Spending the afternoon with Anna's oma

"Stalin ruined everything."

Anna's grandma, Anna Sr. is probably the most interesting person I've ever met. It's just too bad I can't speak to her properly. The whole hand gestures and mumbly german don't sit well with her. She does get excited when she can understand my German though. I just hope I'll be able to have a real conversation with her before she dies.

She was born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1928 to German parents. The queen had invited german families to migrate to Ukraine and set up farms without losing their german backgrounds. Everything was going fine until WWII. The Russians were getting closer by the minute, and it was time for them to flee. It happened while she was at school. Everyone was in a panic and just picked up and started away from the Russians. Her teacher, a gypsy, led them as far as he could. They kept seeing trucks full of Nazis, but each time one passed, they flew by without stopping. Finally, the teacher found a truck and told the students, "Okay, we'll get into this one! Hurry now students!" They all piled into the back of the truck and waited for the truck to start to whisk them away from the Russians. Unfortunately, there was no driver--the truck had been deserted.

The students got seperated into 2 groups, Anna was in the first group while the teacher was in the second group. Anna's group made it to a group of "Police Officers" (this is what she calls the Nazi's) that helped her group get on a train that would take them to Germany. The first group was captured by the Russians. The teacher saw them approaching and just ran away leaving the children behind. Anna, my Anna, never understood why her grandma was so venomous while speaking about gypsy's until she heard this story today.

So, Anna got onto the train. She's sixteen-years-old and is completely seperated from her family. All she has are her two friends, so they make a pact.

"We'll stick together until we find our families."

They stayed on the train, running out at each stop to collect a piece of bread with butter. Finally, they were approaching the German border. But, before they reached the border, they stopped at this train stop where lost family members had posted where they were. Amongst the list was Anna's niece. Farely certain that her niece would lead her to the rest of her family, she said goodbye to her friends and got of the train. Shortly after, she and her family were captured by the Russians. Her friends were rescued by the Americans/Canadian forces where they decided to flee to and make their permanent homes.

The Russians made Anna, her family, and many other prisoners, march to Russia. They had to walk the entire way, through Poland towards Russia. I asked her how long it took, but she couldn't calculate it. She looked at her hands and said, "It took a very long time. Especially because there were children who couldn't walk and we couldn't carry them."

Once they reached the Russian border, they were piled into a train and sent to Kazakstan. The train took 3 months to get there. Once she was there, she was forced to speak Russian and adapt to her foreign surroundings.

That's it for now. I'm going to try to visit her more with Anna so I can learn more. I want to know how Stalin killed her father, how she reconnected with her two friends, and so much more.