The War of Our Childhood: Memories of World War II

by Wolfgang W.E. Samuel

One survivor tells of the fire-bombing of Dresden. Another survivor recounts the pervasive fear of marauding Russian and Czech bandits raping and killing. Children recall fathers who were only photographs and mothers who were saviors and heroes.

These are typical in the stories collected in The War of Our Childhood: Memories of World War II . For this book Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, a childhood refugee himself after the fall of Nazi Germany, interviewed twenty-seven men and women who as children―by chance and sheer resilience―survived Allied bombs, invading armies, hunger, and chaos.

“Our eyes carried no hate, only recognition of what was,” Samuel writes of his childhood. “Peace was an abstraction. The world we Kinder knew nearly always had the word ‘war’ appended to it.”

Samuel's heartfelt narratives from these innocent survivors are invariably riveting and often terrifying. Each engrossing story has perilous and tragic moments―school children in Leuna who are sent home during an air raid but are strafed as moving targets; fathers who exist only as distant figures, returning to their families long after the war―or not at all; mothers who are raped and tortured; families who are forced into a seemingly endless relocation that replicates the terrors of war itself. In capturing such experiences from nearly every region of Germany and involving people of every socio-economic class, this is a collection of unique memories, but each account contributes to a cumulative understanding of the war that is more personal than strategic surveys and histories.

For Samuel and the survivors he interviewed, agony and fright were part of everyday life, just as were play, wondrous experience, and above all perseverance.

“My focus,” Samuel writes, “is on the astounding ability of a generation of German children to emerge from debilitating circumstances as sane and productive human beings.”

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Biography, War, Germany, World War II

376 pages, Hardcover

First published September 27, 2002

About the author

Wolfgang W.E. Samuel is a German-born American author. He was commissioned through the Air Force ROTC at the University of Colorado and is a graduate of the National War College. He served in the U.S. Air Force for thirty years until his retirement in 1985 as a colonel. His writing has been published in several military journals, including Parameters, the U.S. Army War College quarterly. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Reviews

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with many of my recent adds to Goodreads, this is yet another one I picked up at a used bookstore in New Orleans (anyone feeling the need to go to used bookstores in New Orleans yet?) This book is a little different from a lot of World War II books I've seen in that the focus is very specifically NOT on Jewish children and how they were affected by the war. This book focuses on non-Jewish German children (and children living in areas "annexed" by Nazi Germany) and how the war and its aftermath affected them, which is really something I haven't seen dealt with very often. This is a topic that is particularly close to the author's heart, as he was one of those children (and, in fact, wrote his own memoir of this time prior to publishing this book). This is simply a collection of first-person memories of what happened to the narrators. Most of the stories don't pick up until almost the end of the war, as Germany did not really begin its downhill slide until then. The stories sound very much the same after a while, yet each has its own particular horror. The stories are given a human face at the beginning of each new story with a photograph of each narrator during a time before things became the stuff of nightmares. Bombings. Rapes (of grown women, mostly). Near starvation. Fathers who are never seen again. I hate to admit it, but I was pretty glad that, in most of the stories, the Americans came out sounding pretty well after the war was lost. Almost to a person, the Americans were described as being friendly and personable, tossing gum, chocolate, and other foods to the German children. The Brits were generally cold and aloof. The Russians, however, seemed to have done a great deal of raping. The Russians were the ones who were most feared by all these narrators. This is one of those books, I believe, that really deserves to be read by more people.

[Katie]

Two effects of reading this terrifying book:
1. Hug my children
2. Marvel at the food they leave on their plates

Found an answer to a question I have had for years: how do people who have childhoods of deprivation and horror go on? For these German children, barely survivors of WWII, they were simply amazed to be alive. My own generation seems to have the mindset of entitlement....whining about xyz minor difficulties in life.....books like this give perspective to our all-to-easy lives.

One irony: this book, about children, is not for children. I'm adding it to my Senior High reading list.

[Camelia Rose]

(Dec 2023) A collection of mini-memoirs of non-Jewish German children who lived through WWII in Germany. I read a few. The writing is bland. I might come back again.

