The Valour and the Horror

Traute Koch was a fifteen year old girl in Hamm a suburb.

Mother wrapped me in wet sheets, kissed me, and said, 'Run!' I hesitated at the door. In front of me I could see only fire ... everything red, like the door to a furnace. An intense heat struck me. A burning beam fell in front of my feet. I shied back but, then, when I was ready to jump over it, it was whirled away by a ghostly hand. I ran out to the street. The sheets around me acted as sails and I had the feeling that I was being carried away by the storm. I reached the front of a five storey building in front of which we had arranged to meet again. It had been bombed and burnt out in a previous raid and there was not much left in it for the fire to get hold o£ Someone came out, grabbed me in their arms, and pulled me into the doorway. I screamed for my mother and somebody gave me a drink, wine or schnapps, I still screamed and then my mother and my little sister were there.

About twenty people had gathered in the cellar. We sat, holding tightly to each other and waited. My mother wept bitterly and I was terrified.