Emma Austra Steins Grobins

11th November 1927 - 17th May 2007

In May of 1991 Nana sent me a tape (her and Papa were living in Sydney at the time) with her account and memories of the war.

"I lived on a nice farm that grew wheat, we had cows, horses and sheep and we spun our own wool. I had a nice childhood, living free.

At the age of 12 the Russians came into my country, Latvia, it was quite bad. They were only there a year but they managed to deport lots of people to Siberia. Everyone that was in the local government, police force, or who was out spoken was rounded up at night time, put in wagons and put on a train and shipped to Siberia.

I had a close school friend, who one morning didn't come to school, people started to whisper and say that her parents were taken away.

As time went the German's came in and pushed the Russians out and the people were under German control but it was pretty good compared to the Russians. I went to school and did ordinary things.

The Russians were pushing back the German armys with help from the English and Americans so by the time I was 16 the Russians were on our doorstep again and we knew what would happen when they would come, so people left their farms and factories, anyone that had any opportunities or were in local government. A lot went to Poland. Where we lived was at the end of our Country, our Country was nearly all under the Russians when the armys started to come closer. We could see them. Just like a sunrise makes the sky red, we could see the sky red from the burnings, then another day or so and we could hear guns and the Germans were digging trenches and trying to hold them back. It was very unsettled.

I had a younger sister, a year or two younger, she was staying with my older sister some 30 miles away. Mum said we cannot go without her so she settled me with the farm next to us, they were our cousins, as she was going to go to my older sisters. We chose a place where we were going to meet.

We got a big wagon and we put some food in it and some clothes in it. We had the best horses at the front and a couple of horses at the back just in case we needed them and we were going across to Poland but the Russian army was advancing so fast and the Germans started to burn all the farm buildings. When I left, our house and barns and all that was left was alight.

As we were driving our wagon the army came closer and closer, we decided it was not safe anymore on the main road so we went into the woods. We hid our horses and hid ourselves in the bushes. Within about an hour the Russians were on the main road and we were hoping they wouldn't find us, they did, but since they were in a big rush, as the Germans were shooting back mighty fast, they didn't have much time to find out why we were there. If they knew that we were running away from them we wouldn't have been alive much longer, and luckily they didn't find the horses with the food and clothing then they would have known for sure what was happening. They told us we couldn't stay. There was a little shack not far, a barn, they said to wait until the shooting quietened down. So we went there and hoped they wouldn't find our horses.

The shooting got heavier, machine guns and others, we couldn't stand or sit on our chairs so we layed down on the floor and the bullets would go through the little wooden barn and whistle over our heads. It went all night like that. We didn't know what was going on, just everyone shooting but as the morning came it quietened and we could hardly hear any shooting so we knew that something had happened, either the Germans were back or the Russians were here.

As the sun started to come up we started to figure out how we were going to find out what happened. There was a small hill a bit further away and you could see soliders marching, marching one way and then marching back, staying on watch. It was too far and we couldn't tell which uniform it was. A couple of the men folk, my cousins, crawled along some drainage ditch closer so they could see but as they were crawling some Germans saw them and asked what they were doing here and they told them that we were hiding from the Russians and they said you can't stay here as the Russians were still fighting back very hard from the other side. My cousins ran back, got the horses, women and children and we went around the main road, across the paddocks.

There was only one way we could go and it was another 20 miles away to a big city that had a big port. We couldn't go to Poland because it was cut off, so we went to the place were we were meant to meet my mum and my mum wasn't there. Before we left from home mum said if something happens and we can't meet then you just keep going, you don't wait for me, and if I am there and you are not I will just go. She wasn't there so we kept going.

When we got to the big city there was people everywhere. Refugees from all country districts. We went to the port to see if we could board a shp and they said by the evening 8 ships were going to leave for Poland. They told us that all we could take on the ship was what we could carry, clothes and a bit of food, we had to leave the rest of the food, clothes and horses behind. So that's what we did, we just boarded the ship with what we could carry and left everything at the port.

It was a goods ship and they had put in extra floors. All the space a person had was to sit or sleep, you could stretch out to lie down but it was mighty full. There were 8 ships like that together with mine sweepers in the front and back and from there too Poland it only took the nightime, by early morning we were there. Later on I learned that the night before we left some other cousins of mine, and their families, left on boats but the mines below them blew and the ship they were on went down, but we were pretty safe.

So many people had arrived in Poland, trains were by the port and they put everyone on the stationery trains. We sat like we were going for a train journey. They gave us some food but I couldn't eat that food for anything. I guess I wasn't hungry enough because I'm use to eating from the farm where there are eggs, nice soups, milk, butter and fruit in the garden, suddenly they give you stale bread and soup that looked like dishwater.

I made friends my age, we made a bunch together. We had been on the stationery train for about 4 days and nothing had happened and everyone worried about what they were going to do with us so we 5 decided we were going to run away the following night. We decided that as soon as it was dark we would just take off, so we did. Nobody saw us, people weren't really watching each other.

