The burning cities.

[**The following is taken from a memoir of Irmgard A. Hunt, who grew up in the mountains under Hitler’s Eagles Nest during the Second World War.**] >When the nightly wail of air-raid sirens startled us out of sleep and we stumbled down the outside steps into the potato cellar, Hardi would cry frantically and call for his mother. Usually Tante [**German: Aunt**] Susi helped calm him down and with some deep, last sobs he would finally fall asleep on a cot alongside Ingrid, while I slept leaning against Mutti [**German: Mom**] on a makeshift bench. >When the sirens sounded the end of the alarm, we woke the little ones and went upstairs. I knew it would scare me, but I could not resist looking up at the bloodred sky above the black silhouettes of the mountain ranges. Mutti said the redness came from the burning cities – Traunstein, Freilassing, Rosenheim, Munich – to the north of us in the flatland. _____________________________ **Source:** Hunt, Irmgard A. “Hardship and Disintegration.” On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005. 170-71. Print. _____________________________ **Further Reading:** [Traunstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traunstein) [Freilassing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freilassing) [Rosenheim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenheim) [München / Minga (Munich)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich)