Stories Build Bridges

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s latest book, Standoff, is the second of a three-book series called Kidnapped from Ukraine.  Like her first in this series, Under Attack, it’s about the ongoing war in Ukraine. Her two 12-year-old protagonists, Dariia and Rada, are twin girls who become separated from each other in the early days of the bombardment of Mariupol. 

The author lets readers dive deep into the atrocities of this real-time war and into survival mode in the dark, dank bunkers deep under the Azofstal Iron and Steel plant. It’s a middle grade story, yes, but adults will appreciate the research and detail that Skrypuch incorporates into this novel.

I’ll never read another Ukrainian news headline or view another horrific image without feeling the suffering that Dariia, Rada, her parents and close friends experience since February, 2022. Yes, this is fiction. But this is not ‘just’ fiction. 

War might make the news when Trump, Zelenskyy and Putin discuss weapons and negotiate tariffs. But war is also about young girls who want to wear nail polish and bunny slippers, who want to hug their pets and text their family or friends. Kids need security.  Little things matter. 

While Russians continue to be manipulated by their leader, Putin, it’s stories like these that have the power to change people. There’s nothing good about war and no justification for violence.  Skrypuch empowers her characters to take action and not just be victims. Readers will appreciate the hope that is ever-present. 

Up until Kidnapped from Ukraine, Skrypuch’s bestselling novels focused on wars from the past. This series focuses on a modern war. History repeats itself in tragic ways. I hope kids all over the world get to read her books. These don’t just belong on a reading curriculum … they belong in a social studies’ class and at the dinner table.  

Could students in my city continue to bully newcomers from Ukraine if they read novels like this? I don’t think so. Stories build bridges. They matter. 

Hope is like the tenacity of a sunflower
in a cold October wind

It's not 'just' Fiction

Super excited that my research and writing has led to a connection with the real person who inspired a fictional character in my 2022 novel, Crow Stone. My aunt, my mom’s youngest sister, had cared for a little girl during the life-changing 1945 winter trek in former East Prussia as they tried to escape the Soviet army to reach the rescue ships at the Pillau harbour. My aunt was still a teenager and this child she protected was a toddler between two and three years of age. What happened to my aunt and the child after 1945? While my mother spent the next 2 ½ years in the Urals as a Soviet p.o.w., (fictionalized in Crow Stone) her two sisters and this child stayed behind as northern East Prussia transitioned into the Kaliningrad enclave belonging to Russia that we know today. 

Crow Stone characters inspired by people still living

In 1953, after finding each other again, my mom and her sisters—once again homeless— immigrated to Canada. But the little girl, E.., by then about 10 years old, was left behind in Germany. I don’t know the details, but I think she was reunited with some family member in Schleswig Holstein, a province in northern Germany. This little girl, E. is coming to Canada next year and we’re going to meet up. She’ll be able to share with me some of the details of her tragic childhood that have been buried over the decades.  I’m just tingling with excitement. She’s read Crow Stone and I was quite nervous about how she’d react to this fictionalized account of those horrible times … but the fact that she’s eager to meet me and share more is a positive sign, right? I’m just thrilled!

My mom (right) and her youngest sister, 40 years after the war,
safely growing old in Canada

As we age, it’s childhood memories that creep back into the centre stage our consciousness. I may have been born and raised in Canada, but the leftovers of my family’s trauma have haunted my own life. Writing these trauma-focused novels has helped me process the dynamics of my family. Every family has stories worth exploring. We just need to ask the questions and remember to be kind, curious and brave. 

 

Newcomers still Struggle to Belong

This morning the announcer on my kitchen radio shared news that a 14-year-old girl had been assaulted and bullied in a local high school... supposedly because of her Ukrainian accent. This school is ten minutes from my home. All three of my kids attended the institution set in a middle-class neighbourhood. I assume that means the residents have some sort of higher learning.  How can war refugees be bullied? Where does this sort of attitude come from? 

In my novel, Waltraut (Heritage House, 2024), my protagonist also gets bullied and ostracized because of her immigrant background. But that story was set back in the sixties. Has our Canadian education system still not enlightened students about the challenges of immigration? Is our Canadian society still afraid of people who have an accent, or a difficult-to-spell name, or parents who struggle with English? Are we Canadians still afraid of people who are different?  Are our children learning intolerance from the adults in their lives?