We went to the city Gdansk where the port was. We were going down the street and we decided to go out of the city, out to the country to look for work. As we were walking down the street we could hear a bunch of people in front of us talking in Latvian so we stepped up and went up to them and asked them all sorts of questions. We told them that we wanted to go to a farm to see if we could find a job and they said there were no jobs on the farms. They said that the farmers would tell you to come back and that's all there was to it. They told us they lived in a refugee camp and if we want we could go with them, so that's what we did.

We lived there for about a month and then we got a job in the factories. They sent us to what is now East Germany, that far. For some months I was there, it was quite good. There was a big farm, a real rich man who lived there, and we just went to do ordinary chores, weeded the garden, this and that, we had a good time.

But you see the war was going on and it was not that long when the Russians were coming again so we were trying to figure out now what to do because we didn't go all that far just to wait for the Russians to come again. We waited for a while and tried to figure out what we were going to do. One of the girls had relatives the other end of Germany, just about near Switzerland, so we decided we were going to go there, but the Russians came again so fast, nobody expected them. One day they weren't there and the next you could see them everywhere, all over the city and we knew that they would be over the river. We ran to the railway station.

There were people everywhere. Everybody was trying to board the train. People were sitting on top of the train, people inside and you could hardly see the train. It was just people hangining on it everywhere. We somehow managed to hang on for some miles until it reached a little city. Here a lot of people changed to different trains and we changed trains.

We started to go towards Berlin but American and English planes were pouncing. Even in the trains it wasn't safe anymore. We were in one train that was travelling around Berlin because they said that as private people (civillians) we couldn't go there anymore, it was too dangerous and it was only the army that was allowed in. So as we were going around English planes came really low, almost touching the trains and shooting. The train stopped when they knew that the planes were coming and we all jumped out. The planes didn't shoot at the people but they pounced on the train. When they went away there was bullet holes everywhere, so they got a new engine for the trian and by the end of the day we could travel again.

We reached a big railway station. All German railway stations have big pillars just like our parliament house has. I was there with the other people waiting for a train and again some planes came down, swooping on the railway and shooting. I don't believe they were shooting at the people, they were just trying to damage the train lines and the trains, but when the bullets come they don't ask questions they just hit. So as the bullets would fall around on the platform, I remember walking around the grey pillars to dodge them. Nothing happened to us and we went where we wanted to go.

Again we stayed with a farmer because one of the girls relatives were gardeners there. The war finished while we were there. First came the Americans and then the English and the war was over soon afterwards.

As the war was over the English went home and the Americans went home but the Russians didn't go home they occupied our country, and they still occupy our country but now they are out of East Germany.

The English gathered us all into refugee camps and told us that the Germans were out of our country and we can go home but it took some months to convince them that we didn't run away from the Germans but from the Russians.

From the time the war was finished to the time I left for Australia I managed to get married. After the war my girlfriends went to their families. Some married, I married and we separated from each other. Now me and Papa were together. At the time of the war Papa was in the police force in Latvia and he was sent out of Latvia.

As the time went, about 6 months or so, England and Australia started to take in refugees. We had relatives in America, my cousin and his family, so we got hold of a newspaper, an American one, and we sent our photos to the newspaper. They must have published them because we got some 7 letters from America, people who would sponsor us and give us work. We choose one in Illinois but the papers took forever and all our new friends were going to Australia and England so we decided what's the use to sit and wait we should go and see the Australian officials. We thought we might as well go somewhere and start doing something because in Germany there were many refugees from all different countries. Papa got work with the English Army but still it's not much of a life to live in a refugee camp so we decided to go to Australia.

We had to pass medicals and get some documents to proove who we were but we were accepted straight away.

All we knew of Australia was that there were kangaroos and that it was a very hot country. Really, I couldn't remember much about what I was taught in school about Australia. We knew all about America and other countries but nobody really knew anything about Australia. We were young and didn't care much. We went from Germany to Italy. We lived in Italy for a couple of months in a camp and then from Nepali we boarded a ship and came to Australia.

It took a month to get here. I did some work on the ship. We had a measle outbreak and a lot of children were sick with the measles so I worked in a hospital down the deck to help with the sick children. The month went pretty quick.

We landed in Melbourne, Victoria. We had a contract with the Government that when we arrived in Australia we had to take whatever work they gave us and we had to do it for 2 years. We couldn't say no that we didn't want to do it and try to look for work ourselves.

They told us that we had to go to South Australia. Papa worked at Holdens in the factory and I was a housekeeper for Mr Brown, he was a radio announcer. S o that's how we got to Adelaide and how we started.

As time went, Papa didn't like Holdens much and so he asked if he found another job could he change, the Government said yes he could change. So he changed jobs. He started with the South Australian Government as a carpenter building schools because he knew carpentry. I changed jobs soon afterwards because my German was pretty good and there was a lot of people who could only speak German. I was a translator for people who needed to understand German. This is how we started our lives in Australia.

I did write back to Latvia when the war had finished, when we were in Australia. I got one letter from my sister, she was alive and well. By the time I got her letter she was married but she was working on the railways. With all the fighting from the war everything was destoyed so the Russians put everyone that was healthy enough to work. She was working building the railways.

My Mum had a stroke and she was paralysed in bed. I didn't hear much of them afterwards."