Description
Object description
Woollen, German Army blanket used to provide warmth to refugee.
Physical description
blanket
Grey wool blanket
Label
Lore and her mother, Gertrud Engels-Meyer, had been separated during the Second World War, the child being evacuated to the fringes of Czechoslovakia. Lore had seen her mother only sporadically and once for a one week holiday during the conflict. In January 1945, her mother re-appeared to take Lore home to Berlin, stopping at an old hospital at Marienheim, a former luxurious care home for the wealthy elderly. In 1945 it was being used as a field hospital for wounded soldiers, and the Russian army was so close that the hospital was being shelled day and night. As a precaution, recovering soldiers had built a form of 'Anderson-type' shelter in the fields nearby and it was there that Lore, her mother, and eight nurses would retire to each night. In May the weather became bitterly cold, and sleeping became difficult in the freezing unheated shelter. It was so cold that the mother told the Medical Officer, who then provided some blankets that had until that moment covered the body of a deceased soldier.
After the war was over, Lore and her mother immigrated to England in 1949, bringing the blankets with them.
History note
Lore and her mother, Gertrud Engels-Meyer, had been separated during the Second World War, the child being evacuated to the fringes of Czechoslovakia. Lore had seen her mother only sporadically and once for a one week holiday during the conflict. In January 1945, her mother re-appeared to take Lore home to Berlin, stopping at an old hospital at Marienheim, a former luxurious care home for the wealthy elderly. In 1945 it was being used as a field hospital for wounded soldiers, and the Russian army was so close that the hospital was being shelled day and night. As a precaution, recovering soldiers had built a form of 'Anderson-type' shelter in the fields nearby and it was there that Lore, her mother, and eight nurses would retire to each night. In May the weather became bitterly cold, and sleeping became difficult in the freezing unheated shelter. It was so cold that the mother told the Medical Officer, who then provided some blankets that had until that moment covered the body of a deceased soldier.
After the war was over, Lore and her mother immigrated to England in 1949, bringing the blankets with them.
Embroidered in pink wool to one corner of the blanket
LM