Oral History Interview with Ann Jonushaitis, October 8, 2005 Page: 6
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things. We kids would go out and try to make friends with them.
They were good, they gave us chocolate, gum and stuff like that and
soap. There was a garbage dump and they knew we came looking in the
garbage for food and they would leave some in the open on a piece
of paper for us including the bread so we could find it. We used to
go through the garbage all the time. We found all kinds of stuff
like silverware and other things.
The barracks were always built on the outside of town as the
Germans did not want anything to do with us. As we were going home
we used to pass some fields that would have peas and carrots
growing and we would sneak into the field and lie down and start
eating them. If they caught us they would really get after us. We
used to eat poppy seeds and we never got high or anything like
that. On the way back from school we spotted an apple tree and we
would make a hole in our pockets and get apples in the lining of
our coats. We came home with a coat full of apples. You do anything
when you are hungry all the time.
We drank water. A lot of time when you live out of town they had
their own wells. I don't ever remember not having water. Now the
toilets were always public toilets and we go on certain days to
have a bath.
In Germany there were no refrigerators and mom would go buy bread
and butter and put the butter in cold water to keep it from
melting. When she could find some get potatoes she would put them
in the ground like a root cellar.
Peg Van Meter
How about eggs?
Mrs. Jonushaitis
Now there were no screen doors in Germany on the farms. We only
had to walk so far and there was a farmer and he told us, "If you
can kill a hundred flies I will give you something."
We didn't know what it was but heck, we would do anything for
food. So my sister and I both killed a hundred flies and the farmer
counted them out and he went out to the barn and got and gave us
each an egg.
I did not know what an egg was, I was only eight years old. This
was the first egg I had ever seen. I brought it home and then I hid
the egg because I didn't know what it was. My mom asked, "What did
they pay you?" She knew I had gone all day to get those flies . Nowmy mother knew what an egg as she had grown up on a farm.
I showed her and she said, "No you can't hide it, I will boil it
for you. " She boiled it and I ate the egg and it was funny tasting
at first because I never had an egg before. That's how I learned
about the egg. We had never had chicken meat either. we didn't have
any chickens so you never tasted the meat. People in Germany would
eat horse meat quite a bit.
Mom would boil most everything. We used to go to the butcher in
town and get the water that they would boil the sausages in and
bring it home and mom would make a vegetable soup with it. If she
got hold of some meat she would save that bone for a couple of6
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Jonushaitis, Ann. Oral History Interview with Ann Jonushaitis, October 8, 2005, text, October 8, 2005; Fredericksburg, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1606461/m1/6/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.