After the Second World War erupted, my grandfather—only twenty years old—was swept into the army. In one devastating battle, his unit was nearly annihilated. Alone and desperate to survive, he slipped into a German textile factory and concealed himself for a week, always fearing the enemy’s search parties.
It was there that fate intervened. Jeff, the factory’s sixty-year-old manager and a quiet pacifist, discovered him. Instead of handing him over, Jeff offered shelter. Through broken words and gestures, Jeff learned that the young man was from Britain—a soldier whose home had been flattened by bombers and whose parents had vanished. From that moment on, Jeff became his protector, his teacher, and, in time, family. He taught my grandfather German, passed down his knowledge of textiles, and gave him a chance at a new life.
In 1944, however, fate called him back into war. When the Normandy landings began, my grandfather was pressed into a German regiment. The beaches thundered with gunfire and smoke; the air itself seemed to burn. Amid the chaos, enemy machine guns cut him down, bullets tearing through his left arm and leg. He collapsed into a trench, soaked in blood and rain, his body trembling from cold and shock.

By his side lay two comrades, David and Rivers, both wounded in the same hail of bullets. As night descended, the once-deafening roar of battle dulled to distant echoes. My grandfather’s vision blurred, and all three men clung desperately to life. Then, from his pack, he pulled out a blanket—one Jeff had given him years before. With shaking hands, he tore it into strips, binding wounds and stopping the bleeding. That simple cloth became their lifeline.
By sheer fortune, rescue came. Days later, the war drew to a close. My grandfather brought David and Rivers back to the textile factory in Germany. There, just as Jeff had once done for him, he taught them German and the craft of weaving. Together, they managed the factory side by side, turning threads of fabric into the fabric of survival itself.
In that factory my grandfather built more than a livelihood—he built a home. Sixty years passed, during which he raised a family of his own, though he never stopped searching for traces of the family he had lost.
On June 21, 2002, while in Germany, he finally received word from a distant niece. Because of the war, his parents had long since moved to Florida in the United States and settled there. Yet decades had slipped away, and they had both passed on within forty years of their relocation. Still, the message lit a fire in him. That very day he bought a ticket to Florida—and on the journey back to his long-lost family, his two wartime brothers, David and Rivers, accompanied him.
In Florida, the three of them began anew. Together they established a textile factory once again, this time producing blankets and pillows that carried not just threads of fabric, but also threads of memory and resilience. Their work reached across North America, Germany, and the Middle East—a living testament to survival, friendship, and the bonds that war could never sever.
With the passing of time, my grandfather and his comrades eventually left this world. Yet both the German factory and the American factory remain in operation. Their descendants—our family—may no longer manage them directly, but we are still part of their legacy. And now, here in China, I have founded a factory of my own, carrying forward the work of my grandfather and my father, weaving not only textiles but also the enduring story of our family.
References
[Bird's-eye view of landing craft, barrage balloons, and allied troops landing in Normandy, France on D-Day] / U.S. Maritime Commission photo.https://www.loc.gov/item/94505434/
https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b28970/[The Imperial Fez Factory which has been recently built] b&w film copy neg.
Butterfly Factory, Great Road, Saylesville, Providence County, RIhttps://www.loc.gov/item/ri0114/
Jewish factories in Palestine on Plain of Sharon & along the coast to Haifa. Acre. Kafar-Ata.The "Ata" Textile Co. The wadding planthttps://www.loc.gov/item/2019713372/