This memoir is the story of my childhood and teen years. It begins when I was very young, having to live with at spiteful, unloving stepmother, surviving the hardship of World War II, fearing the Russian fronts approach from the east, fleeing from them and the bombings from the Allies advancing from the west. After the end of war, still a little girl, I was terrified of the Russian soldiers and war prisoners who roamed our countryside. I heard women scream while being raped. I endured the sorrow of losing my beloved father and my stepmother's unrestrained cruelty. My agony finally ended with my reunion of my real mother and loving Oma. After WWII ended, we lived behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany under the Russian occupation-Stalin's Iron Fist. His communist regime imposed such strict isolation and extreme hunger that the citizens of East Germany waged an unsuccessful uprising to gain freedom from Russia and communism. This memoir of my childhood and teen years ends with the family's harrowing escape to freedom. Skryť popis