Ulrich Bonness’ Story

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“It brings tears into my eyes.” Ulrich was 8 when the war in Europe came to an end. He was living in Kiel under Russian occupation. His father was a telephone engineer repairing the city’s infrastructure. Although Ulrich remembers the creation of new green spaces in the city, it is his memories of Russian tanks that still haunt him today. At the start of the war, he was living in Stettin. Following bombing raids, he and his family left for the village of Bann. It was here that he saw evacuees from neighbouring places warn of the impending arrival of Russian troops and heard their gun fire. “Suddenly the front is where you live,” he says. Fearing for their safety, Ulrich, his sister and their mother walked through the snow to the nearest train station. Travelling in covered wagons, they saw Russian tanks in the moonlight. Those tanks were soon to take Berlin and begin the end of Germany’s war. “It was frightening because suddenly it was all chaos.” Image: A young Ulrich