Eleventh installment from the diary of my great-grandfather’s sister Alise, written during the First World War. When the diary starts, she is living just a few miles from the front lines of the Eastern Front, and is then forced to flee with her husband and two young daughters to her family’s house near Limbaži as the war moves even closer. For the background, see here.

October 10

We are still living with my father. Life is good when it comes to nutrition and day to day living, but the future is still so unclear, always waiting – what is to come? I wish I had my own hearth again, but hopes and longings disappear when we hear the close cannon-fire. The heart sorrows… the dreary autumn is at our door. The wind rustles big leaves across the meadows, until they find their resting place. Like the leaves, we see other refugees wandering along the road, not knowing where they will find their winter refuge. Behind them the open country of their homeland, ahead the unknown distance. All has been taken away by the storm of war. Left is only the walking stick. Will this terrible era never end? Soon we will also be left in darkness, because we cannot get oil anywhere. Some are still selling it for 50 kopecks a quart. What a terrible trying time for all humanity – when will it all end?

The heart sorrows, oh how it sorrows, that even the joys created by one’s own hands, now must be destroyed for so little. Fields of corn wave in the breeze, and fall promised a good harvest, but now with your walking stick, you must leave your dear home. No turning back, there is mist everywhere. Where you are going, there is no place for you, when you stop, you don’t recognize yourself. Who survives the black terror of the night, will see the dear sun’s rays!!