Gerhard Simchen

"In our country we experienced this because the forests were full of Russian soldiers long before the invasion. So there were camps everywhere. Then there were also traffic controls, when I had to go to Löbau, for whatever reason, I was stopped three or four times. Document checks and all sorts of things. And then came that August. In the evening we were at the church choir rehearsal and after the church choir rehearsal the guys went to the pub for a beer. I got as far as the town hall in Ebersbach, where the Bahnhofstrasse went right by. That's the street that goes towards Jiříkov. And it was closed, nobody could cross. There were Russian guards with armbands and flags, and then it started. Then there were artillery guns, machine guns and everything. And then the tanks came. I was not able to count them. But I noticed that the tactical signs, the numbers on the tanks, were covered with Russian newspapers. And what was a little suspicious to me at the time was that there was a gunner sitting on the artillery pieces that were there, which is never usual for a transport, as I found out later when I was in the army myself. And it lasted for hours!"

"But one thing they did manage, because they lived right on the border, in Philippsdorf - Filipov. There was no border in a real sense. And they probably learned accidentally that they would soon have to leave home. They had their own mechanical hand knitting factory, machines, they made children's things, everything that was knitted, like a sweater. At night they managed to dismantle the machines and smuggle them across the border into Saxony. Then they took them with them to Leipzig and ran the business until they retired. They had to be extra careful because the border police were already sending patrols there. And they were always checking when the patrol had passed, carrying the stuff in bundles... It must have been very difficult."