I cherish my barracks room with its flush toilet down the hallway and a kitchen I share with just a few. It is so much more spacious than what I had as an Ostarbeiter.
After a long day of sewing, I walk to a grassy area and sit on a tree stump to watch the children play. There is a lilac bush growing behind the stump and its scent envelops me in memory.
I reach up and touch the cross around my neck and remember the happy times when my parents were alive. In my heart I’m sure that Larissa lives. I would have felt it if she’d died. But the Red Cross has been looking for her for years, and have found no trace.
How I wish there was some way to find her. Should I forget her? Even if I could, the mere scent of lilac would bring her memory back.
I stand up and stretch, then walk back to my barracks.
Luka sits on the bench in front of my building. In his hands is a thick envelope.
“Where did you get that?”
He smiles. “The usual way. It’s for you.”
He doesn’t give it to me right away. He has an odd look on his face. I wonder if the letter is from Zenia in Haifa or Natalia in Montreal.
“It’s from Canada,” he says, placing it on my outstretched palm. “A place called Brantford.”
I look at the return address. The name is not familiar.
I sit down beside Luka and rip the envelope open. A sprig of lilac falls out. I catch my breath.
I pull out the sheets and unfold them. Paper-clipped to the front page is a photo of a girl. Her hair is woven into two tight braids and she sits between a dark-haired man and woman. He is not the Nazi officer named Franz that I had seen at the bombing. She is not the blond woman from the car. These people are strangers to me. They look kind. Who are they and why are they with Larissa?
“That has to be your sister,” said Luka. “She looks so much like you.”
This is Larissa. The set of her mouth, the look in her eye. And that sprig of lilac. She remembers!
I read:
Dear Lida,
I hope I have finally found you. I think I saw you during the war. Was that you with the OST badge outside the burning factory? I wanted to run to you but they wouldn’t let me. Please tell me I’ve found you.
I have been searching nearly a year, writing the Red Cross, praying for news that you survived the war.
I live in Canada now with my adopted parents, Marusia and Ivan Kravchuk. They call me Nadia. That is a long story, but please know that I am safe and I am loved and I miss you so much.
I have so much to tell you, dear Lida. And questions to ask. But there is one thing that I would like to ask you now:
Would you like to immigrate to Canada? Marusia and Ivan will sponsor you.
Please write back to me at this address. I will pray every day for a letter.
I miss you and I love you.
Larissa
I hold the letter to my heart and tears stream down my face. Larissa, I didn’t find you, but you found me. I could nearly burst with joy.
Luka’s arms wrap around me. I open my eyes and look at him. He is smiling but I can tell that he is afraid.
“What good news,” he says. “Now you can leave this place.”
I brush a bit of wild hair away from his eye. “So can you. Where I go, you go.”
Author’s Note
Few people know about the slave raids that Hitler conducted throughout the Soviet Union during World War II. Nazi soldiers would descend upon a town or village and capture the young people who gathered together in public places. The prisoners were loaded into boxcars and transported to Germany, where they were forced to work under brutal conditions. There were between 3 and 5.5 million Ostarbeiters. Most of them were Ukrainian. Many were worked or starved to death.
The Nazis preferred the slave labourers to be in their late teens or early twenties, but there are documented cases of Ostarbeiters who were even younger than Lida. Captured children under twelve were usually either sent directly to death camps or used for medical experiments. It was a rare child who could prove her usefulness and survive.
After the war, Stalin demanded that Soviet citizens captured by the Nazis be returned to the Soviet Union. Those who did return were either killed outright or sent to brutal work camps in Siberia, because Stalin considered anyone who was captured by the Nazis to be a Nazi. Those who managed to escape to the West hid their wartime experiences because they feared being sent back to the Soviet Union. These stories have only begun to emerge since the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Sincere thanks to the many former slave labourers who shared their personal stories with me. This book is dedicated to Anelia V., whose detailed recall of day-to-day life as a Nazi slave helped me create an accurate world for Lida.
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Copyright © 2012 by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch.
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First eBook edition: January, 2012
Making Bombs For Hitler Page 15