As I did my daily walk in the woods close to Oak Park High this morning, I pondered the learning that happens in between the classes, between the official curriculum, in between the necessary bureaucracy.  What are schools teaching our next generation? How can Canada better embrace its newcomers?

Waltraut reflected my own uncomfortable school experiences. Has nothing changed in fifty years?  Shame on us. 

Curious About Emotions

Gritty and authentic, The Outsmarters by Deborah Ellis left me in tears … a curious emotional reaction for a book filled with rage. Ellis immerses readers into a hard-edged world of outcasts and promises no happy ending. 

The title refers to the rejection that the 12-year-old protagonist, called Kate throughout the first half, experiences. She’s been ostracized by her addicted mother, her rule-based school and peer bullies. Gran, her substitute caregiver. has not resolved her own rage and is not a good role model.  Kate avoids her whenever possible. With exquisite craft, Ellis lets the reader experience the determination, hope, disappointment and anger that powers the characters throughout a most engaging novel. 

I've also been reading The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass and would have to say that Ellis, whether she knows it or not, has mastered the craft of employing emotion and inspiring readers with hope. He writes, "The spirit you bring is the spirit we'll feel as we read, and of all the feelings you can excite in your readers the most gripping and beautiful is the spirit of hope." (page 201). 

In my quest for improving my own writing through emotion,  I'm now reading,  The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey into the Feline Heart by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.  Curiousity leads me on. 

All those little details ... they matter

I've just finished reading a most unusual book by Walter Kempowski, titled, Schule: Immer so durchgemogelt.  It's filled with short snippets of German society, through the school system, by students during the Nazi years. I picked this up mostly to imagine my dad as a student in northern Germany (Schleswig Holstein). He was eager to join the Luftwaffe and was obviously influenced by the Nazi visions as a young student ... although ... I'm grateful to say, he never joined the party. 

The book's worth reading, but a tad repetitious. It's curious to see what stays in a person's memory about school. The authenticity of these memories is was kept me reading. 

Walter Kempowski wrote many books about the Nazi years. After reading his 1991 novel, Mark und Bein, I've been determined to read more by this author.  His interest in details has made the atrocities under Hitler become more real and relevant. Little things do matter. 

Waltraut or Waltraud?

Finished reading Waltraud by Tammy Borden from my summer reading list, just before fall is set to officially begin. What an amazing book and I’m so grateful to have read it. The author tells the life story of her mother, born in 1927 in the Braunschweig area of Germany. 

Told in first person, it follows Waltraud from BDM days through the war, the confusing time after the war, until her immigration to Wisconsin in the USA.  I picked up the book because of the similar-sounding titles … my Waltraut vs. Tammy Borden’s Waltraud. My book is a novel for middle-graders and stays solely in the voice of an eleven-year-old Canadian girl while Waltraud’s voice moves from young child, to young woman.

It’s very well written and carries an emotional wallop, revealing complicated family relationships that were exasperated by war.  The author does an amazing job of stepping into her mother's world, in a succinct, yet compelling voice.  

I needed five middle grade and YA novels to depict my mother’s journey from 11-year-old Ukrainian kulak to being the mother of an 11 year-old North American girl.  Borden's one book covers decades of her mother's early life. Our protagonists share some similarities (one born in Soviet Ukraine 1919 and the other in Germany in 1927) with both stories being told in first person and written by their daughters. An interesting study in itself. 

I'm delighted to put Waltraud next to Waltraut. Whether it's Waltraut with a t or Waltraud with a d, both spellings mean 'strong' and each girl has a compelling story to share. Read them both!  

Walk, Read, Hope

A friend borrowed this idea from a friend and I will pass the theme on right here. My three words of summer? Let me reflect.  Waiting, caring, reading?  Or maybe, worrying, healing, reading? Or walking, reading, hoping.  Always reading, always hoping, always walking. 