[Tim Byers · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the unspoken hierarchy of victims of WWII, German citizens are understandably treated differently. Its apparent, however, from the earliest pages of Samuel's book, that a generation of German children were innocent victims to the horrors brought on by the Nazi regime. Samuel interviewed about 50 of these survivors, dividing their accounts into those who experienced war primarily through the air (in the West) or on the ground (in the East). The book is rich with details about home life--a home life which featured food shortages, foreign POW laborers, and the absence of fathers. Even more, narrow escapes, gruesome death, brutal rape, near starvation, and life on the move as Fluchtlinge (Refugees). Perhaps at rock bottom, however, for nearly every witness, was Mother. Mother kept them safe, clothed, fed; and she did whatever, and that meant whatever, it took to protect her children. Not surprising, the experiences with American occupiers, who were for the most part friendly and generous, contrasted sharply with those of the first Red Army occupiers, whose desire for revenge was much stronger and led them to ruthless brutal acts. The accounts often extend beyond the war's end to the hardships before currency reform and the Marshall Plan revived a destroyed country. Immensely readable, the accounts testify to the amazing resilience of a generation of victims often overlooked. I want this book on my shelf.

[Michelle Barker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aside from the fact that this book is important to me for personal reasons—my mother was also a child in Germany during WW2, and this book is a huge find for me in terms of research—it also tells gripping stories from the point of view of "genuine innocents." Many of the stories echo each other: the terror of the bombings, imprisoned fathers, heroic mothers, witnessed rapes, violence and constant hunger. I'm not surprised that for many of the interviewees, this is the first time they've revisited their childhood in detail. What did surprise me was hearing that many of their children don't want to know about it or, when they do find out, are certain their parents have exaggerated how bad it was. The more I know about what my mother lived through as a child, the better I understand her now. Post-war Germany is a time in history that isn't talked about much. This book fills an important gap. Definitely worth reading.

[Christine Mathieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several childhood memories of German children in WW II.

Wolfgang Samuel also wrote "German Boy" and the sequel "Coming to Colorado" about his immigration to the US as a young boy. All three books are highly recommended.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book explained answers to questions I didn't know I had. My mother is from East Germany and was born in 1943. She doesn't remember the war, but has memories of Germany. She immigrated at the age of 10 to the United States. I now understand her sense of conservation, and why my oma (grandma) would look for mushrooms when we took her to our cabin in the mountains. I pictured my mother's family in each story and wanted to continually look at a map for reference. My opa (grandpa) was imprisoned a couple times for being out past curfew, though I don't have dates on his prison time, but I am now anxious to have his history translated. He was just out serving the members of his religious organization. From reading this book, I know there were many widows and a great need for service. His boss was able to get him released the first time because he was needed to work on the aircraft, and that request was granted, and may have been during the war. The next time he was not able to help release him. When my grandparents decided to leave, they had to pretend they were going to visit relatives in the west in order to be allowed to leave East Germany, even as late as 1953. They were sponsored by a family to come to the U.S. as was required when you didn't have the funds to support the journey. I have many questions for my relatives, though I understand some don't like talking about their experiences.
I loved this book and the stories coming from the children and thought it made a much more enjoyable read than the other WWII books I have read to this point.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of experiences of 27 women and men when they were children during and immediately after WW II. Most of them lived in Germany during the war but a few were in the German areas of Eastern Europe. Their experiences with American soldiers was much better than if the conquerors were Russian, the British and French fell in between the two extremes. It is also interesting that many of the Americans the children interacted with were African-American.

[Bill Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

harrowing accounts of effects of war on civilians, especially those most vulnerable, women, children and the elderly, while illustrating the resilency of the human spirit.

[Christina Sutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heavy memories that will stick with the reader for years

[Pam Proulx · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed me. I love the honest way Wolfgang Samuel shares the stories of each of these German child survivors. I will definitely view wars and their aftermath differently from now on.

[M Rothenbuhler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a valuable book and I am grateful to the author for assembling and editing it. It is obviously a work of love and is done with respect.

It appealed to me in particular because my mother is one of these children, although she is not featured in the book, and her stories jive well with the stories presented here.

The ability of these survivors to truly get on with their lives and to eschew bitterness is encouraging and really amazing.

The history retold here is valuable and rings true.

I did not give it five stars only because it is a not a novel and I tend to give five stars only to creative work - not that the world probably cares, but I do! So I give it four, and am very glad to have read it.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can be largely summed up as follows:
1. my mother was great
2. we were hungry
3. the Americans treated us well and the Russians were savage Asiatics
4. our family was not political
5. we knew nothing about the Jews.

I get that my heart strings are supposed to be twanged by the stories of suffering of little children. But your parents certainly WERE political and they certainly DID know something about the Jews.

[Michael Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Educational, moving, and very compelling, as Samuel shares first-hand accounts of childhood survivors of the last, awful days of the Third Reich and the brutal years of deprivation that followed.

[Ann Riley]

The stories are very interesting, but for some reason it's taking me forever to read this book.