Freedom Rings in War-Torn Germany

The year is 1945. The place is Germany. A little girl named Ello trembles as a fleet of camouflaged tanks rumble down her street, repeatedly passing by her house—not for hours but for days.

“It was Armageddon,” Ello remembers. “We all huddled in the back of the house.”

Born in 1939, Ello’s life up until that day had aligned perfectly with the bloodiest conflict in human history: World War II. Terror was no stranger to this little girl.

“I lived through every single day of the war in Germany. Whenever we heard bomb sirens, we had to grab our pillows and run into the cellar,” Ello says. “You never knew if you were going to come out again.”

Now it seemed that one final enemy had arrived, determined to reduce her neighborhood to rubble.

Courageous in the face of death, or perhaps just curious, some of Ello’s neighbors donned gas masks to see what terrible enemy had come to destroy them. First, they saw British troops. Then they saw French. Then a cry rang out from Ello’s neighbors, echoing down her childhood street and through the long corridor of her memory. It was not a cry of terror but an indescribable shout of hope.

“It’s the Americans!”

Even today, many years later, Ello still gets goosebumps every time she utters that glorious phrase—It’s the Americans!

“It wasn’t the enemy coming through our streets. The Americans had come just in time to deliver Germany from total destruction,” Ello says. “They had ‘hope’ written on their tanks. The good Lord brought the Americans to liberate us from Hitler. They brought us hope.”

The American troops brought more than freedom to the German citizens in Ello’s town. They also fed and nourished Ello and the children who had been eking out a meager existence during the war.

“Once a day, we could go with a little tin can to get a scoop of porridge from the Americans soldiers,” Ello explains. “They would top the porridge with things that we had never tasted, like a little slice of orange or a peach. Even chocolate and bananas were unknown to us before then.”

For a little girl growing up in Hitler’s Germany, those cups of porridge were Ello’s first sweet taste of freedom—her first experience of America.

“That was my first ‘Fourth of July,’” Ello smiles, fondly remembering her personal Independence Day when the American troops rolled into town and changed her life forever. “Had those brave Americans not come to liberate the Germans, I would not be here. Hitler would have never given up.”

Years later, as a working woman, Ello would emigrate from Germany to the United States for good.

Father of the Fatherless

Even after her “first Fourth of July” as a little girl, Ello’s post-war childhood in Germany was anything but sorrow-free.

In 1939, the year Ello was born, Hitler’s Stormtroopers had knocked on the door of her father’s business. He was a master tailor and designer for the German elite. He had many employees, a beautiful wife, and small children. But the demands of the SS troops were unambiguous: “You are going to war.”

For a few years, Ello’s father would write letters home to the family—flickers of hope in the darkness. One day his letters stopped coming. Ello’s family received word that her father was wounded, and then missing, somewhere on the Russian front—likely taken by the Russians to a labor camp in Siberia.

“One night I was sleeping in bed next to my mother. I remember her lying awake, weeping and praying to God, ‘Please send him back. I don’t care if he’s crippled or blind. I just want to take care of him the rest of my life,’” Ello remembers. “I also cried myself to sleep praying, ‘God, please send my daddy home.’”

But Ello’s father never did return from the war.

And so, after her father’s disappearance in the war, Ello’s mother joined the ranks of countless German women left to pick up the pieces of World War II.

“My mother had to raise three children on her own. She never once complained,” Ello says. “She prayed for the daily bread. When I look back, I know the good Lord lived in our house, because he provided. Somehow, we always had bread and potatoes. Even one egg could serve as a meal. We survived.”

Ello would go on to work as a secretary for several years. She even went to live in England for a year to improve her English.

During one of her visits back home to Germany, God provided a second day of liberation for Ello—this time, a spiritual one. Her mother invited her to go hear a speaker in their Town Hall.

“I honestly didn’t know what it was all about,” Ello says. Little did she know, Ello and her mother were walking into a Christian revival meeting—one of the many Spirit-filled gatherings that swept through Germany in the 1950s.

