After the Second World War had ended, most men of working age were either dead or prisoners of war, and therefore Germany’s cities were full of women and children. They were the ones who had to put the pieces together after the war had finished. They were the so called “Truemmerfrauen”, rubble women (from die Truemmer; plural) – rubble, debris, ruins, remnants, remains). Young girls, old women, women from every walk of life had to help.
“…soon, after the war’s end, Berlin’s women were on the streets of Berlin, determined to keep their city alive. With only their hands as tools, the rubble woman sorted through the destruction, salvaging every brick they could, forming human chains to clean up the debris. Although paid a pittance for their work, the women were given extra food rations, something more important at the time than money.”
from: Traumascapes; Maria Tumarkin, Melbourne University Press
With almost every town and city of considerable size bombed to the ground the estimated size of the rubbel was approx. 400 million cubic metres. All this debris loaded in railway trucks would result in a train of 160,000-km length - the length of four times around the earth. Removing the remains from destroyed Berlin lasted till the beginning of the 1960's. The estimated number of rubbel women in Berlin alone lay between 20,000 and 60,000.
The terms of employment were very hard. The rubble was handed on from hand to hand; the brick stones had to be cleaned with a hammer for later use. Because of lack of horses, the women often pulled the carriages loaded with rubble themselves. In addition the women were endangered by many bombs and ammunition findings. No day passed without incidents, and terrible accidents which resulted in death were not uncommon.
Most of the debris was discarded and used to pile up hand-made mountains - the so called rubbel mountains. They are now part of Berlin's parks suach as the Friedrichshain (Mont Klamott), Humboldthain, the Teufelsberg at the edge of the Grunewald, the Schaeferberg at the Wannsee, Insulaner in Schoeneberg and the “Oderbruchkippe“ in Volkspark Prenzlauer Berg near Landsberger Allee.
For a short movie from that time visit Truemmerfrauen.
