Reunion and Memories

I’m preparing for a trip to Mexico next month. This will be different than my time last year because it includes a family reunion. My nuclear family here in Winnipeg lived quite isolated from the pack of cousins out west in BC or back in Europe. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been drawn to writing family stories … I’ve always lacked that connection.

On the Baltic

Growing up without grandparents or cousins, I got used to having no extended family and now I don’t miss having them in my daily orbit. You can’t miss what you’ve never had. Great friends more than make up for lack of family.  

On the Pacific 

But I am curious. How have the cousins dealt with family history? We share grandparents murdered under Stalin’s regime. We share lost windmills, East Prussian cooking, and folksongs. We’ve inherited unresolved trauma from war, homelessness, hunger, rape and guilt. These were our mothers, aunts and cousins who didn’t want to talk about what happened. These were our uncles who killed under Hitler’s orders. 

This family reunion will be interesting. As we walk the beaches of Mexico’s Pacific coast I’ll be thinking of the beaches I biked beside the Baltic … of the beaches near Palmnicken (now Yantarny) where Stuffhof prisoners were forced into icy waters … nothing like the sun-kissed sands of Mexico. Family reunions are for survivors. 

Baltic memorial to victims of death march

what's in a word?

Raphael Lemkin

Having spent most of the last ten years immersed in researching 20th century violence that involved my own family, it’s disconcerting to view this new century’s headlines offering up real-time atrocities. Last night I listened to CBC Ideas, which broadcast parts of the Genocide debate speeches at the Hague. 

Definition of genocide:  a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”.  The word, created in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer, didn’t get legal status until 1946. 

Memorial to drowning victims in Yantarny

This month, 78 years later, the Hague's international court dithers about its application as vulnerable people suffer … ironically, being killed by a people once themselves almost destroyed by genocide. 

January is also the month when more than 10,000 Jewish women, from up to thirty of Stuffhof’s external camps in East Prussia, were forced to march along the Baltic’s amber coast to the mine in Palmnicken (now Yantarny). Only 3000 made it. Instead of being stuffed into one of the amber mining shafts, as originally planned, the emaciated prisoners were forced into the icy Baltic.   

The Baltic near Yantarny on a summer's day

I’ve blogged about this particular atrocity before, but it’s an event that I can’t help but remember every January here in Winnipeg, where it’s cold and windy. I’m grateful for the grace of life that gives me the comforts of warm clothes, food and home. 

While these Jewish prisoners were dying, controlled by a heartless Nazi leadership, the East Prussian civilians were about to embark on their own trek of cold and suffering. 

January is a cruel month … why can’t we all just have a group hug, tend our home fires and read a good book?

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” ― Albert Einstein

Reading and writing books, listening to others share their stories … it’s the way towards peace. 

Amber Mine entrance 

 

For Holocaust Remembrance Day: Tainted Amber

The inscription on this stone reads: "One hardly can find any personal tomb. Together all fates here're joined."  (Yantarny, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia).

In Yantarny. Behind me:
 entrance to the "Anna" shaft

The Greeks thought amber was solidified sunshine, but back in January, 1945, the Amber Coast along the icy Baltic offered no warmth to thousands of emaciated women and children. 

10,000 Jewish women and children, former prisoners of the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig (now Gdańsk) were forced to march in the bitter cold northwards towards the town of Palmnicken (Now Yantarny).  

Open pit amber mining in Yantarny (former Palmnicken)

Only 3000 made it. They were to be stuffed into the “Anna” shaft, an unused shaft in the Palmnicken amber mine. But when the desperate SS had to change their plans as the Red Army came closer and closer, the Nazis forced the surviving prisoners into the Baltic Sea. Why waste ammunition when the sea could kill for them?

13 survived to tell their stories.

Desperate hands stretching out from the Baltic.

On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, I want to remember the power of story. It is our responsibility to remember and to share. When I explored the Yantarny coastline, it was warm, sunny and beautiful. Did the ghosts of those 2987 who were murdered still haunt the area? Perhaps. But it could only be sensed by those who knew the story. We need the stories!

Nearby, the amber museum was filled with history and beautiful art and the fossilized pine resin gleamed like gold. 

Tainted amber, indeed. Stories within light. 

For German readers, I recommend, Der Junge von her Bernsteinküste, a memoir by Martin Bergau. 

The beautiful, tainted, amber coast

Yantarny Holocaust Memorial

We had an incredibly mild holiday season here in Winnipeg. Single digit winter weather was a treat—we know it doesn't last. This is Winnipeg, after all.

Now imagine a war happening in bad weather. Imagine January, 1945.  Lots of snow. Wind.  Double-digit cold. Hunger and exhaustion has numbed people. The Nazis, now on the run, are desperate to hide their crimes.

One horrendous 1945 scene happened near Yantarny (in German times known as Palmnicken—site of an amber mine). 

Amber Mines Yantarny

In '45, the Stutthof concentration camp, now Sztutowo, Poland, thirty kilometers outside of Gdansk, formerly Danzig, was hurriedly evacuated and its thirteen thousand inmates forced to march the two hundred kilometers up to Palmnicken.

Baltic Ice Floes

The Nazi SS planned to dump the inmates in an underground mine tunnel, called Anna, to let them die. Of the thirteen thousand people, forced on this two-hundred-kilometer march, only three thousand survived. The rest succumbed to the cold and physical strain. (In contrast to the victims, we biked the same route in wonderful weather, enjoying the beautiful forests, gentle hills, and great restaurant stops along the way.) 

When the prisoners arrived in Palmnicken, the amber mine manager refused to allow trek survivors into the mine. So the desperate SS guards forced three thousand dying people into the icy Baltic, shooting the victims who weren’t dying fast enough. Somehow . . . thirty-three people survived.

The Yantarny monument, created by Frank Meisler represents the hands of the dying people reaching up in surrender. In August of 2011, only seven months after it was made public, the memorial was vandalized. Anti-semitism hasn’t gone away. But neither has goodness.  Cherokee wisdom says we must keep feeding the good wolves in each other.