The walking got slower and slower as my dog got weaker and weaker. Slow walking strengthened my patience. It became a way for me to focus on the journey and not the destination.  

Resting during one of our last walks together

Reading. I love how the private act of reading becomes a portal to worlds beyond. Books are my preferred tools of engagement with ideas and other worlds. I read to understand both myself and those around me. Books give me hope.

Hoping. It’s been a strange summer. Even sunny days in July were overcast with grey, ash-filled clouds from northern wild fires. Dark clouds hovered in my family, too, as a dear family member struggles with mental health issues. But hope brightens even the darkest moments.

Summer morphed into fall with some chilly, near-zero overnight temperatures. Today I’ll spread our dog’s ashes in the places we used to walk. I’ll shift the remainders of my summer reading list over onto my fall reading pile, and I’ll continue to hope for light … even as days shorten and darkness falls earlier and earlier. 

Ominous clouds hover everywhere. What stormy times we live in. Take time to walk, to read, and to hope.

Downtown Winnipeg in smoky haze

Shade gardens and reading

Ain't gonna lie ... it's been a difficult year .... caregiving while managing my own health issues.  Grateful for the dappled shade of a garden and a pile of books.  

                                    

José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro /
CC BY-SA 4

Like Cicero said,   “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

   ― Cicero (born 106 years before Christ - so that's 2131 years ago and still relevant)

I've got the garden ... 

and I've got my stash of summer books!  

So I'm all set. See you in the fall! Stay curious, be brave and practice kindness! Hope it's a good summer for us all.

Our Children

 

Reading One day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (by Omar El Akkad) back to back with the memoir, Eine Mutter mit Sieben Kinder, (Helma Herrmann Schlicht) has been jarring. Human hypocrisy flames brighter and brighter as we struggle to make sense of headlines in the media. The power of propaganda has never been stronger. R. R. Douglas explored the hypocrisy in his 2012 text, Orderly and Humane, the Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War.  80 years later the insanity rages on.

Be critical. Be aware. Knowledge is power, but don’t believe every headline streamed your way!  And know that a child’s pain is universal. Our collective world peace and wellbeing depends on our efforts to be kind, to be curious and to be brave. (Nancy Drew). Our world’s children are crying and their pain fuels the world's future. 

For Father's Day

As a post-war immigrant to Canada, my dad worked hard. Yet in spite of his long working days, he was also a bookworm and always had a book on the go. As a kid, one of my big thrills was going with him to the German Book Club, located in a rambling 3 story house, overflowing with books. That’s where he’d get his German language novels … many set during the war years …  and I became determined to keep up my own German language skills so I could read his books. I became inspired to live in my own book-filled house and to be a writer of historical fiction. 

Dad taught me to drive using our sixties-era mint green Mercury. Driving home from the cottage on Sunday nights he’d encourage me to pass the slowpoke RVs, trailers, or farm equipment ahead of us on the single-lane highway just west of Lake Winnipeg. “Check your surroundings, make sure it’s safe, and then pedal to the metal and pass the slowpokes.” I remember having my hands gripped tight around the steering wheel, filled with fear, as Dad urged me on. “You got the power, girl. It’s a V8! Go for it.” That’s how I gained confidence in my driving. Passed the test first time around, too.  Thanks Dad. (Music: Mercury  Blues Alan Jackson)

Dad’s been gone more than thirty years, and I sure miss him.  I miss the fact that my own kids never got a taste of his exuberance and zest for life. What I’d like to tell him? Dad, you were right! There were so many things that I did the hard way.  Dad would laugh at me and demonstrate an awkward pose.  “Why scratch your ear like that?" he'd quip. "When you can scratch it like this.”  I’m a slow learner, Dad, but I’m finally putting the pedal to the metal and changing lanes.  Now I can roll down the window and feel the breeze. Thanks, Dad. You were right! I do have the power.   (Music: People have the power, Patti Smith)

East Prussian Ruins

My two YA novels, Tainted Amber and Crow Stone were set in East Prussia and I’m working on another one set in the area immediately after the war. To continue my research of the area, I follow social media posts by Russians living in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia.  They share visuals of the historical ruins of what was once East Prussia. 

