My grandma in the 1950s in Okinawa, Japan.

My grandmother was German and was a young woman during the war. She had incredible stories of hiding under trains while they were being shot from the air, being sent to a sanitorium in the Alps to collapse her lungs - the only Tuberculosis treatment at the time, and working as an interpreter for the Americans after Germany surrendered. She was a very enterprising woman - the American soldiers would give her their cigarette rations which she would sell to her German friends and made quite a bit of money. Her best friend and neighbor was Jewish and escaped to the Netherlands, unbeknownst to anyone, and she tracked down my grandmother in the ‘80s for a very emotional reunion. She also died two years ago, and I wish I had written down more of her many stories. She had terrible dementia by the time she died in her 90s, and it was a horrific and slow process. She too was an incredibly resilient, strong woman, and your post made me remember so many of the amazing things about her. Thank you for sharing, and your grandmother was very beautiful.

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