More on Zhitomir

Follow this link for some more spellings (it's spelled with a j - jitomir) and some great historical photos.  I'm reading a book by Wendy Lower right now. It centers on Zhitomir during the Nazi occupation and is called Nazi Empire-Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine. The Jewish community was almost totally destroyed there in the late summer and fall of 1941. 

It's hard to imagine so much death in one place. After going through Stalin's Great Terror in the thirties, (which took my grandfather in 1937), the Nazis descended to do their killings. There's a good chance my dad passed through the place, too. No wonder I felt ghosts brushing my shoulder every time I turned a corner in that bloody place.

My dad - a German born on the North Sea, close to Hamburg - spent several years as a Military Police for the Nazis on the Eastern Front - or the Wild East - as Hitler liked to call it. My dad had joined the German Air Force back in 1936. He was eighteen. His ex-wife told me the uniform was a real babe-magnet.  He crashed over Prague in 1941 and then after a year in hospital he was sent to Ukraine.  But he only talked about the air force years, never about the Eastern Front years or about the five years in a Soviet POW camp.

This time of year is full of ghosts. And I feel overwhelmed by the cruelty of life.  But it's Thanksgiving and I'm grateful for the peace in which my family lives.

Painted Nails, etc.

It's a rainy Thanksgiving weekend - perfect for indoor stuff like cleaning (blah), cooking (blah), and eating (yeah!). It's also great for writing - or in my case - the cleaning of writing, more commonly known as editing. I've had to change editors and, the truth is, I've found this to be quite the draining process. But, I shall survive! And so shall my book - because I so totally believe in the story.

I was visiting my mom in the hospital this week and she is, for the first time in her life - at age 89 - wearing nail polish. I can't stop chuckling about it. There's another old woman in the hospital who was admitted around the same time as my mom. I talked to her husband for almost an hour. The couple has a similar background to my mom and they speak German. I'll call the woman Lilly to protect her privacy.

Lilly dresses in flowers. Her pants might not match her top, but both will be a bright, bold floral pattern. Lilly has lost her mind. It's a totally scary thing seeing this slim, always in motion, flower garden struggling to find herself. She has moments of memory and her body seems to know more than her mind.

For example, she walked into the lounge area where I sat with my mom (who's losing her body, and not yet her mind) and Lilly first made sure the chairs were standing in order, then she got on her knees and starting cleaning the floor with the tissue in her hand. When she was done her housework, Lilly joined us.

I asked her how old she was. She said fifty-one. (Lilly must be in her eighties.) My mom started to argue with her. I gently moved on to another topic. A nurse walked by and gave me a grateful smile.

There are stories here. All I have to do is listen.

Names

I'm currently working on edits (again!) for my book. One thing I'm wondering about right now is the spelling of the city of Zhitomir.

Here's what I learned. Zhitomir is the Russian and/or Yiddish spelling. Shitomir is the German spelling and Zytomierz is the Polish spelling. Zhytomyr is the current Ukrainian spelling. Poor city, it's been through a lot.

I suppose, I should perhaps keep the spelling consistent with the time period of the novel, which means I'll spell it the Russian way. It might not be the politically correct thing to do now that it's a vibrant Ukrainian city once again, but it'll be historically accurate.

Even here in Canada there's issues with the names of places. Several northern communities were once named after European explorers. I'm thinking of Frobisher Bay which was renamed Iqualuit in 1987.

The photo here is of 2004 Zhytomyr. It's a beautiful place. (Those are chestnut tree blossoms.) I'll have to share some more about it later.

Winnipeg's Writer's Festival

Winnipeg's International Writer's Festival is happening in our city this week. With my mom in the hospital, my spare time is limited. I did manage to visit a 'book chat' event at our local bookstore. The featured authors were David Bergen (his new book is called "The Retreat") and Mary Swan (author of "The Boys in the Trees.") Both were inspiring. I enjoyed hearing them talk about their approach to their work. Mary is the less disciplined one and the multi-tasker, while David Bergen said that he forces himself to do a daily minimum and as a guy, he's not into multi-tasking. But do women have any choice? I think we'd all like to be able to shut the door and focus.

I do find doing a daily minimum works well for the inevitable guilt that comes if I don't write for awhile. My daily minimum is small - but it keeps me feeling like a writer. And I must continue to feel that way in order to believe in my ability to produce. (No guarantee on quality, of course.)

Now with my beautiful new toy - a pretty white laptop - I no longer have to choose between the great outdoors and the computer. Can life get any better? (Oh, right. In the old days there was the paper notebook and the pen. I remember. Trouble is, I now have trouble reading my own scrawl. Progress?)

The other thing I found interesting is how they are writing about young people - Swan's character is eleven years old, while Bergen's protagonist is seventeen. Yet both books are for an adult reader. Hmm. I have to think about this.

Time is on our side

Sometimes when you're stuck in the muck you can't focus much on anything else except on the muck. You know that somewhere out there there's a smooth highway, and you aim to be there ... but for now it's just forward/reverse/spin the tires and then for variety ... spin/reverse/forward ...

At least the sun's shining and the gold tinged leaves sure look inspiring against the September blue sky. The geese are doing their thing, honking and practicing their V formation. They're as stuck as me right now, flying around in circles, still not zooming forward.

But time is on our side.

I finished reading the advanced reader copy of Barrie Summy's upcoming release I So Don't Do Mysteries. I loved her main character, her voice and her metaphors. It won't be in the stores until December ... but I'm sure you can pre-order it. It's a great read for a grade sixer who likes funny mystery books. (And who could possibly resist that combination?) Barrie Summy's book is the last release of the Class of 2k8. They're having a very successful debut year. And it's only the beginning.

And on that positive note, I'm back to the muck. :) Rrrrr!

One of those weeks

I'm glad it's over - this week of surprises. My mom went into the hospital after a fall. Her pain is being managed for now, but we must begin the process of finding a personal care home for her.

THEN ... trees, one of my favorite things in the whole wide world, invaded our sewer with their roots. The roto rooter people had me rearrange the basement looking for some takeup valve that I never remembered seeing before. The basement has many dark shadows in it filled with boxes of my children's past. Why did I store those? Not sure.

SO ... I decided this was the week to treat myself to that macbook I've been ogling. And my favorite store is out of stock.

BUT...

The week is over, a harvest moon will shine tonight, and I will NOT fear this last round of edits on my book with my new editor.

In Memory of cousin Lilli,

Last week I had a phone call from Germany - from a relative I'd only met over the last winter. It was the daughter of Lilli, one of my mom's cousins, telling me that Lilli had just passed away. I have to thank Don Miller, author of several books about the Germans from Russia, for connecting me to these lost relatives.

Lilli didn't make it out of the USSR until 1988. The two cousins, my mom and Lilli, got to exchange letters and photos this past winter, and most importantly, they let each other know what happened after they were forced from Federofka back in 1930. You see, they're both survivors of Stalin's collectivization. My mom's cousin, Lilli, was sent far north - up to Arkhangelsk - until the mid-fifties and then later - when Stalin had died and Krushchev 'rehabilated' countless former kulak families - she was resettled in Kazakhstan.

This is the second time my mom has reconnected with a cousin. The other cousin, Sophie, lived her whole adult life in Omsk where she'd been exiled to in the thirties. They, too, got to exchange letters (Sophie could still speak and write German) and compare stories before, she too, passed on a couple of years ago.

My mom's 89 now. She's going blind, her hearing is spotty and walking is difficult. She tells me the same stories now, over and over again. And I let her, because, once they're gone, they're gone. And I want to get them right!