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Germany's Ghosts

Janelle Harvey, Leicester, UK
December 2006

I had always been interested in the paranormal and unexplained ever since, that is, when I lived in Germany.
My Dad was in the army at the time, so he was always away on duty. My mum was a full time mum; she looked after me very well until I was in school at the age of 5 and then she went to work again. That's when it all started.

We had recently been posted to our new apartment in the British military married quarters, we had moved into the first floor, which had a balcony and patio with a huge field out in the back. It was perfect, I was happy with the room I was given (since I was only five I was happy with anything). After 1 month we had all settled in well. My Dad was called up to go to Bosnia for a year, so we were all preparing for my Dad to leave home. I remember him packing his bags and saying goodbye, my Mum crying and him hugging me, and that was it, he was gone, we had been left alone in an unknown apartment. All I knew was that Dad was coming home in another 6 weeks, I couldn't wait until he was back, but it was a long way to go.
One night when I was half asleep in my bed, I was just about to nod off when something hit me hard in the face. I jumped out of bed frightened at the thought that SOMETHING had hit me; I looked up and saw my clown doll hanging on the ceiling spinning around. I was freaked out at the thought that the clown had done it. I knew nothing about ghosts at the time, so I suspected the clown doll.

Six weeks had passed and nothing that I knew had been unusual. My Dad had arrived back home for two weeks and I was so happy that he had arrived. That is until something else happened.
I remember sitting on his lap watching Rugby on the TV. I had a cold glass of orange juice on the table in front of me, and I remember my Mum sleeping on the right hand-side of me on the couch. I sat there looking bored and then something caught my eye. My glass of orange juice was moving on it's own! It was moving as though an invisible hand was sliding it across for it to drink, I drew a deep breath and grabbed the cup to stop it. I took my hand off and the cup just sat there. My Dad on the other hand was too occupied to notice anything. I stared at the cup thinking it would just fly off, and once again it started sliding on its own. I just watched this time and as soon as the cup got to the edge it stopped. I wasn't scared, just curious at the fact that it was moving. I don't remember anything else in particular, so when we had moved out and left to go back to England, I asked my Mum about the apartment and what went on. She told me that I used to speak to an "Old Lady". She said that one day, her friend came around to have a chat and a cup of tea, and she went to sit next to me and I said, "Don't sit there!" And my Mums friend asked me "Well why not?" And I said "Don't sit there because the old lady is sitting there" and I pointed to where she was supposed to be sitting. My Mums friend wasn't really freaked out because she had a son who was claiming that a "Blue man" sat in the corner of his room every night. She told my mum that her son was too afraid to sleep in his room because of the "Blue man". She also said that that room is always freezing even in the heat wave that happened that year. She also claimed that her plug sockets and drawers were being mysteriously pulled out and thrown everywhere when she was out. So one day she had asked my Mum to house sit or shall I say "Apartment sit", because she was going to go away for a week to visit her family. My mum happily agreed and was responsible for the apartment. She told me that she only ever checked it twice, nothing out of the ordinary happened. But when her friend came back she was shocked to discover all of the kitchen utilities thrown about, all her drawers and plug sockets pulled out and black footprints on the ceiling. It was as if a child or a very angry ghost had done it.

She told me other occurrences happened, such as people claiming to see an old lady walking the hallways at night, and my Mum catching me talking to "someone" on occasion. I wasn't like a normal child talking to myself; it was as though I was having a whole conversation with another person. She had listened intently to me, and she was very interested in what I was saying. I on the other hand don't remember a thing. It's almost like my sub-conscious mind had mentally blocked it out.

So a couple of years later my Mum had decided to research the history of the military married quarters. After a lot of studying and researching she found some interesting information.

She discovered that before the apartments where built, a farmhouse had resided on that land. An old couple lived in that house, an old lady and an old man. The house was built in 1873 and it was unfortunately taken over by the Nazi occupation in 1944. The old couple were shot and the house was demolished. When the war was over the British had decided to build an army base and let the soldiers' families move with them in the married quarters. And after all those years, the couple still want to live.
Well that is my story, thank you for reading.

Janelle Harvey, Leicester, UK
00:00 / 01:04
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