1 September 1945

Side of the Road

Latvian / VĪKSNAS / Regimental Newspaper

Lunden Flehde

Saturday Sep 1 1945

18 August 1945

Lunden is a municipality in the district of Dithmarschen, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated on the Eider river, about 16 km north of Heide.  Rehm-Flehde-Bargen is in the district of Dithmarschen.

Latvian 142nd Regiment, Church Service - Lundena, Flehde, Denmark

 His Song

The Lord is our strong fortress, etc....

My God, I praise home

God, guardian of our home land that she remains a flowering state and strong, etc ......

His Tune

God is our hope, Stone Mountain etc .........

August – September 1945, Latvian Variety Troupe - 

"Birds of Passage" Program

Soup to eat, regular religious guidance, this camp is better than I had expected.  In addition, we are treated to entertainment.

23 June 1945

We moved from Heides, Germany, to Kűmpel on the other side of Lunden.

Two days completely without food.  I was in a particularly bad mood on Ligo evening with nothing to eat - June 23 mid-summer festival, Ligo svētki.

A local person came to help us, supplying us with a little food. 

Once we had eaten, we were able to walk-on quite well.  That local old woman has boiled us soup every day since.  The allied army must have recruited her because someone must be paying for our food.

20 & 21 May 1945

Adolf Hitler committed suicide 8 May 1945, bringing world war two to an end

Concerned about food.  Tied down at the forest bridge, with increasingly less to eat.

In addition, I lived on only barn plants (salad) at Flensburg for the previous two weeks.  We are very much in shock.

17 May 1945

Sailing from Denmark to Germany (Post allied liberation of Denmark)

The first Allied forces arrived in Denmark mid afternoon of May 5^th.  They were greeted by throngs of people celebrating in Copenhagen.  British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had already accepted the surrender of German forces at Lüneburg Heath, east of Hamburg but Denmark’s official liberation took effect at 8 am on May 5th 1945.  Unfortunately, those on the island of Bornholm continued to be bombarded by Soviet forces until 9^th May.  After two days of bombardment, landing Soviet troops accepted German surrender. 

We knew the Allied were coming but they took longer to reach us than we had anticipated.  Fighting against Russian occupation is something that has burdened generations of Latvian men.  Equally, Latvia has suffered the shackles of Germany during her historical past.  Any invading army must be repelled, but the Allied forces pose no threat to Latvia.  Their fight is with the Germans, not with Latvians.  We are not defending Latvia but standing upon foreign soil, governed by a foreign power. 

Allied forces were moving quickly but their advance has slowed.  We had expected them to be upon us within twenty four hours but it has been three days.  If our German commanders discover us, we will all be executed as deserters and so we are in hiding.  Having no food for twenty four hours would not have been such a big problem but, after three days, our stomachs have turned themselves inside out. Once again God answered my prayers.  We have been discovered by a family who took pity on us.  They treated us to a small amount of salted herrings.  They are not my favourite but at least my hunger has subsided.

It has take five days for the Allied forces to reach us.  We are all relieved to surrender to them and not to have been discovered by the Red Army.