How serenity and confidence can help

by time news

What is happening now in Ukraine, gunfire, explosions, bombs falling and people having to flee their homes within minutes from enemy attacks – Helga Stutenbecker knows such terrible events from her childhood. But thanks to a positive, relaxed attitude to life, they don’t become a burden to her. As a little girl she experienced the Second World War in Berlin. Born in 1937, the Tempelhof native was brought away from the war to what is now Poland at the age of six in 1943, and returned in 1945 at the age of eight after the capitulation.

She has strong memories. “I can still hear how the Russians moving in in March 1945 in the village there in Eastern Pomerania gave orders in the evening: Tomorrow morning everyone has to get out of here!” The accommodations were needed for the soldiers. “In the evening we ate as much of the meat and fruit as we could from the jars.” In the morning everyone got dressed warmly and we went out onto the country road. Where to, they didn’t know. “Everyone gathered what they could carry and ran. We went nowhere.” With few provisions, no means of transportation. On the way they stayed with strangers. “35 people in one room, that was normal.”

There were eight of them, the grandmother, two daughters, daughter-in-law, four small grandchildren. The men had been serving at the front for years. Helga Stutenbecker was small, but she can still remember exactly how she felt. “It’s not possible for us to be expelled so easily, that’s how I felt the situation very strongly.” Today she feels the same way again when looking at the Ukrainians. “The way the poor people are out there now, the mothers and their children, that’s appalling and absolutely unnecessary.” Unfairly simple, she says.

Helga Stutenbecker is relaxed about the fact that the current armed conflict will continue to develop and perhaps even reach Berlin. “I’m not afraid. If it happens, then so be it. We here in West Berlin have often been in such a situation. The blockade, the Cuban Missile Crisis, we survived it all. It was a long time before the wall came down and times became safer.” She confidently relies on powerful friends based on good experience. “The Americans gave us our freedom in West Berlin, and he and NATO will not let us down now either. They always helped us, they don’t give up on Berlin!”

She always has enough food in her apartment for four or five days. “The squirrel reserve,” she says. “That’s what it used to be called, everyone was required to stock up on long-lasting foods such as rice and pasta.” That’s all she could do. “I hope that everything goes well and that no accidents, whether intentional or unfortunate, happen to the nuclear power plants and the Chernobyl nuclear ruins.” The deadly emissions would spread far into Europe. “That affects us too and nobody can help.”

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