombs, terror, hunger, solitude, this was my infancy.

December 1944

One memoir which is indelibly branded into my mind is my stay in the Führer's bunker.
Adolf Hitler's last abode was the fruit of an architecture without a future, an unsettling maze of death, in which, notwithstanding the damp, unhealthy and oppressive atmosphere a senseless and pedantic discipline was enforced right up to the last extreme moment.

It was thanks to the propagandistic manoeuvres of the minister Joseph Goebbels that my brother and I, together with other groups of "priviliged" children from Berlin, had been transformed into "the Führer's little guests", even thought I felt like a prisoner in that bunker, not a guest! I felt unable to breathe, I suffered from attacks of panic and I had the impression that I would never come out of that place alive. Only the food, which always arrived on time and in abundance was able to reconcile me just a little during that strange mole-like holiday that had been arranged by an acquired aunty who worked in Goebbels "Propagandaburo".

And we met him, the Führer, and I couldn't believe my eyes!

As Hitler advanced towards us, I stared at him holding my breath. He walked slowly, his shoulders slightly curved, his feet scraping along the floor. I thought to myself, was this the man who had made the crowds wild, as my grandfather had told me? I, on the other hand, saw an old man who moved around awkwardly. I noticed his head trembled slightly and that his left arm dangled lifelessly down his side, as if it were of plaster. I was incredulous, I was trembling with anxiety and agitation. And finally, after having shaken hands with the first children in the line, it was my turn. I found myself in front of the Führer of the Third Reich! He seemed to be tall, but perhaps that was because I was only a little girl.

Adolf Hitler held out his hand to me and looked me straight in the eyes. Despite his decadent appearance, his gaze was still strong and penetrating and it made me feel intimidated. In his pupils I could see a strange light, as if an elf were dancing inside.

The Führer's handshake was limp, his hand hot and sweaty. I was so disconcerted at having such an unfavourable impression, that my instinct was to pull my hand back, but I controlled myself.

Adolf Hitler asked me "What's your name?".

"Helga" I replied, too vivaciously. I forgot to add "mein Führer" as I had been instructed to do.

The Führer's face was haggard-looking. A thick web of lines circled his under-eyes and his flesh was flabby. Only his well-cut moustache, although grey and scanty portrayed a minimum of consistency within those ruined features. But the gaze ... no, the gaze was still magnetic and penetrating.

When the Führer pulled his hand away from mine, I felt a sensation of relief. Without speaking further, he continued on, and a woman, who was carrying a basket handed me a bar of marzipan.

My turn was over, now it was my brother's.

Five minutes of History, perhaps I should have forgotten them. But they have remained obstinately fixed in my mind.

Clear and indelible.

April 1945

Then the war finished with the occupation of the winning forces. Hunger and chaos did not.
Finally my father returned and within a short time he decided to go back to his native country.
In 1948 we left Germany for good.