[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.]
The sirens wailed again that afternoon, sending us to the landlord’s bunker. This time the bombs were farther away, in the neighboring spa town of Bad Reichenhall, where, we later learned, they had killed two hundred people. By suppertime we went home and were soundly asleep when around midnight Mutti [German: Mom] woke us up, put our coats over our nightshirts, handed me my little emergency suitcase, and marched us downstairs into the cellar. Ingrid cried and said she didn’t want to go, but she went right back to sleep on her cot.
Mutti and Tante [German: Aunt] Susi were too exhausted to talk, hoping only that we would stay alive just a little longer as explosions in another small town shook the earth.
Source:
Hunt, Irmgard A. “War Comes to Berchtesgaden.” On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005. 194-95. Print.
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