| The Battle of Jebsheim, France - from a French point-of-view. Page 14 |
| RIEDWIHR STREET, FARM # 8- MRS LUCIE OBRECHT, 50 YEARS OLD Long before 27 January, we had been living in the stable because it appeared to be the most solid building. We had piled vine-props and all sorts of stakes in front of the windows to act as protection. There were 36 of us, counting three refugees from Illhaeusern, living there with the animals. During the night of 27 January, no one dared to out to the toilet that was in the courtyard. There were still two or three German soldiers in the house. Early in the morning, I saw an Allied soldier climb the wall that separates us from farm #10 (Jacques Selig's hours). He yelled to me in Alsatian. "Are there any more German soldiers in there?" I answered- "But are you a French soldier?" He answered that he was and the he came from Haguenau. What a surprise! He was a legionnaire. As for the Germans, they had left. Our house would be liberated without fighting. I chanced a glance in the street and saw a tank burning in front of George Rieg's house, at #21 and another vehicle that had been immobilized in from of Oscar Bentz's house at #19 AT THE RESTAURANT DEL LA GARE- MRS CLAIRE BENTZ, nee BASS, 52 YEARS OLD After a bomb fell near our house on 22 January, we moved into the cellar under the ballroom. We set up a stove for cooking, mattresses, etc. But we were not alone. There was my family (8), the Wantz family (6), and the J.J. Danner family (5), plus five refugees, four of whom were from Ostheim- that made us 24 in all. From time to time, Mr. Wantz would return to his house, going through the garden that runs along the wall to Linden-Tree Square (Place des Tilleuls). And what a life we led in the small cellar! Now and then, to pass the time, we sang and told stories, but when the shells exploded above and around our shelter, we would pray because we did not think we would leave the hell, alive. This is because, occupied first by the Americans and then again by the Germans, our area was the stake in fierce combat. During the fighting on our property on 28 January, it was very difficult. Crouching in our makeshift chairs, silent with fear, we heard over our heads in the ballroom, the noise of soldiers chasing each other, gunfire interrupted by the screams of the dying, doors slamming, the wounded moaning and then the noise of fighting that continued farther in the distance. In the dining room of the restaurant also, the fighting must have been fierce, because we found everything topsy-turvy and covered with blood. It was also from the restaurant that the attack on the old train station began. The Germans had left a large number of bazookas (Panserfaust) piled up by the doorway and these were seized by the Allies. We learned later that the seven German soldiers, who came out of the burning station, their arms in the air, had killed their leader before surrendering. After 29 January, our restaurant was turned into a field hospital. Wounded that were brought there from Muntzenheim, Durrenentzen, etc received emergency treatment here before being evacuated elsewhere. And everyone, friend or enemy, numerous civilians, German prisoners, Allied soldiers, everyone was treated with the same alacrity and kindness by the good nurses. Always ready to help them in any way I could, I remember that one day I became sick while aiding the nurses treating a woman whose chest had been cut to shreds by a shell burst. The ambulance driver who brought the wounded from other villages was an Englishman. Seriously injured while bringing back the wounded, he died here and his remains lay for a long time in our barn. You can well imagine that these moments of continuous danger, the spectacle of all the dead and the wounded, made an impression for life on this girl of fourteen which is what I was at the time. IN THE FORGE, AT THE CORNER OF LINDEN-TREE SQUARE (PLACE DES TILLEULS) MRS FRIDA WANTZ, WIDOW, 72 YEARS OLD. After the bomb fell on 22 January, only 100 meters from us in East Street, we decided, my husband, my mother-in-law, my three children and I, to seek refuge at the neighbors', in the cellar under the ballroom. There were a lot of us and I had my hands full with my youngest child, Roland, who was only a few months old. Each time he started to cry, I would try to quiet him with his bottle. From time to time my husband would go to our place to see what was happening--to get there he would follow the wall along the garden next to the square. Our baby, Roland, was baptized in this cellar by Pastor Schneider, who came on his bike just for the purpose from Muntzenheim, in spite of the snow and the shells that were already beginning to fall on Jebsheim. Lying on a vat that served as the altar and in the light of a single candle, my son was baptized the same day as Edith Woelffle from the upper village. The pastor must have judged the situation to be very serious indeed since he did not want to postpone this sacrament. As for food, we were well supplied with meat, because as soon as a cow was wounded or killed by a shell on one of the neighboring farms, Mr. Jacques Danner, the gamekeeper, who was also the butcher, would come and butcher the animal and divide the cuts among the various islands of refugees. Then, little by little, the fighting reached our neighborhood. One day, the French soldiers occupied our forge, not knowing the Germans were still in our house. The fighting was very had; the firing of machine guns could be heard night and day and moments of calm were seldom. ON THE BUHART FARM, EAST STREET #4--MR ROBERT GAMER--80 YEARS OLD In the Spring of 1940, we had been evacuated with our five children to Lot-et-Garoone, to the town of Serignac near Marmande. We had been very well received over there and have a nice memory of the three months we spent in the South. Back in Jebsheim, after the Armistice, we found ourselves plunged once again into the miseries of war in 1945. At the end of January, when the fighting reached the upper village, my family took refuge at Mr. Buhart's farm, today Albert Rieg's, in East Street. This large farm with thick , solid walls inspired confidence and so, there was about forty-five of us, who had come there to live in the barn, cattle shed and adjacent buildings. The food was prepared in the main house. As soon as there was the slightest break in the fighting, I would go out in the street to see what was happening, because I was very impatient for the Allied troops to arrive. I remember once there were a few German solders passing in the street with a French prisoner, perhaps a soldier from the African Riflemen Regiment. We felt sorry for the poor lad and asked him where he was from. He answered, "I am French, but, it's all over for me" No one understood what he meant. The Germans took him to the intersection of East and Grand Rue and there, they killed him in cold blood. When the neighboring farm, Mr Matin Frey's, was on fire, I was outside and saw a French soldier in a hole in the wall across the street, he was motioning other French soldiers through with wide sweeps of his arm. They assembled in the street. They asked me what I was doing there. I explained to them that I had taken refuge in the farm opposite, and there were more than 40 of us civilians there, and there were no German soldiers with us. It was perhaps my intervention that saved the farm from destruction and the civilians from certain death. Since I always had my nose out the door, I also witnessed the destruction of the old trains station by the Allied troops. They were firing from the Retterer Restaurant, point- blank at the station. The Germans who were barricaded there did not want to surrender. To the screams of "Give up" they answered with more gunfire. It was only after they had killed their leader that they finally came out from the smoking ruins of the old station, harassed and nerves frayed. Little by little, the fighting moved towards the upper village and the burning of the farms followed. It was over for us, except for the German shells that continued to rain down for a long time. |
