Julia Boyd on the Horrors of War, Then and Now

I have spent much of the last five years writing about the Third Reich as seen from the perspective of a village in southern Germany called Oberstdorf. Against the backdrop of the Second World War, the history of one small community may seem trivial. But I firmly believe that by looking closely at the experiences of individuals we are able to gain a better understanding of the bigger picture.

Sometimes, after a long session immersed in the death, destruction and utter misery endured by ordinary people during the Nazi years, I found myself in tears, unable to continue until I had been for a long walk or listened to the kind of music that restores one’s faith in humanity. I often comforted myself with the thought that at least the horror unleashed by Hitler could never happen again in Europe. But, as many commentators have pointed out, the scenes of human suffering in Ukraine that we see daily on the television, are uncannily similar to those Second World War newsreels with which many of us are so familiar. The vivid account given by one Oberstdorf woman caught up in the desperate last weeks of the Second World War is painfully resonant: ‘We were totally filthy, it was impossible to wash and there were no sanitary towels . . . we set off but we were caught in a massive air raid and had to shelter in a cellar . . . when we came out we couldn’t make out where we were. Nothing was left. There were no houses, only smoke and intense heat.’

As Nazi aggression intensified, many people were trapped in their respective countries. But those who did make it out faced hazardous journeys often not knowing where they would end up or what to expect when they got there. Then as now, millions of wretched, dislocated people were on the move across the continent. 

In their turn, the Germans were also forced to flee – first from the Allied onslaught and then from the Russians. Although Oberstdorfers themselves were spared the bombing, they certainly experienced at first hand the human tragedy that results from being forced to find refuge far from home. Evacuees from all over Germany poured into the village, vastly expanding its pre-war population. Having been exposed to bombing night after night, and living in cellars with little to eat or drink, many schoolchildren were so disturbed by the time they reached Oberstdorf that their behaviour had become deeply disruptive. Franz Noichl, one of the village boys, was fifteen in 1944 and recalled how when a young teacher criticised a boy from the Ruhr industrial region, he pushed her up against the blackboard and held her there ‘with her arms spread as if nailed to the cross.’ With so many traumatised children left unsupervised for long periods, the violence simmering below the surface would erupt on the slightest provocation into bloody fights, broken windows and smashed furniture.

Finding food, housing and clothes for so many evacuees, at a time when the village was itself struggling to survive, created a huge logistical challenge for the authorities. Nor was their task made easier by the resentment felt by many villagers at having these unwelcome visitors thrust upon them. On the receiving end, one woman remembered the miserable time she had in Oberstdorf as an evacuee. Not, she pointed out, because she had married into a Jewish family, but simply because she was a Bombenweib (bomb woman). 

The devastated towns and cities in Ukraine will be rebuilt, as were those in Germany after the Second World War. But the emotional damage inflicted on the civilian population is far harder to assess and may take generations to heal. On a more positive note, Oberstdorf’s example also teaches us that many of those unable to return home will eventually succeed – despite their trauma – in putting down new roots and rebuilding their lives.