A journal entry from Edith Färber, age 10 living in Berlin the morning that war was declared on Poland.
This morning started like any other. Mother woke both Hans and I and fed us breakfast, Father had his coffee and went off to work, then the rest of us left for school. Hans and I left mother halfway on her walk to the hospital, she is a nurse. Hans and I just had our birthday. I got a new pair of shoes. I was excited to show Anna before the weekend. She always has the coolest things.
When I got to school the teacher told us that there would be no classes. I was excited to get a day off but sad that I did not see Anna to show off my new shoes. Hans and I skipped home. We were excited to have the day off without our parents home so we could play, eat, and more importantly, not do chores all day. However, our walk home was odd. Everything had a weird feel to it. For some reason there seemed to be more soldiers standing around, a little less traffic, and not as much laughter. We didn’t care though, we had a day off and we were going to enjoy it!
On our way home we encountered a group of people huddled around the radio so naturally we had to listen in, we couldn’t miss out on the fun! But it turns out the news wasn’t as exciting as we thought… We heard the Führer talking about how we have been firing on Poland since this morning and how we had to fight back with the same force that they were attacking us…
I’m still waiting to understand what this means, I ask father when he gets home.
-Edith Färber, 10:00, 1 September 1939
P.S. We took this picture last weekend for Hans and my birthday.
Love this!