War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 332

Epilogue

Boston, Summer 1950

“A

nna, Anna, they are coming!” Jan pointed with excitement at the group of people disembarking from the ocean liner.

Peter and Anna stood side by side with Peter’s adult son and their two young children. As they waited for their relatives to pass immigration, her mind turned to the past.

Two years prior, just as Anna had finished her doctorate at the Berlin University, her mentor, Professor Scherer, had been offered a professorship at the prestigious Harvard University in America. When he’d asked her to come with him as his right hand, she’d jumped at the opportunity. Professor Scherer had passed away of a heart attack recently and Harvard University had offered Anna his position.

Leaving a Germany in ruins hadn’t exactly been hard, but not seeing her sisters had been. Letters and the rare – expensive – telephone calls couldn’t make up for the loss of familial intimacy.

Peter, though, had been nothing but delighted to leave the country he’d never really liked and escape to America. There, nothing reminded him of the Nazis and the hardships he’d had to endure at their hands. He supported Anna every step of the way, which wasn’t natural or even expected. For a while she’d been the sole breadwinner of their family and he’d even stayed at home to raise their two common children. That alone made her love him even more.

Just before they had set foot on the ocean liner bringing them to Boston, her brother Richard had called in with surprising news. Rachel Epstein had applied – and been granted – an immigration visa to Israel and in fall 1948 she and her three younger siblings had left Kleindorf.

The months leading up to that date had been full of activities for Richard and his family, because Rachel had offered to sell her farm to him. Richard had scrambled for money to conclude the transaction. With the goodwill of so many people including family, relatives and friends, he’d finally been able to gather enough of a down payment to secure a loan from the bank. He had paid Rachel what the farm was worth and taken her to the train leaving for the harbor in Genoa. It had been a bittersweet farewell, because they most probably wouldn’t see Rachel again.

Anna’s little sticking-his-nose-in-a-book brother had officially become a farmer.

Times surely had changed. Even her spunky, impulsive sister, Lotte, had settled down and worked for a well-known law firm after graduating from law school with honors. Her employer specialized in human rights, fighting to return property and belongings to the victims of the Nazis.

Lotte a lawyer

. Anna shook her head. She wouldn’t have believed it, if anyone had told her five years ago.

But the best news was that Peter’s brother, Stan, his wife, Agnieska, and their three children were coming to America as well – for good. The more the communists transformed Poland into a puppet state behind the Iron Curtain, the more discontented Stan had grown. Despite Agnieska’s efforts to rein in his temper, he’d been constantly in trouble with the authorities. It would only be a matter of time until they sent him to a Siberian Gulag, even with one leg.

Peter and Stan had sent letters back and forth and diligently worked with the authorities both in America and in Poland to finally make the impossible happen.

Tomorrow the family reunion would be complete when Ursula and Tom arrived with their two children on an airplane from London. Ursula had adapted well to the life in England and had even become friends with her mother-in-law.

Anna looked forward to meeting her again and seeing little Evie, who had just turned six years old. How fast the time had flown in the past years.

She wished her parents had been able to make the journey. But her father’s health had never truly recovered from his ordeal in Russian captivity and her mother refused to leave him alone for such a long time. They lived in a small house in Mindelheim and often visited with Richard or Aunt Lydia, who’d birthed another three children, raising the number to nine.

It seemed everyone in the family had picked up the pieces after the war, snapping them together to create a new and happy life. Except for Lotte, who still waited for Johann to return from captivity in Russia.