A Childhood in Bohemia

and the flight to the West

Erika Schroll, a small girl, growing up in the picturesque town of Saaz, discovers the way of the world and her own nature amidst the turmoil of a World War and its devastating consequences. Always being accompanied by her mother, Josefine, she feels safe in spite of the family's sudden deportation with millions of compatriots to the recently destroyed Germany.

     East Germany, by now was part of the Russian Sector, the country having been divided up by the allies, Erika and her mother spent 9 months in an overcrowded refugee camp, whilst her fatally sick sister, Liesl, was being nursed in the hospital in the town of Freiburg/Saxony. The long, enforced march across the Ore mountain range, dividing Czechoslovakia from Germany, hd done irreparable damage to her already dysfunctional heart valves. After two years of starvation and ill health and the worst winter for centuries, their physical condition became critical. .....