Ilona Praschma Balfour

Return of the Swallows Ilona Praschma Balfour

An account of a remarkable life - of love, courage and survival in the dark days of World War II. Dorothy Eva Ferreira grew up on a remote farm in South Africa, but in 1930, she met and married Engelbert, Count Praschma, Baron von Bilkau, an adventuring German aristocrat. Upon the death of his father in 1933, Engelbert took his wife and children to Germany to claim his rightful inheritance - only to be rebuffed by his status-conscious siblings. The family castle and estates were held in a fideicommiss which stated that the oldest son would be the sole heir. But the family maneuvered to have Engelbert disinherited as he was deemed a black sheep, an irresponsible profligate who married an African peasant while his younger brother had married a princess. The war raging about them, Dorothy and her children found refuge with an aunt and uncle, Count and Countess Stolberg, in Czechoslovakia. The aristocrats soon found it useful to have someone around who knew how to gather berries... how to slaughter a chicken... how to stand up to wave after wave of overbearing Russian soldiers and above all was not German. Her only proof: a small tattered South African flag and stamps of King George on her marriage certificate. In the horrific aftermath of the war, she retrieved her small children from distant boarding schools... and missing relatives from Soviet labor camps. In a world gone mad, she lived by the words, "My heart must never be too small for a woman." *** 31 January, 1941 I know that Engelbert got into financial trouble. He is accused of arms dealing and the family said he was a difficult case but why did they let him be taken to Leubus, this so-called sanatorium where people who are not useful to "the magnificent Third Reich" are sent. Is it possible that the family actually handed him over to the Nazis because he was such a thorn in their sides? Why did his sister Elisabeth who works for the military tell me, ten days ago, heartlessly, that as Engelbert is going to die soon the only thing for me is to go back to Africa and leave the children here to be adopted by suitable families? Leave my children? Never.