Klaus Hammerlik

"They were like the majority: mother was a member of the League of German Girls and without further ado, was made assistant of an anti-aircraft gun where she operated rather poorly the radio communication for the protection from air raids. And my father went from the labour service directly to the army. And I always thought he had been in the Wehrmacht. I started to question this when I saw the wedding photo, where he is wearing a pale green uniform. And on one of his sleeves was a symbol or something scratched out. So I asked him, when I saw this A4 picture in a pile of loose photos. And this was the only time that he talked about the war. And he explained to me that he had been in a police unit and he met his two older brothers occasionally, because he recognized their secret symbols on the fenders of these special-purpose vehicles. So one of my uncles had a picture of antlers on his car. This is all he said and I’m not sure whether it was one of these vehicles transporting gas, or whether it was a special signal vehicle. But it does suggest that…"

"My father was born in 1919, trained to become a distiller by a Jew, a merchant called Knorre. He was lucky. Before his boss was allowed, through bribery, to emigrate to the US, he made him take an exam to become a merchant. He obviously liked him. And then my father was drafted to the labour service. And because his instructor, who was a Feldmeister, did not want him to get sent to the Poland campaign, to the invasion, he failed him in his vehicle test. And my father had to wheel a replacement tyre through the whole city. And he was two weeks later and did not go to the front."