Near Svetlogorsk (former Rauschen)

My mom moved to East Prussia from Soviet Ukraine after collectivization and Siberian exile in 1931. Then in 1945 she was sent to work at coal mines in the Soviet Urals, while her sisters and other family members remained behind in Soviet-occupied East Prussia. They weren’t permitted to leave the enclave until 1948. 

Those years, 1945-1948 were murky, difficult years for my aunts and surviving cousins. It was a taboo topic because of their various traumas, which included rape, severe hunger, and homelessness. As Canadian-born kids, my cousins and I tip-toed around the topic, afraid to re-traumatize our mothers.  But the elephant in the room was awkward… my family’s traumas were their punishment for being German. It became my shame, as well, something I explore n Waltraut. 

With the 2023 death of my last cousin who lived through those times, I’ve got plenty of regret that I didn’t persist in asking more questions … that I didn’t face that rotting elephant. There were some vague jokes about ‘brennessel’ for soup (stinging nettle) or the taste of horse meat. There was the strong anti-Russian sentiment that persisted and a constant fear of thunder storms. 

There are so few sources to turn to for more information. I’ve read ‘wolf children’ accounts and continue to grab other memoirs. Currently, I’m absorbing Eine Mutter mit Sieben Kindern. This memoir is set in same area (Heiligenbeil) that my mom and her sisters would have been caught in during their attempt to flee. Like my family, they were hijacked in February on their way on their way to the Pillau harbour on the Baltic.

While I read about the destruction of 1945, I’m also seeing the 2025 remains of these villages in what is now Russian Kaliningrad.  It’s bizarre and haunting. The ghosts are everywhere even as I click ‘like’ on my cell phone and give kudos to those modern-day 'keepers of the ruins,'   They are preserving the relics of war, of time and of history. Meanwhile, a few hundred kilometers further east, war rages on. And more traumatic memories are being forged.

Along the Baltic near Svetlogorsk (former Rauschen) 

Book Review: The Fault Line

The Fault Line: Traveling the other Europe from Finland to Ukraine by Paolo Rumiz, translated from the Italian by Gregory Conti

This was a beautiful book, the kind of travelogue where you want to read slow and savour the language as a metaphor of the author’s sensory experiences. This is the kind of travel experience that isn’t only about checking off remote destinations on a bucket list. 

Paolo Rumiz incorporates history, culture and characters along with the more obvious landscapes, foods and languages. It’s not a tourist guide, it’s a travel guide. 

Even in translation the beauty of his language comes through. I was captivated from the beginning when he describes light:  "Asiatic sunlight, wispy and warm, apricot-coloured…” (page 14).   

Explaining his exit from the European Union, a few miles further along, he writes: “…the air was tainted by that unmistakable blend of saccharine Catholic respectability and Protestant “busyness” that poisons my world.” (page 18)

Rumiz travels vertically along the east/west divide of Europe. From the far northern areas near Murmansk, down to Odesa of the Black Sea. He shuns the shiny and the posh and revels in the rustic and authentic … even when it’s ugly… like the bitter north of Russia. Helping a drunk man up, he writes, “I sense that I’ve arrived in a tasteless, colorless world of desperation.” (page 28)

I appreciated his views on Kaliningrad … K city he calls it. Once Königsberg, also known as Kant’s city, it’s now the capitol city of Russia’s western enclave. Rural areas still harbor ghosts from past battles. (Which I was privileged to cycle through back in 2019).

Rumiz is the type of traveler who views guidebooks as “pages of nothing. Only banalities…. Yes, it’s better to travel asking information from the people you meet …” (page 79)

When he reaches Ukraine, and this was written back in 2012, he quotes Maxim, a man he meets in Odesa. Maxim’s words are a chilling prediction of what’s happening over there right now. Maxim says, “If Ukraine stops being what it has been for centuries, that is, a buffer, to enter into an alliance with the West, all hell will break loose.”  (page 243)

Back in 2012, the journey taken by Paolo Rumiz was a safer trip. I wonder if such a vertical journey from north to south could be managed now. That border line has erupted into a war zone. Reading this book helped me appreciate the nuances of this historical fault line. 

