Augusta Bansbach was born October 9, 1921 in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. She grew up in a small rural community there, living on a farm with her parents and grandparents, alongside her Czech and German neighbours. Educational opportunities were limited for girls at that time, so Augusta’s schooling was complete after 8th grade, and she went to work. When Augusta was 17 the Sudetenland came to the attention of the world: Hitler wanted to occupy the region, and in the 1938 Munich Agreement the British and the French agreed to his demands – it was part of the infamous policy of appeasement. Augusta found herself living in Germany all of a sudden, and as a teenaged girl she became part of the numerous Nazi youth organizations. The war began the following year, when Augusta was 18. Like many in her generation Augusta was trained to work in the war factories of the Third Reich, where she produced timers for bombs. She wanted to do more though, and she signed up for the Red Cross, where she began to tend to wounded soldiers. She did that through the end of the war, coping with the bombings and shortages and other realities of the war. As Soviet troops bore down on them in the confusing and chaotic final months and weeks of the war, Augusta was in the Sudetenland with her aunt, still tending to the troops. Returning German soldiers had told them to get away from the advancing Red Army, but Augusta did not leave, and she and others were taken as POWs by Czech and Polish forces advancing into their area. Augusta did marry in this period, securing her way into the western part of Germany; her husband – a German soldier – was taken prisoner and sent to England. She learned at this time that her brother had been killed as well; with her husband in prison and disconnected from her family Augusta was on her own. Her husband did return, but the marriage was not a happy one, even after they emigrated to Canada with their young family. Eventually they divorced, and Augusta made her own way in her new country. Augusta Bansbach was interviewed by Scott Masters at her home in Kingston in July 2024.
