| The Battle of Jebsheim, France - from a French point-of-view. Page 15 |
| IN THE UPPER VILLAGE AT # 18 AND 20, MRS SONIA HERRMANN, WIFE OF RENE BALTZINGER, 50 YEARS OLD. In the month of January, some Germans were quartered at our farm. They had set up their field kitchen in the courtyard and a command post in our second house, that still stands today, where my grandfather lived. On about 25 January, the soldiers became much more active; they came and went, bringing messages to the command post. There were many young men among them, some almost children, and the news that they brought from the Ried must not have been very encouraging. Towards 27 January, the sound of cannon fire was getting closer; shells were falling in the vicinity, and we took shelter in the wash house, a little adjacent building with thick walls and a cement ceiling. There were about twelve of us; my family, the Gantzer family, a neighbor who was fairly old, Mrs Helda Cathel and my grandfather. In Grand Rue at the entrance of Vosges Street (La rue des Vosges), the Germans had set up a tank barricade (Panzersperre). It was here that they intended to stop the Allied troops. Into our courtyard they had brought fresh troops and great quantities of ammunition. My father was not at all afraid. As soon as the situation allowed, he went outside to see what was happening and to bring us the latest news. I should point out that he had been taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940, near the Rhine, and had almost been killed at the time. Now we come to 28 January. The Germans, positioned in our barn, had cut holes in the walls, through which to fire in the direction of Ernest Frey's farm on Hyppen Street, and towards East Street, where some French soldiers had already arrived. Lying flat in a long file, the Germans fired without stopping. An NCO ran behind them constantly screaming: "Keep you positions, keep your positions". My father, who saw the end coming was amused at that. But in fact, they did hold their positions..to the last--not a one came out of that barn alive. When the farms on East Street starting catching fire, one after the other, the Germans in the courtyard gave us the order to leave--it was too dangerous. At the moment of departure, a German soldier said to my father; "Poor farmer, take a last look at your place, because you will never see it again." Unfortunately, as events proved, his words were only too true. So we set out towards the upper village and landed at Charlot Selig's house #7, Grand Rue, where the German field Hospital was located. But grandfather and Helda Cathel did not want to continue onward with the rest of us. Grandfather said that he didn't want to leave here, even if he must die here. In the night of 28-29 January, the fighting doubled in intensity because the Germans, coming from Muntzenheim, launched a counterattack. Other farms began to burn. Why had Helda Cathel and grandfather not remained where they were, we would never know. They had left us to go across the street to Helda Cathel's house and were about to become victims of a fierce battle. Her house, at the entrance of Vosges Street, at what today is #13, was attacked in the middle of the night by Germans, burned and destroyed. The six or seven French paratroopers and Helda Cathel who were in the house perished together. My grandfather, who had perhaps tried to escape, was found the next day, after the fighting on the edge of the street. He had six bullet holes in his chest. On 29 January, towards the end of the afternoon, as soon as the fighting stopped, everyone came out of hiding and set out towards the lower village. Everyone ran, without really knowing why, with only one idea in mind--to leave this hell--to leave this wretched neighborhood. My father stopped at our house and went in the courtyard to see what remained of our farm. Everything had burned, except grandfather's little house, now at #18. The courtyard was full of bodies. My mother continued on and went down Riedwihr Street to a house belonging to some friends. As for me, I don't know why I did not stay with my parents. I was no longer myself. Apparently shocked by the sight of the fires and the roof's caving in, the heart-rending screams of the dying, the horribly mutilated corpses lying everywhere--all that was too much for the little girl that I was then. As in a dream, I went down Grand Rue towards the lower village. Overhead, planes were flying at low altitude and cannons were thundering in the distance. Going by, people stared at me with wide eyes. At farm #39, I was stopped, taken in and looked after. I stayed there several days, during which time my parents did not know my whereabouts. You can be sure that those events marked me for life. I will never forget. IN THE UPPER VILLAGE, FARM #12, MR. JEAN OBERLIN, 52 YEARS OLD This is the famous farm that saw the bloodiest fighting of the entire sector. The taking of this farm