A week ago Brad and I were able to attend a dinner where we were able to hear a wonderful guest speaker. The son of Fritz and Gerta Hubricht (sp?) was there to tell the story of his parents. They are now 99 and 92 respectively, but the part of their lives that their son related dates back to World War II.
They are both German and lived in a city about 60 km outside of Berlin. When Gerta was 13, a friend (who wasn't a member of the LDS faith), invited her and her grandmother to attend an LDS meeting. The friend never joined, but Gerta and her grandmother did. A few years later, a young man, Fritz, moved into the city. He was an apprentice learning how to create lenses for telescopes. He was a drinker, a smoker and used bad language. The family he was staying with was unimpressed with his life-style. They weren't LDS, but they asked him to go play games at an LDS activity in the hope that he would stop his bad habits. Well, it worked. He investigated the church, knew it was true and gave up his old way of life. Later on, Fritz and Gerta were married. When Germany first invaded Poland, Fritz wasn't drafted, because of his skills making gun scopes. Eventually, however, he was forced to join the German Army.
Skipping ahead a few hard years, he ended up being caught by the Soviets three times. Each time they were about to kill him. Once he was able to just fall into a ditch and hide, once he had to dig his own grave, but was shoved into a another group of POWs at the last minute, and once he escaped with gunshots flying at his head. Miraculously he was able to get away with only hypothermia. Eventually he made it back to his family. Three-fourths of their city had been destoyed by bombs, but his wife and young children were physically unscathed.
After the war, Germany was divided and their home resided in the part owned by the Soviets. They were under communist control and had to be very careful. Brother Hubricht was a branch president for the LDS Church there and the Soviets were very suspicious of anything that was at all associated with America. There was almost no food available and life was extremely challenging. Fritz had a very good job making telescopes for the Soviets , but he couldn't get enough food for his family; it just wasn't available.
They were able to escape East Germany by dividing up and getting day-trip passes into West Berlin. Once they were in America-owned Germany, they were housed in a refugee room. It was one large room with 99 people in it. They slept on rows of bankbeds or on the floor around. After a month, they were able to get a room to share with only one other family. Nine months later, they got a 9x9 foot room to themselves with only the six people in their own family (Gerta's grandmother, Fritz, Gerta, their two boys and little girl). They were so grateful to have their own space!
I am fortunate in that I don't have much envy for things; I don't need a much larger house (I think to myself, "more to clean") or a lot of cool electronics or expensive clothes. I may not be envious, but I do often fail to be grateful for all that I have. I prefer not to share a bedroom with my kids, let a lone 94 other people. I am very fortunate not to know what it's like. Even when I lived in Bolivia and saw the true poverty there, I wasn't experiencing it myself. I didn't have kids at the time, but I never went hungry, unless I was purposely fasting. I can't imagine not having enough food for your children and them having to go to bed hungry. (I'm starting to cry at the thought!)
Part of why I wanted to record this story was so that we can remind ourselves how truly lucky we are!
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