About Immigrants, Restaurants and Dreaming Big

I heard a repeat broadcast on  CBC radio this past Victoria Day where Rachel Phan was interviewed about her new memoir, Restaurant Kid.  The conversation struck some of the same notes played in my middle grade novel, Waltraut. Similar tones included the immigrant school lunch, the busy immigrant parents, the guilt, the shame, the lack of connection between parents and the very children they’re making such self-sacrifices for. Rachel Phan’s family has a Chinese/Vietnamese background.  During her childhood, she lacked understanding of her family's challenging and traumatic past.  As a restaurant kid she felt her basic needs were often overlooked as her ‘hard-working’ parents put all their energy into the restaurant. 

Back in March, I attended a 100th birthday celebration in a newcomer’s ethnic restaurant. Jimmy (his Canadianized name) comes from Pakistan. Along with his wife and five children, the restaurant is his dream of success. Let me share a wee bit of the fascinating story behind Jimmy’s Pakistani restaurant, Barbecue Hut, here in Winnipeg at 445 Notre Dame Avenue.

Irma, Jimmy, his wife and 4 of his 5 children

Jimmy was flying solo to Canada from Pakistan when he sat beside my friend’s mom, “Irma,” once a post-Second World War immigrant from Schlesien (now part of Poland).  The flight was long and the two travellers struck up a friendship. Imagine: a young man sets out to improve his fortunes in a foreign country and meets Irma, a little old lady returning to Canada after visiting her daughter (my friend, who’d been living in the Middle East). Irma invites Jimmy to stay at her place until he gets settled. She opens up her tiny apartment and her life to him. Weeks turn into months ... turn into years. Finally, after much hard work along with Irma’s generosity, he’s ready to bring his wife and young children to Canada, because Jimmy now has his own restaurant—the Barbecue Hut.

Irma turns 100!

Back in March, Irma from Schlesien, turned 100 and Jimmy hosted a wonderful birthday party for her in his authentically furnished Pakistani restaurant. I was privileged to be an invited guest. It was a wonderful occasion to celebrate life, along with the dreams of immigration, and the power of kindness and friendship … with some excellent, traditional Pakistani food.

Seriously good food and a story to warm your heart. 

Barbecue Hut, 445 Notre Dame Avenue in Winnipeg

And now on to some seriously bad poetry, but with well-meaning enthusiasm. 

Want to eat some ‘real’ good food, but …

Not sure where to go?

You should try the Barbecue Hut.

Enjoy your life … take it slow.

Tell me again ... where and what?

Best food in town at the Barbecue Hut!

But, but, but? ... no but!

Get your butt out of your rut …

And try, just try, the Barbecue Hut!

On Omens

Striker

Omens can be bad or good. Here's an example of each. First the bad one. 

Before Striker, a black lab mix, I had Buddy, a golden lab mix. Buddy and I were returning from a camping trip to Hecla, our favourite place on earth, when we stopped at Winnipeg Beach for a break at their dog-friendly shoreline. We passed a man who was leaning against the base of the water tower. 

“Can I pet your dog,” he asked.

I nodded.  “Buddy loves attention.” 

“Such a beautiful dog.” The man smiled. “I had one very similar. They don’t live nearly long enough. Enjoy him while you can.” 

Buddy

Buddy had no known health issues, yet he died a month later. Now Striker is 12 years old and slowing down. Dogs never live long enough.  

Now onto the good omen.

After one of my regular swims a few months back, I was relaxing in the sauna when a woman I hadn’t seen before came in. The sauna is usually a quiet place where we respect each other’s silence. But this woman was chatty. She shared how she’d survived breast cancer and that she was happy, strong and grateful to be back at the pool. It was a strange conversation … quite one-sided. I’d never met the woman before and I’ve not seen her since.

Turns out that now it’s me who has breast cancer and I start treatment tomorrow. Today, though, I go for my regular swim. It’ll be a while before I can go again, but hopefully, not too long. I can’t wait to meet that woman again. I’ll have something to tell her … about being happy, strong and grateful … and about omens.

