Life's road was long and winding and often difficult for German-born Rudolf (Rudi) Kreb. Spanning three continents, the road led through refugee and resettlement camps in Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxembourg, and several Hitler Youth camps in the Eiffel Mountains near France, the Hunsrueck area, the Palatinate, and Bavaria. It also witnessed traumatic family separations, several career changes, and the death of a beloved spouse. Through it all Rudi praises God for his "abundant" life, his three children and two grandchildren.

My name is Rudolf Kreb, and I hail from an ethnic group of Germans known in Germany as the "Volksdeutsche". I was born in November 1934 in a Lutheran (better known as Evangelical Protestant) German farm settlement in Bosnia, in a "Dorf" situated between the banks of the Ukrina and Viaka Rivers. My Dorf was actually known by two names at the time: Schutzberg ("Protective Mountain") in German, so called because it protected the settlers from floods in the valley; and "Glogovac" in Serbian, which translates to: "where the sloebushes grow". On the Balkan side there were 30 such settlements which kept themselves strictly separate from non-Germans, and further segregated themselves by Catholic and Lutheran denominations.

Three days before my eighth birthday, I remember the German government giving us the choice of getting on a train to be "resettled", or stay and suffer the wrath of Tito's Cetnici. "Home into the Empire!" ("Heim ins Reich!") was a slogan we were to hear over and over again. My Dorf - 150 households in all - packed up and convoyed to Derventa, where we boarded the train to an, at that time, unknown destination, which ended in Poland after a nearly two-week voyage. Hitler had plans to "Germanize" Poland by settling Germans among the Poles, thereby enlarging the Reich - the old "Lebensraum" concept.

When we arrived at the refugee/resettlement camp in Poland, Pfarrer (Pastor) Sommer, our highly respected preacher was separated from us. So, between November 1942 until summer of 1944, none of the four refugee camps had any provisions for church services. In the two early camps, Waldhorst and Kirschberg, refugees who arrived from a number of eastern countries brought with them their own religious denominations, resulting in a mixture - unlike the customary segregation among German settlements. Lack of religious guidance made us uncomfortable, but nothing could be done.

Thanks to Grandfather, we kept the faith

Luckily, I had my grandfather to keep the spiritual fires burning. Like the rest of us, Grandfather had a spotty, basic education of no more than four years. Unlike the rest of us, however, Grandfather became a devoted reader and most of his reading was from the Bible and related publications. I remember one incident, when Grandfather read way past midnight under a petroleum lamp. Continued reading and burning of the lamp built up so much heat that the lamp exploded. Needless to say, that did not stop him from pursuing his devotion! This man kept us spiritually alive. He would lead the family prayer at daily meals, and grace us with appropriate devotions on Sundays, and holidays. Thanks to him we did not lose faith when times were tough. Thanks to him, I learned to keep faith through the toughest of times.

Food was highly rationed in the resettlement camps. Each family was issued a ration card that showed the number of family members. Once a week we went to the central rations house to get a loaf of bread and a cube of margarine (commonly referred to as "coal butter"), and every morning we went to the central kitchen to stand in line forever to receive a ladle of ersatz coffee per family member. At noon we took the same bucket to receive a ladle of soup, and in the evening a scoop of ersatz tea. Sounds like the next thing to a starvation diet, doesn't it? Well, not so! The Lord provided an abundance of mushrooms of every kind, free for the picking, in nearby woods. Yes, some were poisonous, but we quickly learned to separate good from the bad, and mothers caught on quickly how to prepare mushrooms to taste like meat, and thus supplemented the miserable diet which the Reich so proudly provided. This art and science remained with us until well after the war. By 1947 or so, we picked mushrooms to sell in the nearby cities to supplement our spending money. (I still love mushrooms, by the way!) Once we had settled down to a place we called "home", we continued to collect mushrooms to dry for the winter. What a gift of God! Call it Manna in the woods!

In February 1944, after we had left the refugee camps and settled into our new homes, word got around that the dairy plant in Talfang - about two miles from Talling, where we lived at the time - had a supply of butter on hand to fill most rations stamps on a first come, first served basis. Mother gave my brother and me the stamps and the money to hike over the hill to that store and, with some luck, get some butter while supplies lasted. Being typical boys, we took our sweet time and dawdled along the way. About halfway there, we suddenly noticed two or three American fighter planes begin to circle the area. Then, without warning, one of the planes took a dive and dropped a bomb on the dairy! We watched in awe as butter wraps started "snowing" from the sky. Miraculously, there were no casualties and I imagine it was because people fled the scene upon the first appearance of the planes. Would my brother and I have fled, had we been in the dairy? Being young kids with no concept of real fear, I doubt it. We just thanked God that our Guardian Angel kept us dawdling!

More trials and tribulations

Before the end of World War II, I was separated twice from my family. The first time was in the spring of 1944 when my father insisted on a continuing education for my older brother Hans and me, despite forced school closures in Germany. So, when I was nine, Hans and I were placed in a high school level boys boarding school Luxembourg. With only two and a half years of formal schooling under my belt at the time, I excelled in only one subject: English (which was good, because I would put it to good use later in life!).