“When I walked into the town hall for the meeting, there were big letters up front that said, ‘JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME, YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND FOREVER,’” Ello recalls. “A man up front was talking about what Jesus did yesterday. It was so powerful. The blind could see. The lame could walk. Then he talked about what Jesus can do for us today and tomorrow. ‘When you can no longer walk, he will carry you home!’ the man told us. He was the most Spirit-filled speaker I had ever seen.”

Although she had gone through the motions of baptism and confirmation as a young girl, Ello says the Word of God came alive in her heart that day. The minister invited his hearers to come forward to the altar and dedicate their lives to Christ.

“I don’t think anything could have held me back,” Ello says with joy. “I gave my life to the Lord. God brought me from Egypt into the Promised Land.”

Resting in the perfect love of her Heavenly Father became a lifelong journey for the fatherless Ello. To this day, Ello grieves for the earthly father she lost at such a young age, casting her questions and her sorrow on the Lord in prayer.

“Some years ago, I was driving home from a prayer meeting,” Ello remembers. “I had tears in my eyes. ‘You are so awesome Heavenly Father,’ I prayed. “I realized then that, even though I had lost my earthly father, God was my heavenly ‘Papa.’”

That’s when Ello asked God a simple and beautiful question: “God, can I now call you ‘Daddy?’”

Ello laughs as she remembers this profound insight into the heart of God, “Here I was, a grown woman talking to God like that! Tears were streaming down my face. He is my Heavenly Father. Although I had no memory of a fatherly hug, the good Lord made up for it a hundred times over.”

After her mother and father had both gone to Heaven, God impressed the words of Hebrews 13:5 onto her heart.

“God told me: ‘Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you,’” Ello says. “I wrote in my diary, ‘Thank you, Father, for embracing me.’”

God’s Word for America’s Finest

Today, Ello’s Heavenly “Papa” is using his faithful daughter to spread the name of Jesus far and wide.

Ello has a little speech that she loves to share with the various people God brings into her life—including total strangers. In fact, if you were sitting across from Ello right now, she’d smile, look you in the eye, and tell you this:

The great Creator of heaven and earth created everything. He knew you by name long before you were beautifully knit together in your mother’s belly. He knows your past, your present, and also your tomorrow. And can I tell you the most wonderful news? The Lord Jesus loves you.

“Some people cry when I tell them this,” Ello says. “They say, ‘Thank you for sharing that with me; I needed to hear that.’”

While Ello loves sharing the good news of Jesus with anyone who will listen, her particular focus—inspired by her “first Fourth of July” over 75 years ago—is to share the life-changing message of the Bible with the troops serving in the United States Armed Forces.

“My heart is with those young men and women in the military. I live to share God’s Word with them,” Ello says, adding that she always strikes up a conversation when she sees someone in uniform.

“In them, I see my dad. They’ve looked death in the face. They’ve seen the worst of the worst. I want to tell them that they are loved—that they have a Heavenly Father who knows everything about them.”

To share God’s Word with the brave men and women serving in the U.S. Military, Ello is a generous prayer and financial partner of the Armed Services Ministry of American Bible Society, which has been creating and sharing relevant Bible resources with Military members, Veterans, and their families since 1817.

Ello especially loves how her partnership with the Armed Services Ministry equips Military chaplains on the frontlines with the Scripture engagement resources they need to care for the troops in the most difficult circumstances. She remembers hearing stories of how captured German troops would share precious, torn-out pages of the Bible with one another in the war camps.

“The chaplains are doing an awesome job,” Ello says. “Deep down, I would love to go to one of the Military hospitals to share God’s Word with our wounded, brave Heroes.”

Today, Ello may not be sitting at the bedside of a wounded soldier. She is, however, with them on the frontlines in spirit. By sharing the Bible’s message of God’s love with U.S. Military members and their families, she is giving back to the courageous community of American troops that freed her from Hitler’s reign those many years ago.

“My life is a story of God’s glory. I see his miracles everywhere I look,” Ello says. “I just want to shout from the rooftops what the good Lord has done. His love and his grace are the most awesome gifts to all of us!”

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You too can share the life-changing message of the Bible with our brave American Heroes! Visit ArmedServicesMinistry.org/Donate.