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Kamla was 2 when World War II began and she got to know children from other towns in Germany when they were evacuated to her hometown of Spaichingen.
Abington Journal/Rob Tomkavage
SOUTH ABINGTON TWP. – Rose Kamla of South Abington Township has been writing remembrances of her time living in Germany during World War II for the Our Lady of the Snows Church quarterly newsletter, the Prism.
According to Kamla, Kay Gallagher, Prism editor, told Kamla she should publish the stories. A friend of Kamla’salso loved the stories and thought they should be published.
In addition, members of the church have been giving Kamla positive feedback on her stories.
“They loved it,” she said.
Kamla grew up in Spaichingena small town of approximately 5,000 people, located at the eastern edge of the Black Forest in southwestern Germany.
She met her husband, Tom, when his college choir from St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minn., visited her hometown in 1960 on a European tour. He later returned through the Army and the two were married in 1964 in the baroque pilgrimage Church of the Holy Trinity, on top of the mountain overlooking her hometown.
Kamla was only 2 when the war began and she got to know children from other towns in the country when they were evacuated to Spaichingen.
“I didn’t have to flee the Russians,” she said. “Children from big towns like Cologne and Munich were evacuated to Spaichingen. I met some of those children in my hometown, but I never had to do that.”
Kamla and her husband lived on a military base in Germany for two more years before they moved permanently to the United States in 1966, when Kamla was 29. When she first arrived in America through Newark, N.J., Kamla admitted it was a culture shock.
“I was overwhelmed by all of the big, huge billboards,” she said. “I had never seen anything like it before.”
The couple resided in Milwaukee, Wisc., for three years before they moved to Madison, Wisc., so Tom could finish his doctorate in German. They lived in Pittsburgh, for four years while Tom was teaching at Carnegie Mellon University. After that, they moved to Lincoln, Neb. for two years before Tom got a job at The University of Scranton and they have resided in the Clarks Summit area for the last 33 years.
Rose was sworn into full citizenship Sept. 9, 1999. She and Tom have one son Gregory, who married Jennifer Pencek of Moscow, where they currently live. They have two children, Ashley and Samantha.
The Mysterious Soldier
An excerpt of a story By Rose Kamla
The year was 1945. Germany had just lost the war. Trains and buses were no longer operating, so the returning soldiers either had to walk home or hitch a ride. One very tired and sick soldier was sitting outside a grocery store. When my aunt came out of the store, she noticed him and felt so sorry for him that she took him home with her. She had a husband and three kids to feed with very little food to spare, but she still managed to share it with the stranger. He was very sick with typhoid fever. Since the disease was contagious, especially for children, the neighbors were scolding and warning my aunt. My aunt rode across town by bike to inquire about a bed in the town’s only hospital. Finally the ill soldier was admitted. She never saw or heard from him again. During this time my aunt had made a deal with God: If she took care of the stranger, God would send home from the war her brother (my uncle) and her brother-in-law (my dad). Within two weeks they both came home and both lived to a ripe old age.