Well, right after D-Day (June 6, 1944), Hans and I suddenly and without warning, faced another school closure and, having basically been put out on the street, we decided to somehow rejoin our family in Germany. Since we had no access to telephones during those awful times, and since we weren't sure whether our parents still lived in the same place, we had no way of contacting them. However - thanks to God and our determined father who was worried sick and in search of us boys - four months later, Father somehow found us sitting on an oxcart on a dirt road, in dire need of a bath!

Less than a year later, in February 1945, my father again insisted on schooling for his boys. Hans was now 13 and I was 10. This time we were destined for Bayreuth. But, due to Fate and unforeseen circumstances, we ended up instead in a youth hostel in Kehlheim located in Southern Bavaria. It was unbelievable! My brother and I literally experienced the end of WWII looking down on the city from a limestone cave.

Another miracle

It was also during this time that I experienced another real-life miracle. It happened when Hans, along with about 20 other boys, were ordered to take a shower in the basement of a castle ruin. A Russion POW was stoking the furnace. Fascinated, I wanted to stand closer to the red hot furnace, but Hans kept urging me away. When he had finally convinced me to stay at the far end of the facility, the furnace blew up, severely burning and scalding those nearby! Thankfully, there were no casualties, but there were several serious injuries. I am thoroughly convinced that my brother's actions were inspired by a higher power than 13 year old wisdom.....

(This also makes me think of the many times our trains rolled into a burning town. Had we arrived just a little earlier, we might have burnt with many others. Yes, I believe there are Guardian angels!)

Unbeknownst to us, as soon as possible after the war's end, our father again set out in search of us. But, because we had been "re-routed" so to speak, he, of course, could not find us. One day in late June 1945, while working in a farm field, I observed a familiar figure biking along the highway. It was my father! I remember thinking: "Will miracles never end?"

After the war

I must admit that, after camp life in Poland, in a French garrison, at cramped quarters in the Castle Clerf in Luxembourg, and in various Hitler Youth camps along the way, growing up after the war was "a snap"! As soon as school attendance was no longer mandatory, I went to work to help the family in a variety of unskilled jobs. One job made me severely ill for years afterward. It seems I suffered poisoning from the noxious fumes at a galvanizing shop where I worked as a relief technician between the ages of 15 and 17. Many years later, people still commented on my pale-faced, sluggish, lackluster appearance. Only by mustering every bit of energy and willpower was it possible for me to keep going most of the time.

From 1952 to 1958, as a member of the German Labor Service at Rhein Main Air Base and later at Landstuhl Air Base, I worked mostly as a camp medic. I found the medical field interesting in part because of my own medical condition, and also because I had seen too much "voodoo" medicine practiced by the Bosnian natives during my younger years.

At age 24, although I liked the military way of life, my innate restlessness and the "lure of the romantic" made me leave the German Labor Service, and drove me to Canada to seek "a better life". (This, of course, is where the English I had learned so long ago began to come in handy!) While there, I expanded my use of the English language into the construction trade lingo and "moved earth" in and around Toronto. The long winters, however, interfered my aspirations, and so in September 1960, I crossed the bridge at Niagara Falls, going south.

Looking for a better life

I have to admit, I immediately felt more at home in the United States than any other place. Things were easier, bigger, better....

With the "hard" part of my life behind me, I began to concentrate on "the American dream" through higher education and better jobs. Somehow, I ended up serving my new country in various capacities via the Air Force, the U.S. Army Reserve, and the Civil Service. In between careers I managed to obtain a B.A. in German Literature and an M.A. in Germanic Linguistics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Then I taught for a year and half until the Army Reserve activated me. Since I liked military life, I decided to stay until retirement. Life was good!

In 1990, just when my road seemed smooth and easy and my children were all in college, I got the devastating news that my wife Margaret had been dianosed with kidney cancer. Voluntarily curtailing a tour of duty in Utica, New York, in order to come home to nurse her, I was granted a "compassionate reassignment" to Fort Carson where I worked for the division surgeon as "an extra pair of hands". When Margaret passed away on October 9, 1991, she displayed physical manifestations of true inner peace. She looked positively angelic during her last days on earth, and I could tell that, towards the end, she didn't mind leaving this earth. In order to assuage my grief and to keep my mind occupied after her death, I accepted a final assignment to Panama to serve as medical operations NCO. Then, in 1993, after 20 1/2 years active service and 37 years of total service under the Stars and Stripes, I finally decided to retire. It was just time.

Now in my twelfth year as a widower, and working as a substitute teacher, I'm about as content as my gypsy blood will allow. I love Colorado with all its splendor and beauty. This is truly God's country and I feel privileged to live here.

I praise God for allowing me to still be here, in basically good health, surrounded by all this beauty, to pass my testimony along to my grandchildren.