Christmas in Herrnsheim, Worms, Germany. I am dating this photo about 1935 as the little girl with the braids up front, showing off her Christmas gift, is my mother in law, born in 1928. Just behind her is her brother Otto, born in 1930. She is with her parents, her maternal grandmother and relatives on the maternal side of her family. Life appears to be good. In less than a decade the life they knew would be over. In 1945, at the end of WWII, two of these family members would be gone. 65% of the people in Worms would be homeless due to bombing by the Royal Air Force. The family would be cleaning bricks from the rubble of their home to build themselves a place to live. This once prosperous, well fed family, posing in front of the Christmas tree, showing off their gifts, would now be starving. Knowing what we now know of the horrors that Nazi Germany visited on the rest of the world I really don't know how much, if any, sympathy I should feel for them.
I just don't know.
