Trudy Walter Carlson

Growing up as a German immigrant in America our family had challenges which included being inundated with American history books and movies referring to Germans as invading Nazi’s murdering millions of innocent people and destroying families and villages as they crossed Europe during WWII. My family, along other displaced Germans, had to leave Ukraine (Besserabia) during the war because Russia wanted their land. There were thousands of German families that were told to leave everything they owned behind and transported from one refugee camp after another across Europe. From Besserabia (now Moldova) to Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland until finally reaching Germany. A total of five different refugee camps covering 1,909 miles.

After reading my Aunt Katy’s, Uncle Adam’s, my mother, Bertha, and father, Philipp, and sister, Lydia, journals it was obvious that there was another side to our history that was rarely, if ever, talked about. Little was mentioned or discussed by anyone about how the average German citizen was treated under Hitler’s rule. Living in America from a country with a different culture and language was not easy. There was no button to press with instructions to “Push 1 for English, Push 2 for German.” There wasn’t financial assistant, government programs or health care offered to immigrants. Nor was there anyone to translate for us if we didn’t understand what we were being told. There weren’t any concessions or allowances

I know firsthand what it was like to have others criticize and misunderstand you simply because of your culture and characteristics that is in our DNA and who we are. The main reason for organizing and putting this book together was because I wanted to tell my family’s story to let other immigrant children know that they’re not alone in their experiences of being criticized, misunderstood, or belittled became someone simply does not understand. I’m immensely proud of being German and am grateful that I live in America.