Evelyne Brix (86)
Germany

Evelyne Brix has left Berlin only once in her life for a longer period of time. That was in 1943, when countless children were evacuated from the aerial bombing of the city. She was eleven years old at the time. Her whole class was sent to Bad Lettin, a former spa resort in today’s Czech Republic. Two years passed before she could return to her family. She says she was spared much suffering, but the impact of her return to war­torn Berlin still shapes her life today. The hunger she experienced is what she remembers above all.

Evelyne Brix remembers the details from the past more precisely than some of what was a week ago. She then sees again the scene when Evelyne's father came to her, her little brother and her mother in the kitchen to say that ominous phrase: ‘Now we are at war.’ It was the summer of 1939 in Lichtenberg, in the east of Berlin. “I had no idea what war was,’ she admits. ‘But there was an unusual tone in my father’s voice. One that I had never heard before.“

As an eleven-year-old girl, Evelyne's school class is evacuated to the Czech Republic. When the Red Army advances in the spring of 1945, the children set off on foot for southern Germany. The long march through the Bohemian Forest is exhausting, but also “fascinating” for them. Later, they return home to destroyed Berlin.

In addition to the bombed-out houses that shock her on her return, Evelyne Brix remembers above all the constant hunger of the following months: Food is scarce and strictly rationed. The girl is all the more grateful for the “Swedish meals“ with which Save the Children provides emergency aid for German children through its Swedish and Norwegian sections. The senior citizen still raves about the noodle soup with meat and the buttered rolls with hot cocoa.

Ulrike C. Tscharre looks at three scenes from Evelyne Brix's life and studies them like a screenplay.