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Hello I'm Katie, and I'm Beth, and we also worked with James to produce this video
We spoke to a lady called Mrs Cadoux, about her experiences of the blitz, and working with the Quakers after the second World War.
We participated in this project because we are interested in how stories are passed down
We really hope that you enjoy her story
We worked in what we would call the Town Hall
but we had to be lodged eighteen kilometres away
it was in a town called Botham, at the very centre of the Rhur.
There was a Quaker team in Cologne
we had a weekend, and visited the team there
First of all, the Cathedral was virtually wrecked
and what I found so interesting was, as you drove along the ordinary streets
loads and loads of houses had simply gone, but the chimney stacks were still there, sticking up
and somebody told us, that people were living in those basements
the conditions were, absolutely attrocious for the Germans, much worse than for the Brits
because our bombing had been so very very savage
How were you accepted by the German people?
Fine, no problem, because one of our jobs was taking soup to school children
The Americans donated, propably tens of thousands of what they called 'Atlantic packs'
they were very large tins, and they contained a ration, for a day, for a soldier
and we had to employ a German, in the Town Hall, to sort through them
because, they contained cigarettes and lavatory paper , which you couldn't put in the soup of course
but some miraculous German cook managed a tasty soup
which rather like the WRVS meals on wheels here
we used to transport around; they were very big like military ambulances
and at one school, we dispensed this in the playground, and the school teacher was with the children
and she said to me, I was fed by the Quakers after the last War
which I found very touching
Would you say that your experiences in Germany changed your belief of Germans in general?
I was not prejudiced against Germans anyway
my mother was, she was a typical under-educated woman,
because in her day, you could leave school at 13
and as you probably learnt, in the first world war, people smashing windows
of German tradesmen
but I'd been very very lucky, because I'd won a scolarship
to one of what I called the best schools in London
and we had a remarkable headmistress;
she never stated her own religious views from the podium
we used to have the school assemblies, of course with the ususal hymns and stuff
but I reckon we were taught to feel citizens of the world
and many years after I had left, because I was still in touch, and got the old girls magazine
they did a full page article about her; she was the daughter of a Unitarian Minister
and I thought, isn't that strange, without ever saying anything
she was incalcating unitarian ideas into me, so that later I became one
so no, I didn't think they were monsters, the Nazis certainly were monsters,
but then that was some sort of collective madness, insanity, horrendous, absolutely horrendous
Churchill was virtually worshipped,
by many many people, and certainly he did save this country
I was never a fan; when he broadcast, I did not like that growling, aggressive tone
and I found out something about him, many, many, many years later
it's perhaps about ten years ago, it was proposed to put up a statue in London
to bomber Harris, who was responsible for the firebombing of Dresden
and I was adamantly against this, because my husband had been involved
he was in a camp just outside Dresden
and an ITV film company wanted to make a programme about this controversy
they had invited as many ex RAF men as they could find
and contacted CND (the Campaign for Nuclear disarmament) here,
to get as many opponents to interview as they could
during the course of that programme,
one of the RAF men said, we were told that there were such enormous fires
because all the houses in Dresden were made of wood
and I got chatting to a German lady in the bar, before the programme began,
and she sat near me and she said, they were not made of wood; Medieval City; they were made of stone
but I realised, that in order to keep the morale of the bomber pilots
they wouldn't let them know
the real damage the actual bombing had done
because you've got to be able to get them out the next night, bombing again
one quality newspaper, revealed, quite recently,
it wasn't bomber Harris's actual decision; it was Churchill's
in order to shorten the war, or so he hoped, so he thought
because of that utter destruction, roughly 30,000 killed
more in one night, than we lost in Britain during the whole war
of course, of course, of course, we killed off a lot of their emergency services
ambulance people, policemen and hospital services, and stuff like that
so the remnants of the town council, called upon the commandant of this camp
have you got any personnel with medical training
that can come in and give us a hand
my husband, did not mention a word of his experience for fifteen years
but he had mental breakdowns
one of the times he was in hospital, the psychiatrist decided
there wasn't enough in his present life to account for the very bad state he was in
so he was given, some kind of an injection; brings memories back
and he came home in the evening, and told me what he had told them
that it was not a case of going into the air raid shelters and carrying out bodies
it was a case of scraping them off the walls
and in classic case, you read about this; memories become buried
and of course, do immense harm
so my daughter made a point of taking this trip, last year
and, was very delighted to find that their Cathedral had been entirely re-built
it had layin waste, you know, sort of flattened, for forty - fifty years
something like that, and eventually the towns people thought
we must get the money somehow, and we must re-build it
they managed to get hold of the original plans
it's called 'the Frauenkirke'
and she brought back a booklet about it of course
and it's really, really beautiful, wonderful building
and it has a book of rememberence
inside for the victims
and because her father died, partially as a long term victim
she wrote his name in the book, which gave her quite a bit of satisfaction