91Čȱ¬

This story appears courtesy of and with thanks to The Liverpool Diocesan care and Repair Association and James Taylor.

Dorothy Schmechel, who was born in 1908, was not in the armed forces, but served her country indirectly.

One day my landlady came up to see me and handed me an official letter.
I opened it and it said that I should report to this factory where they made ammunition. It was a huge garage, which had been turned into a factory with huge machinery. I went it and saw the supervisor and she said ā€œ According to the specialist youā€™re allowed to have a sit down jobā€. So she told me to sit down on this chair and she bought this little box which was full of pieces of blunt bullets and they were in paraffin oil to stop them rusting. I had to sort them out, the good ones from the bad ones. After about a week the supervisor came up to me and told me she was putting me on a machine. There was no handle on the machine just a pedal. And as you pedalled, a sharp needle shot down and pierced the bullet. It was just what they called ā€˜pointingā€™ and it went on for hours and hours. On Sunday, I got double time.

Q: Did you have to work on Sunday?
Yes, you had to because it was an emergency. Every time I made a box full, I used to write a little note ā€œboys, boys carry on the good workā€ and I used to push it between the little bullets. Another note would read ā€œthis little extra sharp one is for Hitlerā€.

My sister was an interpreter in Germany and she asked me to go over.
So I travelled on my own from Central Station in Liverpool. It was all arranged that I should go the long way around. I left Central Station at one oā€™clock and got to Harwich at nine at night. I went through to customs into Hook of Holland and got off the ship at six in the morning. I never managed to get into Holland for a look around because the Bavarian Express was waiting. I got on that and went straight into Hamburg. That was another days journey. Three days it took me altogether. Sitting in the carriage was an old fat German and I was sitting in the other corner. I knew what I was doing. I knew what I had been told to do. As I looked out of the window, the place was like a desert. Our boys had certainly done their stuff. There was not a house, there was not a brick, there was nothing in sight. They had done a marvellous job. The train travelled through, full speed, and did not stop until it reached the border.
The old fat German said, (in his own language), ā€œEnglish pigs! They do this!ā€
[Dorothy describes how the German spat on the floor as he said this].
I said ā€˜Ja, Jaā€™ and spat. You had to.
I arrived at Hamburg at six oā€™clock in the evening. Naturally, I expected my sister Cathleen to meet me but she wasnā€™t there. I was stuck on the station by myself and I thought to myself, there must be someone here who could speak English.
Then I saw a cigarette kiosk and I walked up and said, ā€˜Cigarette?ā€™
He said, ā€œEnglander?ā€
I said,ā€ Ya. Speken English?ā€
He said,ā€ Are you in any trouble?ā€
I said,ā€ noā€.
I expected my sister or her husband to meet me her.
We chatted for a while and then eventually he called someone over.
He said,ā€ May I introduce you?ā€
He introduced me to a man who was from the British Consul.
I thought thatā€™s alright because I had to go there in any case.
Later on I would have had to get my passport stamped to allow me to stay longer.
I asked him to direct me to the hotel where my sister and her husband were living.
He said,ā€Iā€™ll take you there. Iā€™ve got my car outsideā€. He picked up my case and eventually we arrived at the hotel.

Q: Do you remember what year this happened?
Early in the War. Well just after the early part of the war.

Of course my sister was delighted to see me. She told me I should have waited on the platform until she or her husband came to collect me. I told her Iā€™d waited for over half an hour and about the man at the cigarette kiosk. Then we wished the man from the British Consul many thanks and I said to him ā€Iā€™ll be seeing you soon because I have to bring my passport to be stampedā€.
He said ā€œoh yes, itā€™s all arranged. We know that youā€™ve arrivedā€.
I said, ā€œDo you?ā€
He said, ā€œYes. We knew that a couple of weeks ago. What do you think I was on the station for?ā€
I said, ā€œDonā€™t tell me you were looking for meā€.
He said ā€œwe werenā€™t quite sure if it was you or notā€.
Anyway, we went into the hotel and had a nice meal.

