May God Protect My Father!
(This story is based on family memories. My grandmother told me what it was like for a child to live near the front line. The photos included here are also from our family album. Although the family photo was taken in the late 1940s, a few years after the war, I think it captures something of the atmosphere of that time. My grandmother is the little girl on the left. My great-grandfather may be somewhere in the military photos.)
Our house stood on high ground. It was only a small hill, but from there, we could see troop movements quite clearly.
Just a week ago, our troops had held this stretch of the river and defended their positions. When we looked across the river, we could still see the Red Army on the other side.
The Soviets were shooting at us, and our soldiers were protecting us. The Nazis.
Then the tide of war turned. The Soviets pushed our troops across to the other side of the river.
Our men had been firing at this side for days now. Our own troops were shooting at us.
That was war.
Our soldiers were trying to retake the lost territory.
The Red Army had billeted its soldiers in our homes, with local families.
We had officers staying with us, and they hadn’t harmed us.
I was a little afraid of them. They were our enemies.
And just a week ago, they had been the ones shooting at us from across the river.
Now it was our own men shooting at us. The Nazis.
War was a strange thing.
I was waiting for my mother at the gate with my two siblings. Cirmi, our cat, was rubbing affectionately against us, even though the sirens were already sounding. Cirmi would hide in the attic once the planes arrived and the terrible noise began.
I saw our displaced troops on the other side of the river preparing for battle. The bombers were coming again. That was why the siren was sounding.
Our neighbours were already heading for the shelter, but my mother went back into the house to check the pillows she had placed against the windows. I had seen that they were still there, but she checked them one more time before the bombing began.
They offered some protection for the windows. The glass didn’t break every time we were bombed.
Our neighbours had already reached the end of the street and turned onto the main road.
The shelter was nearby. During every air raid, we used to sit in the cellar at Aunt Erzsi’s house.
The cellar had been designated as a shelter. They said it was safe.
Of course, it couldn’t protect us from the noise. I would never forget the sound of a bomber plane.
My mother hurried back to us.
Two Soviet officers came out of the house.
“Davai!” one of them called impatiently, motioning for us to hurry.
Perhaps he had children of his own back home and would have sent them to the shelter to keep them safe, just as he was doing with us.
He said something else, too. You didn’t have to understand his language to know what he meant. The civilians would be spending the day in the shelter because there would be fighting, and the bombers were approaching.
Those Soviet officers would be fighting all day, defending this side of the river.
Our men would be firing from the other side again today.
“Maybe my father will have to fire the shell that destroys our house,” the little girl, who was about four years old, thought.
Cirmi followed us for a little while, then grew tired of it and turned back. I looked back, too.
Two more Soviet officers hurried out of the house to take up positions at a higher point above our home.
“Just don’t let them hit my father!”
We ran the last stretch to the shelter.
“My father and his men are shooting. They’re firing at this side now. They’re shooting at us. War is a strange thing.”
The neighbour’s children were already playing in Aunt Erzsi’s cellar.
The sirens must have stopped.
“Now the real noise will begin.”
Aunt Erzsi lifted the little homespun cloth covering a bowl. There were doughnuts underneath. My mother had brought apples.
Everyone put something on the table set up in the cellar.
We weren’t hungry yet. We’d eat when we got tired of playing.
I went over to join Julcsi and the others.
May God protect my father! I thought.
While she was playing, the little girl no longer thought about the possibility of the others being hit. Nor did she think that perhaps her own father might be the one sending the deadly blow from the other side of the river.
October 9, 2026
