In 1944, Josef Dittrich, grandfather of senior Sara Scarbro, and her brothers, junior Kyle and freshman Luke, was 11 years old and living in Romania, where he had lived for his entire life. It was two days from his birthday when his life changed forever.

Romania, on the Eastern Front, was caught between the warring nations of Russia and Germany.

“The Germans said they were going to kill all of the people if we stayed there,” said Dittrich.

The community was notified a few weeks in advance that they would have to vacate their homes and march to Yugoslavia. However, Dittrich’s father refusd to leave. His family waited. They were among the last people to pack up and head towards a new life.

The family joined their neighbors in a wagon train headed out of the town and began what was to be a two-day journey. Most families had a single wagon, filled mostly with the necessities: food and blankets. Some of the wagons were pulled in a chain by tractors, but many, including Dittrich’s, were pulled by horses.

At the Yugoslavian border, the path was blocked by Yugoslavian troops.

“They pulled a train across the road where we were supposed to go,” said Dittrich. “They wanted to take all our belongings.”

Before the soldiers had a chance to deprive the group of its final possessions, a German truck pulled up at the back of the march. The troops opened fire upon each other, and the train was moved, allowing the Romanians, including Dittrich, to pass.

Another man suffering the effects of the Holocaust asked Dittrich’s father, Ignotz, if he could take them back to the town so he could find a doctor for his wife. He said he would, but he needed help carrying supplies, and brought Dittrich along. They attached their wagon to another and headed back to the town.

Dittrich, who had been wearing shorts, could hardly walk due to the bleeding and pain caused by the horse’s harness on his bare knees.

The train had moved on without them, and they did not catch up until nightfall and it had started to rain. When they finally caught up, the group had been stopped once again by Yugoslavian troops. A man from the nearby town, who had just emptied his wagon at the local market, noticed the group and led the parade down an alternative route.

The alternative route, though, was not paved, and the rain turned it to mud. Everyone had to walk.

This man, Josef Wollock was his name, saw Dittrich struggling to walk and offered him a ride with him and his wife, Helen, in the empty wagon.

Sometime that night, the wagon Dittrich was in got separated from the rest.

“How we got separated, I don’t remember,” said Dittrich. “I fell asleep in the back of the wagon. ”

When he woke up, he was no longer alone in the wagon. There was a young man, somewhere around 16-years-old, dressed in a German uniform, sitting beside him. He was Wollock’s son, Nick.

Nick had no change of clothes with him, and not wanting his son to be identified as an enemy by the Yugoslavian troops, Wollock decided to give him Dittrich’s clothes.

“I was 11 years old and tall, and he was short,” said Dittrich. “They put my pants and shirt on the guy and left me in a blanket.”

When daylight came, they were stopped by Yugoslavian troops again. Nick and Josef were taken away by the troops while Dittrich and Helen were allowed to continue on.

The bridge they were supposed to cross had been burned by the Germans, but eventually Dittrich and Helen found their way back to Wollock home.

Dittrich stayed with Helen for nearly two years, during which he fed horses and worked with them in the fields.

When Dittrich was 13, Nick and Josef Wollock came home. They had been in a concentration camp since they had been taken by the soldiers. They told Dittrich that while they were in the camp, a man approached Nick, noticing his attire.

“That’s my son’s clothes,” said the stranger. “Where is he?”

Nick and Josef told Dittrich’s father that his son had been living at their house with Helen. One day, the Germans entered the barracks and told all the able-bodied men to leave to go work. Dittrich’s father, lacking full use of both hands, remained behind with the other disabled prisoners.

“All the ones that stayed behind, they took out, made them dig a grave, and shot them,” said Dittrich.

The family took a ferry to Linz, Austria. Due to previous work as a repairman, Josef was able to convince the men to stow away him and his family, even though it was illegal.

Dittrich was left behind. He was 13. He had just lost his father. He had no idea where his mother or siblings were. For all he knew, they may be in the same place as his father.

Still in Yugoslavia, Dittrich walked to a nearby town, which was predominantly German, in search of work. A farmer employed him for a summer to do odd jobs on the farm: feeding animals, working with horses, and plowing fields.

“It’s not the same as farming today; they don’t have many tractors,” said Dittrich. “Actually, they didn’t have any electricity in the town when I was there.”

Come fall, he was unemployed again, completely oblivious of what was happening in Linz.

Nick Wollock had gone to a dance and, overhearing someone address the bouncer as Peter Dittrich, approached the bouncer and asked if he knew Josef Dittrich. Peter told him he did. Josef was his brother.

Upon hearing the news, Dittrich’s mother went to a lawyer in Austria, who then contacted a lawyer in Yugoslavia.

“That lawyer came and found me,” said Dittrich. “They told me they were going to make arrangements to bring me to Austria, to my mom.”

Dittrich was taken via train to a new city where he waited three days for the train to Linz. The year was 1951. He had not seen his mother for nearly three years.

In 1956, Dittrich, his mother, and his youngest brother came to Pennsylvania, and on the Fourth of July, to Chicago. He got a job working for Oscar Mayer, and married his wife, Sara, in 1957. They had three children, Joe in 1957, Manford in 1959, and Diane in 1964.

He worked at Oscar Mayer until 1993 when the plant closed down, then worked as a loading dock worker for Wal Mart, and finally as a farmer for the plot across the street from his ranch house on the outskirts of Huntley.

In 1971, Dittrich, when he was 34, took his wife, daughter, and two sons back to Europe. They visited Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, and Romania. While there, they found the Wollocks. Nick had died earlier that year of lung cancer.

Dittrich, now retired, has five grandchildren, four boys and one girl, and four great-grandchildren and lives with his wife in the same ranch house.