My Story, My Journey: from Silesia to Scotland

I was born in 1926 in a town in Silesia, Germany’s south eastern Province bordering Poland to the east and Czechoslovakia to the south. That is how it was for 2000 years until 1945 when Hitler’s war ended, and our ‘Heimat Schlesien’ no longer existed. The peace treaty demanded that Silesia be annexed to Poland meaning the eviction of our people. Six months after my 17th birthday, shortly before Christmas 1943, I was called up to military service and after my training sent to Italy, where fi...