Today would have been my mother's 92nd birthday

I have shared her story here before, but feel compelled to tell it again:

Liselotte (nick name Lilo) was born in 1933 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She lived in downtown Frankfurt near the railroad station. When she was ten, Hitler decreed that all the children of the 3rd Reich should be removed from the major cities of Germany, since he felt that they were the future of the nation. Rge allies were making headway and were seriously bombing the major urban centers.

Since there was no public transportation (it was being used in the war effort) she and a group of many other children had to walk for miles tin the bitter cold and snow and ice to just inside the Austrian border and there she stayed in an orphanage til just after the war.
Five days after the war was over, the director of the orphanage all non Austrian children together and kicked them out as there was no Moner for them and scarce room to house them,

For the next two months she and others wandered through the countryside and cities of Germasny on foot, sleeping doorways, bomb shelters, empty abandoned shells of buildings etc. She had rock and rotten food thrown at her and was shouted at to leave many times as food was very hard to come by.

Finally an American military battalion picked her up and took her to an orphanage in Oberndorf Germany, For the next 17 weeks on each Saturday she stood against the wall of the basement and watched as parents came by to be reunited with their children. On the 17th week her father found her.

She married an American GI and when she was pregnant with me the frostbite she got on her left leg turned into gangrene and in order to save her fetus, (my life) she had to have her left leg amputated just below the knee with on local anesthetic.

This caused her great pain throughout the rest of her life. I remember being teased by my friends because of her leg and when coming to the US also because of her thick German accent.

She instilled me a passion for civic service and a deep sense of peace and justice.

I havejust recently been contacted by a writer to chronicle her story.

So: 92nd birthday Lilo Collier RIP