However, I have a small booklet which helps me to remember. It was given to my grandmother by her favorite sister Agneta, when they said their farewells and emigrated to Canada in 1923, leaving behind my grandmother Katarina Kroeger and her young family as well as my grandmother's single brother, Dietrich Epp. The booklet is called Christliches Vergissmeinnicht (transl. Christian Forget-Me-Not) and serves as a place to record important events such as births and deaths of family members and friends.
On March 15, 1938, my grandmother wrote: My dear husband Abram Kroeger was imprisoned. No one knew what happened to him in prison but he was never heard from again..
On July 28th of this year we received our answer to what we had long suspected, and I recorded it in my grandmother's date book -- November 14, 1938: My grandfather, Abram Kroeger was executed by shooting at 8:30 p.m. in Dniepropetrovsk. He was exonerated (of all charges against him) in 1989.
I asked myself why he was exonerated, and it occurred to me that it must be because he made no confession to the false accusations against him.
A similar thing happened to my grandmother's brother, Dietrich Epp, who was falsely accused and imprisoned on September 5, 1937.
In June 1944, my grandmother experienced another searing loss when her young son Dietrich (named after his uncle and conscripted into the German army), was accidentally shot while the soldiers were cleaning their guns. I wrote about this in a blog post (see Nov. 19, 2016).
My three brothers are currently on a trip to Ukraine and were able to access archival files. That is how they discovered what happened to our grandfather and our great-uncle.
My sister Irma assembled a collage (above) of these three innocent victims of a senseless war and is using it as a screen saver to honour them and also to serve as a reminder that they "lost their lives to senseless war and the misuse of guns. It's up to this generation to work towards 'Never Again'!"
You have a wonderful collection of memorabilia including photos here. Thanks for reminding us that religious (and political) freedom comes at a price. Mennonites in southeastern Pennsylvania, my people, emigrated because of severe persecution in Europe. The same is true of Hutterites and other Anabaptist groups.
ReplyDeleteBravo to your brothers for the travel and research to access these files. You have a wonderful family, Elfrieda!
Thank you, Marian! My brothers all live very far apart, so this is a very special trip!
DeleteElfrieda, thank you for honouring these men in your blog. My heart has been heavy all week thinking about them and their families. That our own parents were able to raise us with love and kindness after all the suffering and trauma they endured is a miracle to me.
ReplyDeleteI know, Marge, it feels like a funeral!
DeleteAnother wonderful post. Thank you for sharing your family's stories and giving them a voice. They deserved to be told. "Never again!" Amen.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kathy. It's my pleasure and my duty to do this. It seems my grandma wants me to tell her story!
DeleteI am glad that your family has the new information on the execution and later exoneration of these men who now surround you in the cloud of witnesses. I am also glad that you have a true democracy in your country. Praying that we are not losing ours here.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Shirley, that is my prayer as well!
DeleteWhen I saw the notice that you had written another blog I almost instinctively knew it would be about the sad news our family received this week. I too felt heavy hearted and resentful that due to these cruel deaths we were deprived of ever meeting or getting to know our grandfather and great uncle.I had heard the story of our grandfather'S disappearance many times as a child yet never heard an ending. This week the ending was put to rest. I am grateful that the truth has finally come out and that our three brothers could discover this together. Thanks for honoring this story and these brave, courageous men in your blog!
ReplyDeleteRuth, I too am glad that our brothers have found an ending to this sad story. It makes a difference just to know it! I often think about our grandmother and our mother and that they bore the burden of not knowing.
DeleteI had the privilege of getting to know your three brothers on this trip and hearing their reports as we gathered in the evenings. History becomes very tangible and personal when mysteries unfold in such a pilgrimage. Others, too, on this trip discovered what happened to those that disappeared mysteriously and found some degree of closure, a moving experience for us all as we heard their stories. Again, a special treat to meet your brothers.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Phil, what a surprise it was to see a picture of you and Larry sent to me by my brothers! We have been mourning the loss of our grandfather (whom we never got to know personally) in a new and different way since we discovered when and how he died. Hardy and I did the Ukraine/Poland trip in 2012 and it was very emotional for us. Did you have a specific motivation for going on this trip?
ReplyDeleteElfrieda, my motivation was not as specific as yours. My known ancestors came over in the 1870s prior to the tragic events that surrounded so many others in the years after WWI, I I did not have any loose ends to tie up. I just wanted to see and walk the ground they lived on. Beyond that, though, I did have an interest in better understanding the dynamics that drove them to make that move and to learn more of the stories and events surrounding those such as your ancestors who either endured and fled or whose lives were taken in later events. Some of what was previously just text-book information for me has become more personal and visceral.
DeleteTravelling will do that for you. When you read about places your body travels there, but when you actually go to those places both your mind and body come along, and like you wrote, Phil, it becomes more "personal" and "visceral."
DeleteI found this blog through your comment on MaryLou's blog. I really get this. And the forget-me-not journal is heartbreakingly beautiful .My grandfather was finally shot on Sept 19th, 1937 in Zhitomir. I found this out by perusing the former KGB archives there in 2004. My mom was 86 years old when she finally knew the truth of what happened to her dad. I got to read through his interrogations papers. He was accused of treason through Article 58.1 And like MaryLou noted...these unresolved losses are passed on through the generations.
ReplyDeleteI research my German Baptist family history and share a bit at gabrielegoldstone.blogspot.com
Gabriele, thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope to take some time to visit yours as well. I did not realize that those archives were opened in 2004 already. I think after that they closed again. My mother and grandmother passed away before we knew what happened to our grandfather. They carried this sadness in their hearts all of their lives. Why are people so cruel to each other?
Delete