on 29 January 1945, at approximately 1500 hours (3 PM), marked the end of the Battle of Jebsheim. Here is what Mr. Oberlin, who was 13 at the time, has to say. Long before 22 January we had taken refuge in the cattle shed, the most solid building on the farm. On 22 January , a bomb fell in East Street and another behind our barn--making quite a crater but not exploding, thank God. The situation was becoming very dangerous, and little by little, other families came to seek refuge with us. The families of George Selig (4), Sigismond Bents (3), the Lischers (5), the Ludwig widow (4), Jean Selig (2) and the Woelffles (6), making, with my family (3) a total of 27 people quartered in the stable that is located in the courtyard, perpendicular to the street. We were separated from the street by a small cellar that is on street level, but on one lodged there because it is cold. In the stable we had the advantage of the warmth that came from the animals. Many young soldiers came to reinforce the German occupiers and moved in with us. There were the Austrians with the Edelweiss patch on their uniforms. If these reinforcements had not come, the battle of Jebsheim would have been less murderous and much shorter. The Germans set up their defense in the barn facing the orchards to the east--everywhere in the walls of 40 centimeters are holes, with machine guns and other weapons pointing in all directions. Above their heads, they had stacked bales of hay for protection. Even the dung heap in the courtyard had been dug out, cut up and transformed into a little fort packed with soldiers who could not be seen from a distance. The courtyard was full of munitions of all kinds. The civilians had only one toilet located in the courtyard. During the day of 27 January, a German soldier climbed over into the stable and set up a machine gun in a window from which he could see down Grand Rue all the way to Linden-Tree Square. Then my father, a former seaman who was not afraid, went up to point out to the soldier that he would attract all the Allied fire on the building and endanger the lives of all the civilians. The discussion got very hot, but my father did not give in and finally he made the young fanatic see reason and come down. We breathed a little more freely. On 28 January, my father slept with us in the stable, but near the door. There he was seriously injured by a shell fragment. He was transported to the field hospital set up across the street at #7 Grand Rue, then evacuated by the Germans towards Neuf-Brisach where he died soon afterwards. At the time he left his native village, he was still able to see the farms of the upper village burning one after the other, without knowing if ours would meet the same fate. During the night of 28-29 January, almost all the farms on the east side of Grand Rue were destroyed by fire. There were, from south to north; Jacques Danner's barn at #8; George Selig's entire farm at #10; Henri Woelffle's at #14; Jean Selig's at #16; Jean Herrmann's at #20, Sigimond Bentx's barn at #24 and all the houses on Vosges Street. At our place, nothing , except for the shell fragments that hit the walls, doors and windows. But George Selig's house burned one meter from the stable where we were and it is only thanks to the snow, melting on the roof and running along the walls, that our building with all the hay over our heads, did not also catch fire. And now we come to the ominous day of 29 January. The sun was shining, but it was very cold. The Allies invaded the neighborhood from all sides. Our barn became the objective in the last fight. But it seemed to be impregnable. Fighting became hand-to-hand. A plane came to bomb the barn and set it on fire, which seemed to be the only way to dislodge the Germans. The last fight took place in the courtyard with knives. And then, suddenly, it was over. The firing stopped. It was around three in the afternoon. We came out of the stable, astonished to be still alive. The French soldiers were disarming the last Germans and breaking their rifles by striking the barrels on the ground. The dead were everywhere, littering the courtyard. Sad and dejected, we took a few of our belongings and started out towards the lower village. What desolation; ruins, corpses, buildings that were nearly burned down. We went to our relatives house on Riedwihr Street and stayed there for more than a week. From time to time, we went to look at what remained of our property. In the big shed of corrugated metal that houses the Department of Civil Engineering, opposite what is now Selig's garage, the dead soldiers were stacked up to the ceiling, waiting to be transported elsewhere. The German dead lay where they fell. No one bothered with them and it was not until later, with the thaw, when a nauseous odor spread through the village, that the bodies of the soldiers and animals were buried all together in an enormous shell crater back of our property. |
