The Great Silence

 

I call after my grandparents received those letters, "The Great Silence". My grandparents repeated letters were ignored.  Appeals were made to the Red Cross, but nothing. There was no news.  Did the family survive? Did they perish? I am told my grandparents were sick with worry.

They had no word.

At one point, according to my grandmother, my grandfather was watching a Newsreel report at the movie theater in Osoyoos, BC,  in the late 1930's.  There was a report about the Spanish Civil War, and he swore he recognized his brother being taken prisoner...as the USSR did in fact send troops to intervene in the war. My Aunt Mary will confirm she remembered how shaken, her Dad, our grandfather, was at seeing this report. (A sample of what newsreels reported on is here)

Grandpa Gerk will again contact Red Cross officials, in hopes of finding out what happened to the family. But to no avail.

My grandfather will pass away in June of 1954...never knowing this side of heaven the outcome of what happened to his family.  It will be over 50 years before my grandmother, Elisabeth (Dieser) Gerk, finally gets closure, and finds out what happened to her parents and the rest of her siblings.

Family will confirm that nothing that was sent to them to help them avoid starvation was ever received. Communist officials would never acknowledge there was even a famine...until after the collapse of communism in the USSR.

I have already posted on these pages what happened to various family members.