The City in Flames Read Free Page A

that area, there was acute danger. Radio stations broadcast bulletins with information on the course and the estimated number of airplanes involved. They also named cities in danger of being attacked. If Nuremberg was among them, it meant immediate alarm for us, because their course would bring them directly over our city.
    It was the evening of February 19, 1945, when a voice announced over the radio, “Single enemy airplane in the vicinity of Frankfurt. Course: east. No immediate danger is expected.” This was good enough for us. No sirens had sounded yet, and we were hoping they never would, since we were ready to retire.
    My father, however, had different ideas. “Let’s wait a little while yet,” he suggested. “If there should be an alarm, we at least won’t have to leave our warm beds.” He was right. It had happened so many times before, and it was an awful feeling. Just when you were all cuddled up in your cozy bed, ready to go to sleep—or worse yet, if you were already asleep—there they were again, those howling, monstrous sirens sending their fearful warnings across the sleeping city.
    Well, still no sirens that night. No further warnings on the radio, either.
    “I’m sleepy, Papa. Please can I go to bed?” I said.
    “Psst,” he interrupted me. He lifted his head from the newspaper and listened intently. My heart pounded, and I held my breath.
    “What is it, Papa?” I whispered, frightened.
    “Turn the lights off, quickly!” he ordered me.
    Hastily I reached for the switch. I still couldn’t hear anything except my pounding heart. My mother was napping in her chair. A book slipped off her lap and fell noisily to the floor.
    “Quiet!” my father urged in a hushed voice.
    My mother, awakened by all this, said, “How come it’s dark in here? Brr, I feel a draft; have you got the window open?”
    My father would not answer. His head was between the blackout window shade and the open window. Now we all heard it: the sound of a single airplane coming closer. Suddenly the steady hum of the plane’s engine changed its pitch. The aircraft was diving. My father had survived four heavy bomb attacks in other cities, making him the veteran in our family. When he heard that sound, he knew what was going to happen.
    “Run!” he yelled at us, almost screaming. “Run for your lives!”
    The room was still in darkness, but now more than ever I wouldn’t dare turn the lights back on. I fell over a stool.
    “Where is my coat? I can’t find my coat,” I cried. I fumbled around in the dark, feeling my way to the door. I touched a briefcase, which I grabbed, but still no coat. I started slowly for the cellar. I had walked these stairs countless times, so I should have found my way in the dark easily. But fear and panic disoriented me, and I ran head-on into a wall.
    I was approaching the second floor when suddenly there was a deafening noise. The entire staircase shook, and glass flew from the windows. Part of a window casing fell on top of me, but I was too terrified to feel any pain. The impact of a bomb that hit three houses away made our own house shake in its foundation. Huge chunks of plaster broke away from the ceiling and crashed all around me. The force of the bomb’s impact pushed the right side of my body against the banister. I grabbed hold of the steps after the banister gave way, and the briefcase slipped out of my hands.
    “Oh, dear God,” I whimpered, “don’t let me lose that briefcase. It contains all our valuable papers and money.” I sat in total darkness, feeling around for the briefcase. Now cold winter air rushed through the hole in the wall where a window had been shortly before. Broken glass covered the stairs. I found a shred of stiff paper, the remains of a window shade, and with it I swept away some of the debris so I wouldn’t trip and fall.
    Until that moment, I hadn’t thought about my family. I knew that Rita, my sister, had run out the door before I did; she must