Sally: Plight of a Jewish prisoner of war in Siberia

My maternal grandfather Ernst Gerson (Opa), a German Jew living in Hamburg, was called up to fight for Germany in WWI. 

In October 1916 he received three shots through his legs and was taken prisoner of war by the Russians near the river Stochod in Volhynia during an unsuccessful gas attack. 

He was then sent to work in a gold mine in Siberia. After a few months of trying to work in appalling conditions, with inadequate clothing and no pay, Opa and some of the other prisoners realised they had to get away from the mine before winter set in or they would die. 

Opa wrote letters to the Swedish Consul begging for help to get the men out of the mine. When the mine managers found out about this they arrested Opa and took him away to be punished. 

By this time Russia was in a state of complete chaos as the Red and White Armies engaged in civil war after the 1917 Revolution. 

Eventually Opa escaped and made his way back to Germany on foot and by horse and cart and train. He endured constant deprivation, extreme hunger and cold, typhus and constant danger but after 2 years he eventually arrived back home in Germany where his fiancée, my grandmother Barbara, was waiting for him. Of course, later when Hitler came to power, the fact that Opa had fought for Germany counted for nothing and he and his family were forced to flee Germany.

~ Sally Rawnsley

Miranda: Shooting down a Zeppelin in the dark

My great uncle joined Royal Flying Corps in 1915. 

Alfred de Bathe Brandon 1883–1974

In a letter to his mother he described a night attack on a Zeppelin over England. He wrote of the heavy cloud cover and of being unsure of his position in the dark, finding the Zeppelin again, firing, seeing the strafing on the canopy. 

He describes several attacks. 

At the time there was debate about whether he had hit the Zeppelin and for some time afterwards, the anti-aircraft artillery was given the credit for bringing it down. 

In the same scrapbook is a letter from the German commander of the Zeppelin, written about a year later, acknowledging my uncle's part in taking down the airship.

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One of my great uncles died in Palestine in 1917, killed in the battle of Ayun Kara. 

He joined the Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment at the start of the war, fought at Gallipoli, was hospitalised then returned to his regiment in Egypt in 1916. 

He became skilled with machine guns and taught others. His carrier for the Hotchkiss machine gun reduced galling on the horses and the design was used by the whole squadron. Arthur led a successful cavalry charge and though twice injured, continued to encourage his men until he was killed.

Hermione Ruth Herrick, 3rd from left.

Arthur’s younger sister, Great Aunt Ruth, had been studying piano in Dresden and Vienna before the war. She returned to England to work as secretary to the head of the Nursing Division at Walton-on-Thames. 

There was talk of a friendship with a German man that was interrupted when war broke out. Aunt Ruth never married and went on to found the Women’s Royal New Zealand Naval Service in World War II.

~ Miranda Parress