Last Letters continued...

 

2nd Letter, written January 12, 1933, just a week after they sent the first letter. This time the letter is written both by our great-grandmother, and the brother of my grandmother, Peter & Anna (Benz) Dieser. To write so quickly again shows the absolute desperation the family had. Peter & Anna Dieser will survive the famine, but be deported to Siberia and the GULAG in 1941. Peter will die of complications relating to his imprisonment in 1948.

 

They write: “God be with you. Hearty greetings from me your mother and mother-in-law Dizer to our dear children Paul and Elisabeth with your two children. We have the dear Lord to thank that we are still healthy and wish you the same health as ourselves, Amen. Further dear children I want to inform you how things are here. I am very poor because there is nothing more to eat here, dear children. If one does nothing, then there is nothing to eat. (No work, no food) Dear children, if you wish then you could come to my aid. Perhaps you want to know how. I can tell you with money (Taler) People have sent money to others and for the Taler one can buy flour in Kamyshin. Dear children, be so good and help me with money, so that I don't starve to death and if it is only 5 Taler then dear children I beg you again to be so good and come to my aid as soon as possible for there is nothing to eat here, except what I beg for here and there. Some days I get something to eat and some days I get nothing. So you can imagine how poor I am, dear children. If you can help me so that I don't starve to death. I want to tell you where the father is with the two children, they are in the Kavkas (Caucasus) and they can't help me because they get as much as they can get on by themselves.”

"So it is. We work for food but receive no pay, so again I must turn to you dear children. I ask you again, can you help me. Then I want to close my letter and greet you again and ask that you come to my greatest aid and write that God Bless you. A hearty greeting from me your brother-in-law Peter and sister Anna together with the children. We have the dear Lord to thank for our health and wish the same to you as myself. Amen. Further, dear brother-in-law Paul I beg you. Things are very poor here and if you could send me one Taler so that I can buy some flour in Kamyshin, because for a Taler one can get flour, I beg you to help us somewhat."

This last section of letter was written by Alois (Alvis) Heinrich, who was married to Elisabeth (Dieser) Gerk’s (Granny Gerk) oldest sister, Katharina.

Written January 12, 1933

“May God Bless you, a hearty greeting from your brother-in-law Alvis and sister-in-law Katharina together with our three children to our brother-in-law Paul and sister and your two children.  We thank the dear Lord that we are still healthy and wish you the same health as we, Amen.  You probably want to know how I'm getting along.  Conditions here are pretty bad and if you can, dear brother-in-law, be so kind and help us a little, because things here are very bad. Perhaps you can send me something that I can get a little flour in Kamyshin I can write you a little…” (letter  cuts off  here)

Last Letters

 

Marie-Eva (Heit) Dieser

Imagine you manage to escape the outcome of a world war, a revolution, a civil war and then the "Red Terror", communism's war on the "classes", ie basically everyone.

You are refugees in nation that has "freedom". 

My grandparents were such people.  Their plan was to gradually sponsor the rest of willing family who also wanted to escape the tyranny of communism.

But you had to wait.  Your parents were there...all your siblings were there...there were no family as you knew them in this new land.

So you wrote letters.  Back and forth.  Some of those letters would be censored, some would have one page "blank", written in milk...so my grandfather would know what was actually happening.

Some letters were so desperate, that no self-censorship was done...it was a direct appeal...because personal destruction was imminent.

Those are the "last letters" our family have.

This first letter is dated January 5, 1933. It was written by my great-grandmother, Marie-Eva (Heit) Dieser to her daughter and husband (Elisabeth Dieser Gerk and Paul Gerk) my grandparents.

It reads:

Letter #1, dated January 5, 1933. Written in old German dialect, it reads:

May God grant you warmest greetings from your mother and mother-in-law to you children Paul and Elizabeth and your two children. I thank the dear Lord I am still halfway healthy and hope this letter finds you as healthy as when you left me.  Further I want to tell you where the father has gone with the two children. They have gone further into the Kavkas (ed. note: Caucasus) and I am home alone.  Dear children, conditions are difficult here with respect to food. Times are tough dear children. Yes dear children we are having a hard time getting food.  Some people have had money sent to them. For one coin (taler) one pound of flour can be bought in Kamyshin.  If you could come to my aid could you send me 5 (taler) which would give us five pounds of flour.  Perhaps then I wouldn't starve to death, dear children.  Again I ask if you can help me so that I don't have to starve.  Now I will close this letter and greet you again and ask you to write quickly.

 

Another Great-Grandmother and a Birthdate mystery solved

 

My grandmother (Granny Gerk) wasn't kidding when she told me, years ago, that in the old days, in Russia, they "didn't celebrate birthdays like you do today".

