Sumy and Memories of Second World War

The city of Sumy in northeast Ukraine has made headlines in recent days because of the horrific Palm Sunday attacks where dozens of Ukrainian civilians died during Putin’s continued ‘special operation’ that has devastated countless lives over the last 3 years. So many needlessly broken lives. Why?

Sumy is the main city in a region I’d been hoping to visit someday. Near the ancient monastery town of Putyvl, it’s an area that has seen the horrors of war before. One of my father’s friends, an agronomist, had been stationed in Putyvl during the Nazi invasion back in 1941. 

Ernst was also from Schleswig-Holstein, like my dad, and had immigrated to Canada in the early sixties.  He’d written his memoirs and in the mid-eighties, asked me, a recent German MA grad, to translate his memoirs into English. 

I knew my family had a lot of war memories and I’d been trying to figure them out through various means … travel and oral histories, and 20th century writers like Heinrich Böll, Günther Gras and Thomas Mann so I welcomed this opportunity to get an insider’s view of that war.

Fotosergio:  Molchansky Monastery

Ernst shares his efforts to keep his Nazi taskmasters happy and fed while feeding a partisan army hiding in the Sumy/Putyvl marshy woods. He shares how he supposedly manipulated the Soviets & the Nazis, killing indoor plants with too much un-drunk vodka, never being sure who to trust and even faking his own grave in an effort to hide.  It was a fascinating account and while on the outside I was a newlywed with her first house and an empty sandbox calling to her, on the inside I was learning about Nazis, partisans, Soviets and war. 

I’ve never stopped being fascinated by those years and those places. A grim reality is once again settled over  Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine and all that eighty-year-old history still matters. I’m so sad that the ‘bloodlands’ (Timothy Snyder) continue to bleed.

From Königsberg to Kaliningrad

Eighty years ago, on April 9, 1945, General Otto Lasch surrendered Königsberg to the Red Army. Where is Königsberg today? Its buildings in ruins, including the once famous Königsberg Castle, its people dispersed … washed away by war and now by time, like a sandcastle. You’ll only find it on historical maps. After 700 years as a Prussian city, with its most famous citizen being Emmanuel Kant, Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 … a name that also applies to the Russian oblast, an enclave surrounded by Lithuania to the North, Poland to the south and the Baltic on the west.  Along with the city, the entire province once known as East Prussia, is renamed and divided amongst the victors.  And like East Prussia before, Russian Kaliningrad remains separate from its mother land. Always in its own detached world.

By April, in 1945, many German civilians would have managed to escape the Soviet onslaught, or have died trying as they fled for  Baltic ports.  My mom had been captured during her flight earlier that winter and by April she was on her way to the Urals as a POW. Meanwhile, her two sisters and cousins were stranded … also not reaching port cities like Pillau … perhaps saved from drowning on ships like the doomed Wilhelm Gustloff. My aunts remained behind in the ruins of East Prussia.

I’m grateful to have visited Kaliningrad back in 2019. The Russian settlers who have made Königsberg their home have learned to love the city and appreciate the history and ruins of that brutal war. With the Germans are gone, the victors have had eighty years to claim Kaliningrad as their own. 

But Königsberg remains a symbol of home to the scattered survivors and now their descendants. My recent ‘cousin’ reunion down in Mexico this past winter reminded me of how memories fade away … like castles in the sand … unless we make the effort to put them into narratives. 

public domain Königsberg Castle

The Mud of Transition

Lessons for writing from nature:  calendars are nice …. BUT like chapter outlines, merely a guideline.  Spring is fickle … BUT no matter what, the days are brighter, the snow is disappearing, the puddles growing. The plot is definitely heading towards warmth, towards the light. BUT like a good book, it’s all about the journey. This muddy middle will pass.  Splish, splash towards new growth ... towards spring.

Muddling through a draft of a new novel feels a bit like slugging through some prairie slush. 

How the Past can Linger On

Heading out to a 100th birthday celebration.

The 100-year-old birthday girl is a tiny, feisty woman. Born into troubled times in Wolany, Poland (lower Silesien), she immigrated to Canada in the mid-fifties and attended the same immigrant church as my family. The war years were hard on Anna (not her real name) and left her with a lifelong hoarding affliction. Now that she’s in a long-term care home the problem is under control, but for many years her hoarding instincts caused issues. She couldn’t help herself. There was enough food in her fridge, freezer or wherever else she could store it, to feed an army. My mom had similar tendencies, but maybe not as severe. 

My mom  at 90

While younger people dismiss the past of their parents … or suggest they get over it … without support, many Second World War survivors lived with PTSD and no therapy, no way to share the traumas of a history they barely understood.

