"I have worked at everything", Else- Wilhelmine tells us. On the farm, on construction, in the factory. When the war broke out, Mrs. Else-Wilhelmine, who had to show herself to army doctors, was naturally given away.

"Even though here and there heads were shaken because of me, they knew how to value me as an able worker", she said. Just how much she was worth was shown in the year 1944. Else-Wilhelmine was assigned to an East Prussian construction unit as Wilhelm A.

She wasn't spared anything: Hard labour when digging trenches, life in the barracks of rugged men. These were the hardships and fatigues of an assignment right behind the front, which at that time stretched through East Prussia. Elsie Wilhelmine took all this with patience. The meaning of true male comradeship has become an experience for her, which she hasn' for- gotten to the present day. "But I have at that time also got to know the other side of this life. Hatred, cowardness, meanness and fear..'

CAUGHT BY THE RUSSIANS

"None of my comrades in those days have ever guessed that I was a woman. I always managed to avoid situations, which might have given me away".

When the Russians couldn't be stopped anymore, Else Wilhelmine and a few others from the construction unit were "discharged". Too late! She was taken prisoner by the Russians in her home village near In- sterburg. "Every man in the community had to report". Else - Wilhelmine A. became now a prisoner of war Wil- helm A.

"During the first year of life in the camp was a nightmare. It would be hard to imagine, what we suf- fered. Hunger, epidemics, cold, desperation and death. Once we slept in a barracks among 60 dead. Men cried. I was glad to be in captivity as a man, not as a woman."

And Else- Wilhelmine?

"Somehow I could take it.

43.