Reliving the pain

Margot Blewett, who lived through World War II in Ger many as a child, told a North Lake audience in October that the horror ended only when Americans liberate d their country.

Then, finally, “for us, t he war was over,” she said.

Before the liberation, however, Nazis occupied her house, made children clean up after bombings and took away her family’s new BMW.

When World War II began, Blewett was 9 years old. Her family was blacklisted because her father refused to become a Nazi, she said. Her father did not trust Adolph Hitler at all. Instead, he saw him as a manipulator of the political system, Blewett said.

Blewett said the Nazi soldiers made sure no one disapproved of what Hitler wanted them to do — and you would go to a concentration camp if you disagreed. Teachers at school asked children about Jews, to get students’ (and their parents’) opinions, she said.

Blewett knew something was wrong in 1939 when the family took its first vacation with a new BMW, and the Nazis took the car away from them. After 1939, they had to have permission from the Nazis just to take a trip at al l, Blewett said. At every train station, SS soldiers asked everyone for papers, she said.

In 1943, their father did not permit h is children to get school uniforms. T he children stood out at school because of this, and they constantly had to make excuses.

She went to a parade and met Hitler, she said. He knelt to talk to her, and she shook hands with him. She said his hands were cold and clammy. “Imagine, you took the Fuhrer's hand,” her mother said. She told her to “go wash your hands now.”

Teachers would have students do things for the soldiers, including gathering flowers so the soldiers could make tea. Blewett said the teachers were leaders during Hitler’s rule, and they t aught the children Hitler ideology.

Jews were never talked about in school, unless what was said was consistent with Nazi beliefs, according to Blewett. School was focused on Germany, and how wonderful it was, she said.

In 1944, Blewett said the children were forced to help clean up after a bomb attack, and that the atmosphere was all smoke and dust, like fire storms.

“You could hardly breathe, and people had nothing left but the clothes on their bodies,” she said.

Nazis tried ha rd to make sure there was no opposition, Blewett said. As an American, it is hard to picture this inundation with propaganda, she pointed out. During the war, her family was forced to let Nazi soldiers live in their house. Her mother stayed in the basement night and day during this time.

The morning after t he Normandy invasion in 1944, t heir yard was littered with white papers, which said to listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, to learn what was going on, Blewett said. Her mother and the children hid with the radio.

After the America ns arrived, reconstruction started. The country was destroyed, so t hey had nothing to eat. She said she was sent to beg for food at stores and farms.

Blewett cautioned in an interview with the News-Register after the speech that a similar dictatorship “can happen any time, anywhere.” Although she said most Germans do not want to talk about the war today, she is speaking out in talks to high school and college students, and in her book, Feet in the Fire.

In the epilogue to Feet in the Fire, she wrote, “it was in the reliving of that monumental time that I found healing.” After the speech, t he F lower Mound resident said she wants young people to be aware of what happened.