This is the size wagon we used in our flight from the Russians.
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When Margareta took the train back on the 15th to her employers, who were attempting to flee the country that same night, she indicated that if they couldn’t get out, she’d return tomorrow and flee with her family. When she didn’t return, (the Russians stopped her train) Margareta’s Father decided to wait one extra day for her return and sent his wife and two teenage daughters out with the wagon train.My granduncle, now trapped, could no longer flee. (About 25 years later, when he became too old to work full time, he finally received permission to leave to rejoin his wife and two younger daughters …)
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A total of 137 wagons pulled by horses started their escape from the advancing Soviets; another 125 people with no other mode of transportation left by train.With our wagon also traveled a widowed cousin and her teenage son, another widow with her six-year-old son and a teenage boy whose mother decided to stay behind. None of these people had wagons and Grandfather Bappert couldn’t refuse their requests for help. This made 11 people traveling with our small wagon.
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We traveled westward towards Gertianosch. We heard the explosion of the cannon shots in the battle for Temeschwar until late into the night. We arrived in Gertianosch on September 17 at one o’clock in the night. Realizing there would be no sleep this night, we rested for one hour hour and then rode farther to Hatzfeld (Jimbolia) arriving between 6 and 7 o’clock in the morning where we stopped for breakfast. Quickly milking the cows, which some people had taken along and the milk distributed, we had to keep moving.
***
Serbian terrorists attacked us as we left the last Serbian town behind. The horses reared and wanted to run away. The column was in chaos. Someone screamed, "Take cover in the ditch!"
***
At the time of our arrival at the Moser farm, there were three young Austrian workers—two women and a man—living there as hired help. There were also two young Russians working on the farm. One was a young woman brought from Russia by the German army as a prisoner. The second was a Russian soldier who was a prisoner of war.
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