Objekt des Monats
Jedes Objekt in der Sammlung des Deutschen Auswandererhauses erzählt eine ganz persönliche Auswanderungs- oder Einwanderungsgeschichte. In dieser Rubrik stellen wir Ihnen jeden Monat ein anderes Objekt vor – eine Fotografie, ein Dokument oder ein persönliches Erinnerungsstück.
September 2018
“Life Sign” postcard from 1944
Historical Context
On September 1, 1939, the Second World War begins with the German invasion of Poland, an unscrupulous war of plunder and annihilation. The Allies France, Great Britain, the USA, and Russia fight against the German Reich, which has turned into a dictatorship since 1933.
The brutal consequences of the Nazi dictatorship are still felt across Europe today. Over 13 million prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates, and politically or racially persecuted individuals are deported to Germany as forced laborers for work deployment. More than ten million people, including six million Jews, are murdered by the Nazis. With the advance of the Soviet army and the restructuring of Europe after the Allies’ victory, Germans flee from the former German territories in East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania. Additionally, ethnically German residents from Czechoslovakia and Poland are expelled. In total, about 12.5 million German refugees and displaced persons are counted due to the Second World War.
Short Biography
Wilfried Sauer is born in Berlin in 1931 as the first child of teacher Kurt Sauer, who hails from Pomerania, followed by his brother Manfred in 1938. When World War II begins in 1939, father Kurt is drafted as a Luftwaffe officer, initially stationed in Berlin. In 1943, the Allies begin bombing the city, and women and children are evacuated. Wilfried finds refuge with his mother and younger brother at their grandparents’ place in Pomeranian Greifenberg. The life there, initially largely untouched by the war, ends in 1945. The front, and thus the Soviet army, move closer. The mother flees with her two sons from Greifenberg and eventually finds shelter with a farmer in Lower Saxony’s Bevern. Father Kurt also survives his deployment, being sent to the front in the last weeks of the war, and manages to reach Bevern. On Ascension Day in 1945, the family is reunited, having lost all their possessions.
Significance of the Object
Using the commonly used German ‘Lebenszeichen’ postcards during World War II, Kurt Sauer notifies his evacuated family of his survival after enduring bombing attacks. The postcard is a personal keepsake for the Sauer family, recalling a terrible time they have managed to get through well in retrospect.
Since 1957, September 1st, the anniversary of the German Wehrmacht’s invasion of Poland in 1939, has been observed as Anti-War Day to commemorate the terrible consequences of war and violence. Under the slogan ‘Never again war’, it calls for peaceful coexistence.
Do You Also Have …
… a story of emigration or immigration in your family that you would like to share with the German Emigration Center together with the related objects and documents for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau by phone at +49 471 / 90 22 0 – 0
or by e-mail at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de