The location was the city of Danzig. My father was 7 years old. The Russian Army is now a threat to their home town.

“It was 1944 and the war was going badly for the German Army in Russia. Mutti stayed in close contact with all her friends that had connections to the German military. We boys were no longer allowed to go anywhere near the railroad to watch the trains full of wounded soldiers on their way to hospitals in central Germany.

Many nights we were made to get up from our sleep and run across the street to a neighbors basement shelter to sit on benches while bombs fell near the close by shipyard. This was extremely scary at first when the bombs exploded but after a while we all got used to it.

In the mornings after, we could not wait to go and search for big pieces of shrapnel left by the exploding bombs. These sharp edged pieces of metal looked interesting and we made it into a contest of who could find the largest.

But now the grass on the main entrance road to our city of Danzig was covered in snow and lots of refugees from the surrounding farmland had made this their place to stay while waiting for permission to board ships so they could escape the Russians.

Mutti was getting more and more fearful in advance of our escape. She knew we would have to leave soon and with the help of her sister our Tante (Aunt) Erika we started packing.

We had a lot of Vati’s trophies and a large amount of real silver ware, which we would not be able to take. What would we do with it all? In the back of our house was a garden and on the end it had a rabbit hatch. I fed my rabbit every day and the droppings from the rabbit kept the ground below from freezing. So this place was chosen to be the perfect place to bury and hide all of our silver. We hoped to one day come back and retrieve it. We dug a large hole, placed all of our cherished silver in the bottom, and used the dirt to disguise the treasure!

I was told I would have to give up my rabbit because when we had to leave we could not take him with us. This made me sad.” – Jochen

When he would tell me of these times, I’ve always admired their courage in the unknowns of war. Trying to imagine my father and his brother and mom rushing into a neighboring basement to wait out the bombs that fell while the city was dark, is overwhelming. They were 7 and 9, and shrapnel became their toys. It is a stunning example of the things one does in order to cope when disaster is around, turning bombs into fascinating “treasures” to find around the city. I experienced a tiny taste of this when I was living in the Pacific Island of Yap, Micronesia when one of the villagers took me on a hike to find WWII relics still hidden in their jungles. Somewhat rusty bomb remnants coming out the jungle ground. To them it was a neat thing to find, instead of an instrument of war. Of course this was 70 years later, not the next day. My Dad and Uncle Gottfried were certainly brave little adventurers.

Talking about the nightly bombing, he said they learned to get used to it, but he left out one point. A habit that he picked up while they were hiding in that basement listening to the bombs fall. Another coping method, he would rock himself back and forth, over and over, to soothe his mind and body in order to fall asleep. To this day, this habit still comes back sometimes. Rocking himself to sleep, an awful memory, PTSD, of a scared little boy in the middle of war.

But, let’s not focus too much on the sadness. We must discuss the biggest reveal of this story, the real hidden treasure! The buried silver trophies and silverware. Hidden in the backyard. And spoiler alert, they never went back and retrieved it. Did someone find it? Is it still hidden beneath the Earth as a symbol of this moment in time? A family fearful of losing their valuables to a war they didn’t seem to be winning.

Maybe one day I should take a trip to Gadansk, Poland, and find where his home once was. Shall we go on a treasure hunt? Maybe one day he’ll give me the map, with a bright red X where they buried their family treasure.

A girl can dream.