- Christel Fiore
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About the Author
Christel Fiore was born in Berlin, Germany in October 1933. Her early years were spent feeling the effects of a nation as it transitioned from peace to war and by the stark contrasts it presented to daily life. Her powerful memories of those times, as registered through the eyes of a young German child, have remained untainted over the years. She has told the story often, educating family and friends. She has also lectured to interest groups and University students. Christel now shares these moments with all of us in her memoir. She was encouraged in this endeavor by her husband of over 52 years and her three children. A mother and military wife for all her married life, she now resides in the United States. - Books
- $9.31 | ISBN-13: 978-0741431431
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Child of War
NON-FICTION | BIOGRAPHY
Over sixty years have passed since the destruction of World War II shook the European continent. Child of War was written to remember those years from the time of Adolph Hitler’s “Third Reich” until the end of his oppressive and destructive regime that resulted in the deaths of over 50 million people. Since the end of World War II, hundreds of memoirs have been written by survivors of Hitler’s death squads. The world has learned about the cruelest of tragedies that befell the victims of the Nazis including Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and political dissidents in almost every European country.
What is different about this story is that it is written through the eyes of author Christel Fiore, a young German child growing up in the Third Reich. Rarely do we hear about the suffering of the citizens of Germany who were forced into the war efforts and what their tumultuous lives were like. Fiore gives the reader a first-hand account of life for the German people under the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler. This book is unique because it tells us the unknown story about the everyday citizens in Germany during those years who were also victims of Hitler’s maniacal plan to take over the world.
Christel’s story begins with her memories as a five year old watching a silent night parade of hundreds of uniformed men with burning torches. She watched by the window with her parents and older sister, Ulla, not knowing that it was the beginning of the Night of Broken Glass, (Chrystal Nacht.), the name that signifies the start of open Jewish persecution by Hitler’s Troopers.
The next day, Christel held her mother’s hand tightly as they walked past the stores with smashed windows and read the word “JUDE” painted on the storefronts. She learned quickly not to ask “why” about the many things that puzzled her such as the yellow star sewn onto some people’s clothing and the shadowy life and silent disappearance of her Jewish neighbors and friends.
Through Christel’s words, we learn about the indoctrination of children into the Nazi movement. In first grade, she learned how to recite the propaganda drummed each day into the children in school. She regularly attended Nazi parades on the main street corner hoisted on the shoulders of the SS guards. Her mother helplessly watched her daughter’s change into a tool of the propaganda machine. All children were urged to report any anti-Nazi sentiments to teachers or government officials of the "Vaterland above family."
At the age of seven, Christel and Ulla, like many other children, were transported far away from Berlin to live with strangers. After a couple of months, she was reunited happily with her mother even though she was so frightened by the impending bombings.
When Christel returned to Berlin, her neighborhood had changed by the frequent bombings that had left their mark. Now children were forced to do collections after school each day for any materials that could be used for the war effort such as bomb shrapnel, rags, tin, paper, bones, and other garbage. All of the collections were brought home to be sorted, bundled, and then turned into the school. When the sisters broke out with oozing rashes making them look like lepers, their mother forbade any more collecting of this filth. Consequently, they were chastised by their teachers for not supporting the German Reich.
Life for the everyday German families was difficult at best. With all of the men and older boys forced into the army, the women and children were left to fend for themselves. Lack of supplies and strict rationing of food, coal, wood, and personal supplies were a daily challenge. By the time Christel was ten, she and her sister were once again taken away from their mother—as were many other children in Berlin--put on trains taking them to East Prussia, and placed with strangers in unfamiliar and very primitive living conditions. Because Christel developed some unknown sort of body rot, both girls returned to Berlin. The bombing escalated and included daytime attacks. Christel tells of her own feelings trying to live through each day with the constant fear of air raids and bombings while watching the walls crumble around her in the shelter. Berlin was burning, and people ran to save their lives. The family escaped the city finding a safe haven for a short time while the Russian Army was advancing. They got captured, and it became a time of horrible experiences and struggles to survive.
Ordered to return to Berlin, they walked hundreds of miles for weeks along with thousands of refugees on roads with ditches strewn with dead bodies of soldiers, women, and children. Collapsed animals were too weak to scream when people carved them up for food. The horrible stench of death with every breath taken, poisoned water wells, and starvation surrounded them, but the family kept moving on knowing that stopping would mean certain death.
They found Berlin in total ruin when they returned and occupied by the Russians. Survival once again became a daily challenge.
Fiore’s book provides readers with a view of life that most people never heard or knew about. After reading it, you realize that there are no winners in any war. This story will serve as a painful reminder that in all wars, children lose the innocence of youth and people are forced to face the worst that human nature can bestow.