“Through Many Dangers”
The Life Experience of a Sinner Saved by Grace

“Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul” (Psalm 66:16).

I was born in December of 1937 in a small town, Pardan in the former Yugoslavia. Our town had a mixture of people with various ethnic backgrounds. We were German, as were most of the people in town; but there were also Serbs, Croatians, Bosnians.

At the time of the 2nd World War all the German men from our town had to serve in the German military. Along with almost every other man from our town, my dad was killed. I never saw him again. I was 5 or 6 years old at the time.

Concentration Camps

As the war was coming to an end, when the Russian army came thru Pardan, our homes were confiscated our homes and all the families left in our village were separated. The men that had been too old to serve in the German military were all gathered together and executed. One of these was my grandfather. My mother was used for slave labor. My aunt (mother's sister) was taken to Siberia to work in the mines. And all the children, including my 2 sisters and 3 cousins, were taken to another camp in a place called Schuple. My maternal grandmother was allowed to go with us children because my younger sister was only about 2 years old at the time. My paternal grandmother went to another camp called Mollidorf where she soon died of starvation. These concentration camps were turned over to the Serbs who were part of Tito's underground fighters.

While in the Schuple camp they made an attempt to brainwash children to become communists. Everyone's head was shaved, including the girls. All were forced to march and sing pro communist songs, and forced to witness public executions of so-called dissidents. Our food consisted of dried corn meal and lintel soup that had more weevils in it than lintels. This was served every other day, as I remember.

After almost a year in Schuple we were sent to another camp, called Schendjuri, where we stayed until March of 1948. The food rations in the Schendjuri camp were as meager as before. Knowing that my cousin was sick and my little sister could not survive, my older cousin and I snuck out of the camp and went to a town called Dorak, which was actually across the border into Rumania, to beg for food. We did this a number of times. Then, on one occasion the guards saw us and began to shoot. My cousin was killed that day by machine gun fire, but I escaped and got back to camp. After this incident my grandmother and I went out begging together. We were caught a few times. In God's providence we were never hurt, though we were locked up for punishment.

Escape by Night

One night, getting some money from various sources and after much planning, my mom led an escape from Schendjuri. We made our way to Austria, traveling by night to prevent capture. We were caught and detained in Budapest, Hungary for a number of days. When they about to putt us back across the border into Rumania, mom bribed a guard and he let us go. We finally arrived in Vienna, Austria, but still in the Russian sector. (At that time all of Austria was divided into four sectors occupied by the allied armies: American, English, French and Russian). Mom had enough money from somewhere to buy one train ticket for my grandmother and the five children. We ran around on the train and played, hoping the border patrol would not even bother with a few kids. Mom had to travel on foot over the mountains and we all got to Linz without a problem. My aunt, who had been sent to Siberia had been released because of illness and had made her way to Linz, where we had relatives who fled Yugoslavia before the Russians came in.

We lived in a town called Ried im Inkreis for three years and went to school there for the first time. When I started first grade I was eleven years old. We lived in a refugee camp because there was no place else and Austria was overloaded with refugees. We all lived in one room (grandmother, mother, aunt, two cousins, my two sisters and I) for just about three years.

Though I was not supposed to do so, I went to a motorcycle race in 1950. I was standing right next to the track at a curve when one of the drivers lost control of motorcycle and ran off the track, hitting seventeen people. Two were killed and the rest of us were severely injured. I had compound fractures of both legs and numerous other injuries. The emergency workers put me aside because they did not think I would survive the injuries. By God's preserving Grace I did.

Immigration to America

In July of 1951 we left Austria to come to the United States. My grandmother’s cousin and her husband, who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, sponsored us to immigrate to America. We arrived in Cincinnati on August 7th 1951.

In 1957 I joined the U.S. Army and served almost 9 years, the last one in Viet Nam. I met my Wife, Lorna, and we were married in Anchorage Alaska in January 1960.

I was discharged from the Army in 1967 and went to work for General Electric in the Aircraft Engine Division. I transferred to Wilmington N.C. in 1980 when GE opened a factory to manufacture rotating parts. I worked for GE for 34 years and retired in January of 2000.

The Lord God graciously preserved me thru all these things. I never cease to be amazed, when I think of his goodness to me and the many displays of his providential care for my soul throughout my life. By all these things, when it pleased him, he sent me to hear a gospel preacher, taught me the gospel, revealed his Son in me, and saved me by his grace. “To God be the glory. Great things he hath done!” — “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Joe Schwarz
Hampstead, North Carolina
USA