Hunxe. The celebrant can look back on an eventful life with ups and downs and she reveals her personal recipe for success for a long life.
Hertha Brachmann turns 100 years old – or young, as you put it – today. She never expected to grow so old. “I’m fleecing the pension fund pretty badly,” she says with a wink and is delighted to be able to outwit the finance minister. Only one thing is a disadvantage, says the mentally very fit senior citizen: “You become incredibly lonely, all the friends around you die away.”
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But she has her family, the daughter, the son, the grandchildren and the many nieces and nephews and their descendants. “They all look after me lovingly.” Hertha Brachmann still lives in her own apartment, but in her son’s house. But her own area is important to her.
The centenarian was born and raised in Transylvania, Romania. A really nice childhood in the middle of a wonderful environment, with many Romanian friends. But with the war everything would change. “The Russians came on August 22, 1944, and it was no longer possible to leave for Germany,” she says of that time. Lists were created at that time, all women aged 17 to 35 and all men aged 17 to 45 were included. And were interned only to be deported in cattle cars to eastern Ukraine in January 1945.
“Nothing can shake me today”
The men had to work there in the coal mines and the women had to shovel the coal into the wagons above ground. If they didn’t complete their workload, they didn’t get anything to eat. Hertha Brachmann experienced an icy winter. They had to work in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees. Many died in the camp, and she was also emaciated, but was nursed back up so that she could continue working. “Nothing can shake me today,” she says. She doesn’t understand that young people in particular are joining the right again today, that the Russians are waging war again. “Haven’t they learned anything?” she asks herself. “Why can’t people just understand each other?” And he immediately answers himself: “Greed and the desire for power are probably too strong.”
“You become incredibly lonely, all the friends around you die away.”
Hertha Bachmann
The 100-year-old talks about the dark side of old age.
She met her husband, her Walter, in the camp. By then she no longer had to shovel coal, but was employed as a Red Cross nurse in the hospital. “Walter had been in Africa with Rommel and was slightly injured there. The doctor had nevertheless certified that he had suffered a home injury. So he was able to return to Germany.” He also ended up in the camp as a prisoner through various routes. Since he could drive a car, the Russian officer of Jewish faith hired him as a driver.
A signature was enough
“The officers were very accommodating,” remembers Hertha Brachmann. “We were treated well, any misconduct by the Russian guards was even punished.” In her camp – she didn’t know anything about others. The two young people met in the camp and fell in love. When Walter was released, he asked the officer if he could take his Hertha with him. It didn’t work, but the officer advised him to pretend to be a married man so that Hertha could travel there. Which also succeeded.
“In Russia, a signature was enough and you were married. The same applied to a divorce and anyone who didn’t want their children was sent to a home where they were raised to be communists,” says Hertha Brachmann. Putin was also in such a camp, she says, and everyone can see today what became of it.
Almost 62 years of marriage to her Walter
Two months later, Hertha Brachmann followed her Walter to Höxter, lived with his sister in Schwerte for a short time. In 1950, Hertha married her Walter and two children were born from this marriage. “We were married for almost 62 years, but Walter died 14 years ago after I cared for him for 13 years. I would have liked to have done that longer,” said the centenarian. She lived first in Höxter, finally in Mülheim/Ruhr and then in Hünxe. They owned a small transport company.
“I was always a happy person who got along well with everyone. I also try to have fun every day.”
Hertha Brachmann
The 100-year-old reveals her recipe for success for a long life.
Today she lives in her son’s house, her bones don’t really work anymore and her hearing is slowly deteriorating. “But my gray cells are still working excellently. And I’m glad that I still recognize my children and know who I am,” she says mischievously. When nothing hurts anymore, you’re dead, she always tells herself. Your recipe for success for a long life? “I was always a happy person who got along well with everyone. I also try to have fun every day. What I have is enough for me and I don’t miss anything I don’t have,” she summarizes. Even though the Romanian day laborers kicked her mother out of her house after the war and she suffered a lot, she never hated anyone. “I’ve experienced a lot, good sides and not so good,” she says. But that’s just life.
