Just imagine having to evacuate your home because of a World War II bomb. This is what happened to Brazilian Alexandre Faria Morais in Germany.
“It looks like a little war scenario. Streets blocked off by police, police going door to door, a car driving by with a very loud loudspeaker saying there’s a bomb in the street, that they found a bomb and everything,” he says. This bomb was discovered during work on a pipeline in the city of Bonn. Of American origin, it weighed 125 kilos and had to be deactivated and removed.
“And suddenly, quite simply, the Ordnungsamt, which is a government agency here in Germany, rang the doorbell and said everyone has to leave to deactivate this bomb. I have a four-month-old baby, another two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. So it would be a little stressful knowing where we’re going, how long it will take, whether we’ll have to sleep outside the house and everything,” he says.
The evacuation began around 4 p.m. and affected more than a thousand people. The area was completely emptied by 8 p.m., when the successful process of deactivating the bomb began. About two hours later, residents were able to return home that evening. This type of procedure is relatively common here in Germany and the authorities are prepared for it. And believe it or not: Alexander himself experienced this twice.
“It had already happened once in Cologne and again here in Bonn, in another region where I lived. But I didn’t have the little ones, my daughters. So there was no stress at all. I have to leave the house, so ‘ok’: call two friends, let’s have a beer, until the beer was over, I was ready to go home. But now, with the family, it’s a little more stressful,” says Alexandre.
“So yes, it scares us a little, a little scared, especially now with our family and everything, because there was a bomb here a few meters from my house, which guarantees me that there is not one here in my garden too? So, it brings us this kind of reflection, but we who live here in Germany, especially in this region, you have to get used to it, you have to adapt. So, the first time it happened, I was quite scared, I said: “There’s a bomb here, everything’s going to explode. So I did some research and saw that this is something that happens quite often here.”
In addition to the sound cars which were used to alert the population of the region, an alert application provided the necessary information. Evacuation buses and a gymnasium accommodation point were also offered to residents who had nowhere else to go. Alexandre’s family managed to stay with a friend and the fear was over. But he also said he had another surprise recently. While cleaning the garden of his house, he found nothing less than a rifle bullet.
“It’s even a little bit deteriorated here, so you can see that it was used, it was inside a rifle and was used and, based on the research I’ve done, the style of the bullet and everything else, it could even be from before World War II. And because it’s an artifact that’s over 100 years old, you’re even forbidden to keep it in your possession, you have to take it to the police or to a museum,” he said.
“That’s all, we live in a region that has been involved in wars, so it’s things like these that we would never imagine living in Brazil. However, living here in Germany, we have these surprises.”
About The Author