Victory Day

We don’t celebrate Victory Day here in Canada. Instead we have a Victoria Day holiday on the third Monday of May honouring Queen Victoria (British monarch) and officially opening our warm weather season. It’s a weekend where cottagers open their summer homes and gardeners begin plotting their flower beds. 

My first experience of Victory Day was in Kyiv, back in 2004. We accidently stumbled upon some rehearsals for the big parade that was to be staged … not on May 8th, when Nazi Germany officially capitulated, but on May 9th, which was due to the time zone difference.  That parade rehearsal, complete with tanks, artillery fire, and military music was a jarring reminder that we’d entered a country where war was a visceral memory. 

Zhytomyr, Ukraine, 

In May, 1945, peace deals may have been signed, but for millions of people the worst was yet to come. Homelessness, hunger, separation from loved ones, disease, long term disability… these would be the consequences of those six years of war.  

Today’s war zones … spreading like wild fires in a world gone mad …. will breed more instability and more distress.  Victory Day wounds take a long time to heal, and now those wounds are being re-opened.

My dad, captured by Soviet forces on May 11, 1945 spent five years in a coal mine near Moscow. His children died of hunger and his first wife, assuming he was dead, entered a new relationship. My mom, captured by Soviet forces at the end of February, 1945, no doubt spent Victory Day traveling on foot or by train to the Urals (I explore this in Crow Stone). Her two sisters never made it out of East Prussia before the war ended. I’m exploring their experiences as I write a new novel set in East Prussia as it transitioned into Russian Kaliningrad in the aftermath of Victory Day, 1945.

‘May Victories?’  Nazi Germany’s capitulation eighty years ago, was an end and a beginning. Putin’s bizarre re-imagining of Nazi terror in his war against Ukraine exposes him as a manipulative liar as this short clip from Berlin by President Steinmeier underlines.  Eighty years later, fear festers anew.

Building New Homes

My dog and I discovered who the fort construction workers were in the little woods we frequent on our morning walks. Turns out they’re two teenagers from Ukraine … one from Kharkiv and the other from Odesa. So now we say Pryvit (an informal hello).

Our city has welcomed many refugees from war-torn Ukraine. My oven was repaired by a man from Kyiv. My new windows and door were installed by Ukrainian newcomers and I bought the most the most delicious sourdough bread at a local school craft sale. Today I’m meeting one of my former Ukrainian students whom I supported while volunteering with Immigration Canada. She’s integrating well (after a few speed bumps) and transferring her accounting skills into a new career here in Manitoba. 

Pryvit to these wonderful newcomers. You’re making Canada a better place. But I'm sad about all the talent and youth that Ukraine is losing. Knowing that it’s now signing away its mineral rights to the USA feels disturbing. Is this Ukraine’s future? Is this rich country being drained of its people, its resources along with its land and culture? Will these Ukrainian newcomers to Canada keep their cherished homeland alive through art and culture? Will they be able to return to their country to show their children where they once grew up?    Once my mom left her childhood homes in Ukraine and East Prussia there was no going back.

Truth is, sometimes you can never return and building a new life might be difficult but it's rewarding too.  After all, building a fort in the Manitoba woods sure beats hiding in the woods of a country at war. 

 

Brennessel

One of those curious German words that I’d hear growing up alongside Wanzen, (the dreaded bedbugs of Mom’s gulag days), and Quasselwasser (a type of drinking water that made little girls chitchat too much) was Brennessel.

Skalle-Per Hedenhös

Mom and her sisters or other women with similar immigrant and refugee backgrounds from the church would reminisce about ‘Brennessel.”  They talked about Brennessel soup, tea, salad or using it as an ointment.  They talked about Brennessel as if they loved it and as if they hated it.  Brennessel belonged ‘over there,’ in the faraway, dark and gloomy past.

Lo and behold, ‘Brennessel’ has an English translation. Of course! It’s the stinging nettle and it’s sold in health food stores as a nutritional superfood and as a possible tonic for arthritis. An interesting side effect of consuming brennessel is that it’s been known to cause miscarriages. That’s a useful bit of trivia for my writer-brain.  

