Pildikesi Põltsamaa ajaloost. [I] osa

At 4:00 PM, the town was completely under German control. They also helped extinguish fires at the ETK factories and protected the cattle shed from the flames. From Kuningamägi, Germans streamed into the town along the highway—on motorcycles, in tanks and artillery vehicles, and also on foot via side roads. The people greeted them in a friendly manner. The Soviet regime had deeply frightened the population with the deportations on June 14.

On July 23, I too returned to the town. My first visit was to the ruins of the church. I sat on a stone near the former pulpit, a stone that had once supported one of the columns bearing the choir, and tears fell onto the ash-covered floor. I thought that if the parsonage, my apartment, and all my belongings had been destroyed, that would have been a small loss. But the church! Where will the congregation now go to receive the Word and the sacraments? Later, I have often been asked when the idea of rebuilding the church first came to me. That idea was already echoing within me back then, as I sat on that stone in the ruins of the church...