As The New Year Draws Nigh

  Each year, at this time, I write a letter to the Universe. I call it my "Dear God" letter. In it I give thanks for all the gifts that have been bestowed upon me throughout the year. I write down my dreams, my goals and deepest longings. I love this yearly practice as it forces me to clarify what I'm grateful for and what I really want to manifest in my life, especially on the cornerstones of health, relationship, wealth, spiritual growth, creativity and leisure.

Gifts—each one a wish and expression of gratitude

  This year I am especially grateful to my family members, friends and editors who have supported me as an author and who are helping to bring The Last Daughter of Prussia to fruition. I am grateful to my publisher who will finally bind the many thousands of words I have written into a real book that can be held in readers' hands.

  The cover too, is coming together with the help of an amazing designer—Tim Ogline. It is going to be beautiful. I wish I could give you a sneak peek, but that would take away from the surprise when the novel comes out, so you'll just have to wait until September 2012. It'll be worth it though, I promise.

  As the new year draws close and I head out with thanks in my heart to snorkel in the sun-kissed, peaceful Bahamian waters, I have one huge and lasting wish for WORLD PEACE. I wish that all the children in the world can swim in the calm waters of life and not be afraid.

Peaceful waters
Photo courtesy of Christine Matthäi

Until next year...

A kiss to you and wishing you a healthy, prosperous New Year
in which your dreams find fulfillment.

—Marina Gottlieb Sarles

c) All content and photos are the private property of the Gottlieb family, unless otherwise stated or linked,  and may not be used without permission.

(c) Privatbesitz Gottlieb Familie

Threads of Fate

  Two weeks ago, The Garden of the Groves in Grand Bahama hosted a book signing for local  Bahamian authors—I was invited for my previously published collection of Bahamian short stories, Sand In My Shoes. As I entered the luscious, green gardens, I passed by the photographic memorial erected in remembrance of Georgette and Wallace Groves who founded the garden some fifty years ago.

Wallace and Georgette Groves
(sorry about the glass reflection)

  I stopped to look at their pictures, touched to see Georgette's name. Most people don't know that my name is Marina Georgette. I was named after Georgette Groves whose husband Wallace was the founder of Freeport and who brought my parents to this island in 1948.

Waterfalls in The Garden of the Groves

  As I walked past the meditative labyrinth that graces the garden grounds, I thought about the invisible threads of fate that bind people and draw them to unknown paths. How interesting that one choice made in a fork along life's road can so wholly alter people's destiny. That's how it was with my parents, Ejnar and Owanta Gottlieb. Both of them made choices after losing their homes in World War 2. My father's house was bombed to bits during the Dresden air raid, while my mother's estate in East Prussia was taken over by the Russians. With everything cherished gone, both of them knew they did not want to stay in Germany and re-build their lives on the ashes of genocide and destruction. Theirs is a long story full of hardship, adventure and love (beautifully recounted in my mother's autobiography Angel Stand By Me). But, suffice it to say that they chose to escape Germany by daring to swim across a turbulent and fast moving part of the Rhine River—past shooting guards and police—into Switzerland where they hid in cornfields until they could finally make their way to my grandmother's house in Zurich.

My parents (1946) on their wedding day before they swam the Rhine.
Love makes people strong and courageous.

  Once there, my father, a medical doctor who spoke Swiss German, was able to get a job in a mental asylum while my mother who did not speak Swiss, cleaned the floors, and kept her mouth shut so that the people would not hear her high German accent and hate her because of it. They were both unhappy and wanted to get away. Filling out one application after another they hoped for a job in Australia, Africa or the Philippines, but no one wanted Germans. To the world they were all Nazis. Finally however, a position in a mission hospital in the Philippines opened up. Leaving their work at the mental asylum my parents prepared to emigrate, but their hopes were soon dashed when the Philippine president suddenly died and all work permits for foreign university graduates were cancelled.

   Depressed, unemployed and broke, their emotional barometers fell to the lowest of lows. My father though, always had a strong optimistic vein. As he still had a few francs in his pocket he decided to spend them on a hot cup of coffee rather than sit around and feel sorry for their circumstances.

   Unaware that the threads of fate were drawing him to the the coffee shop, he set off. In the street, he bumped into an old friend, a successful businesswoman who owned a paper factory and who seemed to be acquainted with the whole world. The woman presumed that my father was already in the Philippines and surprised to see him so down, she asked him what was going on. He told her briefly of his plight and then waving goodbye, he jokingly said, "If you happen to meet a millionaire who needs a personal doctor, please let me know."
  The next day the friend called.
  "Listen," she said. "Last night I was at a banquet for international paper manufacturers. I sat next to a man who is looking for a young doctor to work for an American industrialist. The doctor would have to look after some 800 lumberjacks and their families in a settlement called Pine Ridge on Grand Bahama Island in the Bahamas. Would that be something for you?"

The lumber camp in Pine Ridge, Grand Bahama in the 1940's.

  That industrialist was Wallace Groves, (his wife being Georgette—my namesake) and his was the lumber camp that needed a doctor. The rest is history, but what I want to say here is that in a single moment my parents' lives changed. So did the lives of their children, (their son Cay, who was already born, and their unborn children Frederik and me).

