The City in Flames Read Online Free PDF Page B

side street, which, if passable, would shorten our trip back to the shelter. We hoped to find some soldiers to help us, but they left. Only the dead remained, and a few more were added since we’d left. There was a woman with a dog on a leather leash still tied to her wrist and two men, one of whom lay facedown. Their clothes were half burned off their bodies.
    “They must have found them in another shelter,” my father commented. “There was no fire in this one. They all suffocated from the smoke that entered from outside.”
    “Let’s go!” my mother urged. “We’ve got to find help! Maybe on the Residenzplatz.”
    The Residenzplatz consisted of a wide-open area that was used as a parade ground in bygone days. The plaza stretched out in front of a majestic baroque castle that also suffered. Black smoke still rose from one of its wings. Since the castle was a sturdy structure, it remained standing.
    A mass of people occupied the plaza. Some were still there from the night before when they fled their homes, realizing escape from a caved-in house or a collapsed cellar was impossible. The plaza was free of danger from falling beams and whirling stones. Could Oma and Opa have had the same thought and left the house or cellar before the exit was sealed off? We quickened our steps, jumped over one last pile of debris, and ran toward the crowded plaza.
    “Oma! Opa!” my sister and I called out, searching the crowd. Faces blackened by smoke still reflected horror and shock. Some people lay on the ground, too weak and exhausted to stand any longer.
    “Mutter! Vater!” my mother called. A woman approached us. “They are here,” she called out to my mother. “I saw them.” She pointed in the direction of where she had last seen them. Only then did we recognize the woman as one of our neighbors. Her appearance had changed.
    “They’re alive! They’re alive!” my mother shouted in excitement as she turned toward us to reassure us of what the woman said.
    My sister, staring in the opposite direction, suddenly ran, her arms waving in the air, as she yelled as loud as she could, “Oma! Oma! Over here!”
    I had not spotted my grandmother yet, but I ran across the cobblestoned ground as fast as my feet could carry me. I stumbled but quickly recovered my balance and continued my pursuit. But now I lost sight of my sister. My parents followed behind, out of breath from running after us. Then I saw my sister walking toward us with two weary figures beside her. It was them! My grandparents! We barely recognized them at first. Their eyeglasses were gone, their hair and eyebrows had burned off, and their clothes smelled of a sickening odor. My sister recognized my grandmother from a distance only by the color of her sweater. My grandfather stood right beside her. He was clad only in his pajamas and house slippers, without his mustache—it, too, had been singed away. He looked eerie.
    But they were alive! We embraced them and stood in silence. No words could express our feelings at that moment. Our eyes filled with tears once more, but this time they were tears of joy. Our search ended and our prayers had been heard.
    I raised my eyes to the smoke-filled sky and whispered, “Thank you, God!”
    Back to front

Chapter Nine
Opa and Oma’s Survival
    “It was just like any other night,” my grandfather began after he settled into the broad sofa at my aunt Katrina’s house in one of Würzburg’s suburbs. He held a cup of hot peppermint tea between his still-trembling hands. He took a sip and out of habit wiped the spot where his mustache had been. With a grimace he withdrew his hand because the spot was still sore.
    “It will grow back,” my aunt Katrina assured him, and she dabbed the area with a soothing salve. My grandmother sat beside him. A bath refreshed them somewhat, but fatigue still marked their faces. Cuddled in my aunt and uncle’s bathrobes, they were ready to tell us about their ordeal.
    “I guess you’ll