Ten years old and running from machine guns, growing up

during WWII.
By: Steffi Ludahl

A generation that is being lost to us everyday is the WWII era. These men and women

lived through a monumental time in history, Ilse Krob was born in 1934 and living in the south

of Germany just hours from Munich near the Alps in a village that once belonged to her

grandfather. Krob fondly recalls of her childhood before the war, “I remember the mountains and

lakes, I remember skiing and the snow. Then when my father left the army we moved to Stuttgart

in 1938 where we had a big house with servants, cooks and a nanny that we didn’t like. I

remember Christmas with lots of presents at that time”. Her mother came from a wealthy

aristocratic family and her father made a name for himself in Germany’s small army after WWI

as an officer.

However the time with her family in Stuttgart came to a close very quickly, only a year

after moving there her father was called back into the army as WWII started. As a former officer

he was one of the first called back to fight and after that Krob’s life changed forever. “My

mom’s good friend would often come visit us before the war had started but then she was forced

to wear the Star of David and my mom would have to sneak her into the house, I think I was too

young then to understand what was happening”. Krob was only five years old at that time and

she said that was one of her first memories of WWII. As time quickly passed, Krob’s mother was

put in charge of making sure homes blacked out their windows so that it would make it harder

for bombers to see the city. This often left young Krob alone with her brother who was a toddler
at the time. “Then bomb attacks started at night, and the terror from those bombs I will never

forget. Our shelter was behind our garage and the garage door was metal. When the bombs fell

the door made such a racket it was so loud. I don’t think I have ever been so afraid, I still get

nightmares about it even now. Just terror, absolute terror, I still remember it”. After almost 80

years she still remembers that horrifying feeling of being alone while the bombs dropped.

Her mother knew they needed to leave the city so when Ilse was seven they fled Stuttgart

for remote villages in the countryside. Living in a mill in Regen at one point and making shelters

along the way before settling in Dingolfing where they were reunited and lived with her father’s

brother and sisters. By then there was no school but Krob read anything she could get her hands

on. She spent her days running through fields with her cousins and making their own club, where

she was the leader. She recalls it was pleasant enough in the countryside as a child, until the last

year of the war when bombers started to target the country villages. “One time I stepped outside

and there was a plane so low that I could see the pilot and the machine gun. They were machine

gunning for us and the bullets went just above my head, I was about nine years old going on

ten”.

Even with all of this Krob insists the worst time was not during the war, but the four

years after it. At that time money was worthless so you had to trade for things. Krob’s mother

was unprepared for this lifestyle since she grew up as an aristocrat and her father had been taken

to a prison camp in Russia. It would often fall on Krob to go out and barter with the farmers.

When that was not possible she and her brother would go into fields and try to dig up what they

could find. “We went to bed hungry almost every night, I remember we would have one potato

for the three of us. We went from having servants and a nice house to nothing, we had absolutely

nothing”. They managed to have a few chickens for eggs eventually but when it came time to
slaughter the chickens it again fell on Krob as her brother was too young to wield an ax and her

mother could not bear it.

Krob’s experiences growing up in WWII made her into a strong, independent woman.

“Growing up there was no option for me to fail. I had to do what I needed to do for my family so

I put my mind to it and did it”. Krob carried this mindset with her throughout her life. She went

on to move to Canada and start her own production company, raised two boys as a single mother

and was one of six on a team that invented the precursor to HTML. Her friend and neighbor Evi

Ludahl speaks fondly of Krob, “I have known Ilse for the past 13 years and have been in awe of

her ever since.” Her good friend Minju Hastings said when she thinks of Krob she thinks of a

strong willed old woman that doesn’t accept that she is old. Krob is retired now and spends her

days with her dachshunds and traveling, recently she returned from a long trip to Egypt and

enjoys going back and seeing her brother in Germany when she can.

However her greatest concern at the moment is President Trump. “I am petrified that

Trump could get back in. I always wondered why my parents couldn’t prevent somebody like

Hitler that caused all that trouble. Now seeing it as an adult, a system that expects leaders to be

good, is not prepared to deal with someone that is a crook. Now I am quite sure that is what also

happened with Hitler. He used those existing systems to get into power and once he got into

power it was too late. It seems to me there is no way to control him (Trump). He knows how to

manipulate and that is what I remember my mom talking about when it came to Hitler”. She

urges people to do their research before and to remember that history can repeat itself. Krob, like

the rest of the world, anxiously awaits the results of the 2020 election. “For me this goes beyond

politics at this point, it is about humanity”.

 Krob has led such an awe inspiring life, one straight out of history. To call her a strong

woman would be an understatement. She is a prime example that you can do anything if you put

your mind to it.

Source list:

Evi Ludahl: 3609219622

Minju Hastings: 3606015834
Ilse Krob: 7479995762