I’m working on a novel set in East Prussia at the end of the war. My characters are hungry. It’s April and they’re in the woods trying to avoid the Red Army. What will they find to eat? Brennessel, of course... along with some mushrooms. Haven’t looked into those yet. But I’m encouraged by the fact that East Prussia and rural Manitoba share many plant species and have a similar climate. So, like my characters, I’ll be in these early spring woods foraging for edibles.  At least I don’t have to dodge enemy bullets, or drunk rapists while I meander. 

Cycling through the Kaliningrad region back in 2019, we passed fields of stinging nettles. I’m so grateful that we kept going. Grateful that we had no need to rely on wild brennessel for food, to end unwanted pregnancies, or to soothing our aching muscles … unlike my aunts, cousins and mom did almost eighty years ago. 

I found comfort in seeing the wild brennessel ... a confirmation to my mom's stories. 

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 

 

Zhytomyr in the News

Recent headlines about rare minerals in Ukraine, remind me of the day trip we took while visiting Ukraine twenty years ago when I got to view a titanium mine near Zhytomyr. 

Titanium mine near Zhytomyr

Whenever I hear or see Zhytomyr in the news, I pay attention. That’s where my grandfather was arrested, interrogated and executed back in 1937. When I stayed there in 2004 it was a sleepy, maybe even depressed, town still boasting its Lenin statue. I was more interested in the secret police archives than in Zhytomyr’s mines. 

Now, Zhytomyr might become a hub for American mining companies—or not!  That will definitely bring changes to the area. I hope they’re good ones. This area, once known as Volhynia, has been through decades of dark times … expertly discussed in Timothy Synder’s Bloodlands. (Link to YouTube lecture he gave).  From collectivization to famine to Nazi terror to extreme poverty and neglect … maybe titanium will bring prosperity. But so far, Zhytomyr in 2025, has only more turmoil. 

With Lenin in 2004 town square of Zhytomyr

Zhytomyr ditch where my grandfather's body
was thrown after his 1937 execution

Ukraine Deserves Better

I've been a supporter of the Samaritan Ministries of Ukraine (SMU) for more than twenty years now. My minimal contributions have gone towards creating widow homes for the destitute women in the rural Zhytomyr region of Ukraine ... an area where my family once lived. While SMU's founder, Don Miller from Oregon, has sadly passed on, his widow, Nancy, recently posted a request of fellow Americans to stop Trump's skewed efforts at peacemaking. Ukraine deserves better!

Just in case I have American readers of this blog .... here is Nancy Miller's (of SMU) plea:

Please call on the Trump Administration and congressional leaders to do right by Ukraine. Use your voice to make a difference for Ukraine:

Calling tool (https://americancoalitionforukraine.org/) - Call EVERY DAY!

Email Congress campaign (https://www.votervoice.net/RAZOM.../Campaigns/121991/Respond) - Use once. 

Email Congress campaign (https://ujoin.co/campaigns/3568/actions/public...) 

These links will ask for a donation. We are NOT suggesting you donate to them. 

Thank you!

The Chaos of San Pancho

My time is quickly winding down here in laid back, tropical San Pancho. As I sit on my apartment terrace, sipping green tea and pondering the day ahead, I view the busy street one floor below.

Pineapple and watermelon vendors cruise the streets blaring ads for their produce. A garbage truck passes, its dirty rear end somehow less smelly as a yearning crooner serenades its workers through the drudgery of their day. Dogs meander around scooters, ATVs, golf carts, BMWs, tourists and locals. Some canines even hitch rides. 

Free-range kids play tag, free-range roosters crow, and giant, rooted cacti bloom amidst the dust and exhaust fumes. It’s an incredible cacophony of sound, of motion, of smells. 

Every few doors there’s a different beat, another song, another voice adding cadence to the mayhem of the street. Fruit stands, butcher shops, cafes, tequila and chocolate shops co-exist with pharmacies, yoga studios and meditation centres. 

Friendly nods, accompanied by ‘hola’ or ‘buenos dia’ spice up navigation along the cobbled roads. Pfew! It’s a lot for this prairie dweller to absorb. But soon I’ll return to Winnipeg where it’s -26 not +26 and I can chill back into my comfort zone.