My sister asked me how much training Iā€™d had.
Question: Training for what?
For the Underground. She was in it, you see. She was an interpreter as well.
Question: Did you have any training?
Me? Iā€™ll say I did. Six months of it.
You see when I received a letter from my sister Cathleen, she said,ā€ I think you would have the privilege of joining us out here in Germany. So get in touch with a solicitor and ask him to get in touch with the government and the war office.ā€
Which I did, and it was arranged that I should leave the factory and start my training and then my journey to Hamburg.
Then we got to work. She took me all around here, there and everywhere.
We talked in whispers ā€” because you never knew who was listening you see.
You had to be very careful what you did, what you said.
You always felt there was someone looking, waiting. Terrible feeling really.
I began to wish Iā€™d never started it, but still I went through with it.

Then one day I said to Cathleen that I wanted to see the destruction.
We walked around. Oh my God! Dear God in heaven.

Thatā€™s nothing I said. You havenā€™t been in England for years Cathleen. Theyā€™ve bombed the churches, theyā€™ve destroyed peoples houses, people have gone down like packs of cards, my God itā€™s been terrible.

A few of the churches have been bombed in Hamburg too.
I said to Cathleen, ā€œWhatā€™s that little tin thing over there?ā€
She said it used to be a church and underneath the rubble where the vaults were they used to bury the rich.
She said People are living under there. They are like us, they did not want it, and itā€™s the Natziā€™s in the west. The Gestapo with the shiny boots and kid gloves.

We went down into the vaults through a hole or something. The poor things, it was freezing cold and they were sitting amongst rags and things to keep warm. The piece of tin I had seen sticking out of the ground was a chimney theyā€™d made out of a pice of tin and they had this Smokey fire going. They were cooking in a little rusty pot, potato peelings to make soup, poor things.

QUESTION: Where these people bombed out?
Yes Cathleen introduced me to the people and they said ā€œAh! Ya, ya.ā€
There were little girls there, curtseying. They had beautiful flaxen hair.
They curtseyed and then they hid. I said,ā€ Iā€™m not going to hurt you I have come to say helloā€.
They were using the water from the dirty river to cook their food.

QUESTION: Why were they hiding from the Gestapo?
Because they were frightened that they were going to get shot.

QUESTION: Where the people that were hiding, German people?
Yes, from Hamburg, but they were like us. They were not wicked people.
It was Hitlerā€™s mob that was wicked. The Hamburg people did not want war.
Anyway, we walked a bit further down the road. There was rubble everywhere.
The railway lines were right up in the air where our boys had dropped bombs. They were all twisted and bent. Cathleen told me that underneath all the rubble a surgeon with his wife and daughters had gone into the cellar for safety rather than be captured or found, he had taken a scalpel and slashed their wrists and they had all sat and bled to death.

QUESTION: Do you think they were Jewish?
I think they may have been. They were frightened of gas chambers I think. Then there was another time I went into a big store. It was a huge place.
Walking around were two detectives or guards you might say. They had long green coats, leather belts, and revolvers, shiny boots and the lot. I can see it so plainly.
A little boy came in, his trousers were all ragged, he had nothing on his feet.
I was standing nearby when this little boy grabbed a piece of black bread and as he turned to run, they shouted ā€œHalt!ā€ or ā€œIā€™ll shoot.ā€
The poor little boy ran and ran and ran. One of the guards ran after him and shot him in the leg, near the heel. As he ran the blood was trailing behind him but he clung to that bread.

QUESTION: Are you glad you did what you did?
Yes.

QUESTION: When you were in Germany, what was your job supposed to be? What would you say if anyone asked?
I just said Iā€™d come to help the Red Cross, the wounded. Often I used to feel thereā€™s going to be a hand on my shoulder. Thank God it never happened.

QUESTION: How long were you in Germany.
Over six months. I can see it all. They helped the boys that were shot down to get out, get away. Some got caught, some got brought back, some got away and came back to England.
One day Cathleenā€™s husband wrote to me and said ā€œIā€™m sorry, Iā€™m sending Cathleenā€™s watch, my darling Cathleen is dead. I went to visit her in hospital and they told me she had died. I could whisper something if you were here, but I darenā€™t write it.ā€
So many years have passed. Sometimes I sit and picture it all and have a little weep.
Itā€™s over now, someone came to see to see me from head office, I gave them all the information. I know my passport is in the war office.

'This story was submitted to the Peopleā€™s War site by 91Čȱ¬ Radio Merseysideā€™s Peopleā€™s War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his / her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

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