I fact, I am told that often people were unsure of when their birthday actually was.

To confirm birth-dates, for any official government documentation, you had to go back and check out the Baptism Registers, which would have recorded both the actual date of birth, and the date of baptism.

Even marriage records would often be wrong...as the married party gave their estimation on how old they were...sometimes they listed they were 19 when they got married, when they were actually 20...and so on.

But, if there was no need to check, then, well, you often didn't know actually how old a person really was.

A case to show this would be one of my great-grandmothers'. Marie Eva Heit was born sometime around 1872 or 1873. 

She would marry my great-grandfather, Johannes Dieser, on November 8, 1894 (OS). They would have 9 children, one of whom was my grandmother, Elisabeth.

When we reconnected with family in the USSR, family members there thought Marie Eva was born in October of 1873.

This past week we learned the truth.

Everyone was wrong. Marie Eva's baptism/birth record show she was actually born on March 9, 1872 (OS) and baptized the next day.

As I suspected, the record for her marriage to my great-grandfather states she was 21, when she was actually 22...and my great-grandfather 21, when he was actually 20.

In the great scheme of things, it doesn't really matter to most people.  It means she was 61 when she starved to death under Stalin's forced famine of the 1930's. 

But once again it shows me how incredibly insightful my grandmother was when she told me her stories about "the old country". 

I will have more to say about this amazing woman, my great-grandmother. It was she who penned some of our "Last Letters", shortly before she succumbed to starvation.

(I am thankful to Alois Schaab for finding my great-grandmother's baptism/birth record after all these years)

Letters

 

In 1984, when we finally found our missing family in the USSR, we got letters.

The youngest son of my great-grandparents was like me.  Working to re-connect with family. As the youngest son of my family line, it was something I could understand.

All or letters to each other were peppered with questions.  And I do mean ALL.

He asked questions about our lives here in Canada...I asked questions about their lives in the USSR.  Of course, always careful to avoid political statements. But our families were able to re-connect after over 50 years. At last we found out what happened to everyone!

5 years later, we were privileged to welcome him, my grandfather's youngest brother, Johannes Gerk, to Canada for a one-month long visit.

Of course, there is a story there about how long it took for Communist authorities to allow an old man, in his 70's, to travel to Canada to reunite with family.  It took a lot of paperwork, and both he and I not giving up. But, no matter. I will write more later on how the visit went, but for now, I just wanted to note how important family was to him and I.

We called him "Uncle Vanya" (Uncle John) For me, personally, this was a dream come true. To give my grandmother peace, for her to finally know what happened to her family, was so important to me. But to also hear from my great uncle, the youngest brother of the grandfather I never knew....and to discover I was just like him in regards to importance of family.

I have saved all those letters. Each letter is dated and numbered, as well as the translation into English that my amazing wife Marina read out to me as I wrote it down.

This past week I was able to get some photos of the house he and his wife, Barbara, lived in.  They lived in the city of Angren, in the Uzbek Republic. (Now Uzbekistan) Moving there in 1971, when he retired, it was a lot warmer climate than what they were used to in Siberia, in the Ural Mountains!

The house is located in a section of Angren, known as the German part of the city. Much of it has been destroyed, as the German-Russian population left after the USSR collapsed...being fed-up with the continued cultural-genocide propagated by the Communists.

Folks in Angren very kindly took some pictures for me. It was cool to see where Uncle Vanya lived, knowing that when he lived there (he died in 1996)  he would have had a large garden, as well as raise chickens at the time.

 It brings back good memories. Sad that they are no longer here. It really was a privilege and honor to meet Uncle Vanya and get to know our missing family in Russia.

Blocked Badge of Honour

 And all I did was send them copies of GULAG files of family members....

Who am I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cells confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a Squire from his country house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As thought it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectations of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine! 

 -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

My Wheels Of Life

"And if I should only have one tomorrow 

It's a lifetime if I knew - I could spend that day with you..."

So long ago.....

 

April 17, 1992. So long ago. My Dad after cancer surgery and radiation. Picking him and my Mom up in Victoria to bring them home. The absolute bravest man I have ever known.

Animating old pictures

 

Technology is amazing.  This is a passport of my grandfather, Paul Gerk, taken in 1924.  This is the same photo when animation is added...bringing it to life.

My First Library

 

One of the great things about school was the ability to purchase books through Scholastic Books. Kids all over, including my own kids, have been able to put together some great books for little cost.

Some of my early purchases I kept....some were lost over the years.  I have slowly tried to rebuild my first little library by frequenting used book stores, as I rack my brain to try to remember titles. The above photo shows books I read and re-read many times! These literally were my favourite books.

Some I also have had, but not going to replace (these were the first books I ever bought)