Memory of a Long Journey

This is the memory of a long, painful and rewarding journey. A journey of a little girl born in Zoppot, Germany in 1940 and who suffered during World War II. Homeless, hungry, sick and lonely, she was abandoned by her birth mother and raised by her grandmother (although for years she knew her grandmother to be her mother).

This German community became Polish territory and the peaceful farm life disappeared. Her grandmother refused to become a Polish citizen, I was born a German and I'll die as a German. Grandmother and granddaughter boarded a cattle train carrying only what they could and three weeks later were kicked off the train at a German village near Arnstadt. Communist dictatorship and deprivation inspired a dream in Brigitte's heart; to come to America. Her stepfather told her the United States had to give computers to the East German government in exchange for Brigitte and her son. Southern California has been her home since 1977, retired and anxious to tell her heartwarming story 66 years later.