Die Stunde der Frauen

The story, written in the first person, begins with her wedding as part of the Pomeranian lower nobility in the countryside of their villages in the spring of 1944. The family has their estate near Stolp, east of Stettin, in the Duchy of Pomerania. By the time the Russians are fifteen miles away, she is nine months pregnant. The coachman drives the wagon to escape, but they are too late. They are ordered to return home to experience the destruction of the Russians, who among other things, burn their castle to the ground. The men are all gone and it is the hour of the women. They do well. She scavenges and her mother's hymnbook and the poems they had to memorize in school get them through the long darkness of winter and privation. By February of 1946, as conditions continue to deteriorate, plans to "go home to the empire" (which she says with sarcasm) begin. Some of the harrowing details of her exploratory flight alone are not related. She makes it over and then is one of the few who actually return from the rest of the family. Life as a refugee in the occupation zones is not easy, but she can do it. The italicized texts inserted by the author throughout the story seem to get in the way of the story.