In my mind’s eye as sleep is descending, I see a field of sunflowers against a blue sky. This image is far easier for me to handle than the daily horrors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Every day brings new heartbreak.
This same week I discovered truly depressing information about my father’s life. I never knew much about his life before he fled Latvia as a refugee in the US. There’s a Facebook site called Latvian Genealogy which I contacted about him, not expecting any information. Much to my surprise, Laura Zvirbule, (one ot the monitors of the site) responded with the UN refugee document from my father. Now I had the names of my grandparents: Antons Peipins and Magdaliene Bolins! It was a missing piece of the puzzle of his life. My father was from a small rural town, Izvaltas, with less than 300 inhabitants that even today is underpopulated.
Like the Ukranians, Latvians suffered the horrors of Russian occupation during the Second World War. My mother’s home in Livani, Latvia, was bombed after she, two brothers, her mother and sister fled. She thought they’d be able to return in a week. Of course, that never happened.
The story of my father took a different turn. Instead of the Russians, he was forcibly taken from his farm by the Nazis and conscripted into forced labor in Germany. His situation got worse. He was sent to Poland to work on farms and then to work in the forests cutting trees. In the documents provided by the German government (to detail Nazi atrocities) he’s shown to work until he is so ill he’s unable to continue. Throughout those years of physical torture, he is never given documents until he is finally able to connect with the displaced persons camps and registered, the first step on his journey to America.
Despite the deep sadness of his story, I have to marvel at the life he created. His lungs were filled with asbestos from his work at Dunlop Tire and Rubber. His health was compromised but he worked hard and accomplished his dream of owning a farm with fields of grain and farm animals. Perhaps they helped compensate for the great losses of his life. When I found this information, I felt sad that I had not carried on this lineage but somewhere there is a Peipins from his first marriage when his young wife died in childbirth.
What will happen to the Ukranians forced to flee? Will they lose their loved ones and be unable to return home like the Latvians after the war? Will another generation struggle to make sense of a meaningless war?
A very sad story also with hope of new lifes for all the people had to scape like your father. It's a shame than like Russian now in Ukraine and like the Nazis and the Russian Stalinist troops in the Second World War that is hapening again. Very important al least you could get information about you family.
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