Here’s a funny story about my mom at ninety.  We’re having tea in the dining hall of her long-term care home. A fellow resident opens about four packets of sugar for her tea while my mom only uses one or two. Later, my mom asks me if everyone pays the same in their care facility. I tell her it’s prorated based on income. Mom nodded understanding. When she died, one of her dresser drawers was stuffed with sugar packets. 

My mom was sweet enough, and so is Anna. But after a difficult life, hoarding was a way to cope.  So happy 100th birthday to Anna. May she always have enough. May she always feel secure.

Meanwhile, our current world situation is ripe to breed a whole new generation who might have to deal with PTSD throughout their lives. Listening to their stories is one way to support victims of trauma. We are our stories and our stories matter. 

Happy to Be

For World Happiness Day (and the first day of spring!)  let me share my own way to celebrate. A morning walk in the woods with my favourite canine, followed by a pot of green tea and a few hours of  uninterrupted time on my laptop. 

After lunch, I’ll head out to my neighbourhood pool for a swim, stop for groceries and prep a vegetable-rich supper. I hope to spend the evening reading a soon-due-back library book, will have a few welcome social interactions, and end the day with another dog walk. Those morning and evening dog walks are comforting bookends to my idea of a perfect, happy day. 

As a retired homeowner, I'm one of the lucky ones with a pension which guarantees me a modest life-long income along with private health insurance to supplement the government plan. It's much more than what many newcomers, people with disability or mental health issues, or young people trying to find affordable apartments can even hope for. 

While I live in my protected senior bubble, I know that unhappiness is real and that people in my city are struggling and have much to be unhappy about. Canada's dropped to 18th on the World Happiness Report and we need to elect politicians who will support our quest for individual and social happiness.

I've had my share of challenging times and appreciate simple things like tea and dog walks.  I’m sure your idea of how to live a happy day is much different than mine ... may we each find happiness and pass it forward. 

From Wesselburen to Winnipeg

 

Dad at 18 in 1936

It’s my father’s birthday. Born in Wesselburen, near the North Sea in Schleswig-Holstein back in 1918, he’d be 107 today. He passed away at 75 back in 1993. While he got to witness the collapse of the Berlin Wall, he missed out on most of my kids’ childhoods. And they, missed out on having a fun-loving Opa in their lives.  

I think my dad appreciated fun because of the not-much-fun years. He joined the German Luftwaffe at 18, back in 1936. The small-town boy had witnessed his bedridden father die (possibly from a morphine overdose?) after lingering Great War wounds, the previous year. 

Young Robert was no doubt eager to leave the poverty and depression at home for the excitement and status of being a pilot in Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe.  I know one perk was that he got to watch the diving competition during the Berlin Olympics back in 1936.  He ended up crashing a plane he was piloting, killing all 17 paratroopers on board.  After a lengthy recovery he was re-instated into the Military Police on the eastern front. That ended with five years in Soviet custody near Moscow and the collapse of his first marriage along with the death of his two sons.

Eighteen years later, I became the firstborn of his new family here in Winnipeg. 

Happy 107, Dad. It would be great to share a coffee and some Königskuchen with you today! I've got so many questions I'd like to ask you. I'm finally ready to listen to the stories about the old days. I think our world needs to remember those days ... now, more than ever!

My oldest daughter with her opa 
1987

Standing up to Bullies

Diversity mural at Bernie Wolfe School in Winnipeg

Last Wednesday was labelled ‘pink day’ supporting awareness about bullying. and I was delighted to share that theme as presented in Waltraut with local grade eight students. I suggested that a good way to not get pushed around by bullies is to have a strong sense of one’s self. When you know your own story, you aren’t persuaded to adopt someone else’s narrative. My protagonist, Waltraut, had an identity crisis and others took advantage of her vulnerability.

As Canada gets pushed around by the USA, we find ourselves re-connecting with what it means to be Canadian. In my novel, Waltraut discovers her power comes not from imitating Nancy Drew, but from owning who she is, Waltraut Weiss.

Waltraut’s parents were very proud of becoming Canadian. It was a country they chose to raise their children. It is a country that does not aspire to be more like the Americans. It is a country that aspires to be what its steady stream of new immigrants dream it can be … more Canadian.

Check out 49th Shelf’s recent newsletter for other children’s books encouraging newcomer’s self-esteem and empowerment. Grateful to have Walraut included on that list. Books can be portals to build resistance to bullies.

Mural supporting Ukrainian
Immersion program at Bernie Wolfe School