Esther Betz

I was especially unlucky. My little suitcase from the war emergency support service got lost in the confusion of passenger’s luggage. I never received it. I suffered terribly. All my clothes were in there, my shoes were in there. Getting shoes was almost impossible. You wore out what you had. But it was so awful. I remember my father later wrote to the town clerk, Hänsel, requesting a ration coupon for a pair of women’s shoes for Anna Betz. But she never got them. He also requested an increase in food rations for those working under the toughest conditions at the printing plant. That was unsuccessful, too. The need was truly dire. What helped were the school lunches. That was good. And the best thing was receiving a CARE package. We had friends in America, so we got sent these CARE packages. That was really an amazing feeling. Above all, they contained coffee. When the Americans marched into Biberach, they had tossed us little packets of Nescafé out of their tanks. Nescafé – that was a thing nobody knew! So the CARE packages, they were full of surprises: chocolate, cocoa, tinned goods. To this day, I’m happy to donate to refugee packages around the world!