  As I sit here now in the Bahamas by my window looking over the glittering turquoise ocean, I realize that I could just as well be sitting somewhere in Europe looking at the glittering snow. Questions arise in me. Are our lives guided? How much does fate play a part? How is it that the smallest choice to go have a cup of coffee can lead to a totally unknown path and a new world?

In the garden beside the Groves' memorial.

  As an author I have the privilege of writing about fate and its consequences. In my soon-to-be published novel The Last Daughter of Prussia I explore the choices that characters make during a time of war when survival is all that matters. Glimpsing inside their hearts I am able to glean whether they have the faith to sustain themselves in the face of omnipresent terror—a face that looks upon both cowards and heroes and has the power to reverse roles.
  I think about the coming year, 2012. I wonder what choices will I make? How they will shape my destiny? And sipping my coffee I wonder—where will the threads of fate lead me?

Wishing you all clarity in your choices this year and good luck and faith on your unknown paths.

Until next time...

—Marina Gottlieb Sarles

The Amber Room—A Lost World

  One spring afternoon, while Manya was walking down the garden path, she saw Joshi running toward her past the beds of purple irises. Breathless, he handed her a rough piece of amber. “For you,” he said. “East Prussian gold. I found it myself by the Baltic Sea on the beach near Kahlberg. Look! It even has a butterfly inside. Mama says butterflies are a symbol of change.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she murmured, holding it up to the light. “But why are you giving it to me?”

  He laughed. “Because you’re my best friend.” 


—Excerpt from The Last Daughter of Prussia                                                                   

A beautiful Trakehner who like amber is a symbol of East Prussia
 This picture is from the book Trakehnen's Pferde by Erhard Schulte
Photo:Graf 

  
  Last week I wrote about my mother's amber—a glowing orange piece of Baltic resin that prompted an East Prussian family friend to tell me her tragic story after years of keeping it to herself. As I  thought  more about what I had written, I realized that this woman's story must have lain dormant in the recesses of my unconscious for decades—almost like the amber that lies embedded in the earth's mantle under the sea. Then, when I finally decided to write The Last Daughter of Prussia the piece of amber my mother had given me seemed to surface, becoming—metaphorically speaking—alive with scenes of history it had witnessed in WW2 and prompting me to bring awareness not only to the plight of the East Prussian people and their brave Trakehners, but also to the holocaust that brought death to so many Roma gypsies and Jews under Hitler's rule.

The Old Amber Room before WW2

  
  As I was researching amber I came across an interesting WW2 story regarding the disappearance of the famous Amber Room—an 11 foot square chamber fantastically decorated with several tons of amber panels carved with decorative figures and backed with gold leaf and mirrors. Due to its singular beauty, this room was dubbed "The Eighth Wonder of the World." Designed in the early 18th century by the German sculptor, Andreas Schlüter (an ancestor of my own grandmother Edith von Schlüter),  it was first installed at Charlottenburg Palace, home of Friedrich I, and later presented to the Russian Czar, Peter the Great who admired it on a visit to Berlin in 1717. The Amber Room was then transported to Russia and when Catherine the Great came to power she moved it to her summer palace in Tsarskoye Selo.

Catherine's Palace

  
  So that is a very brief background about the Amber Room. 
  Now, fast forward from that historical era to WW2 when the Germans were invading the Soviet Union. Apparently the Russian curators tried to dissemble the Amber Room, but over the years the resin had become brittle and started to crumble. In an attempt to keep the Nazi forces from seizing the treasure the curators tried to conceal it behind wallpaper but that effort failed. Within 36 hours German soldiers had dissembled the Amber Room and ordered the evacuation of 27 massive crates to Königsberg in East Prussia. Sadly, from that day on, the Amber Room was never seen again, though reports have occasionally surfaced stating that a few components survived the war and ended up on the black market. Some historians claim that the amber was burned by the Russians when they invaded Königsberg. Others say the crates went down with the Wilhelm Gustloff when the ship sank in the Baltic Sea. A few investigators even believe that the amber is hidden in a secret underground catacomb that Hitler had built for stolen war treasures. Until now though it has been lost. 

  You may ask why I'm writing all this. Well, after reading about the Amber Room, the carved golden images of that light-filled chamber would not leave me alone. No matter where I was—food shopping, cooking, walking the beach, they lit up my third eye and with them came East Prussian landscapes of swans floating on lakes, otters splashing in rivers and big-antlered elk moseying through forests of birch, lark and pine. I saw hardworking men and women humming and sweating as they worked the land with their bare hands. 

Swans on the Guja Lake in East Prussia
Photo (c) Gottlieb Family

Ingo, my mother's tame otter - he's not splashing in a river here
 but rather in her tub!
Photo (c) Gottlieb Family

   
  The more the images came, the more I sensed a connection between the disappearance of the famous Amber Room and the disappearance of East Prussia. Before the war both existed. After the war there was no Amber Room, no East Prussia. 

  As I pondered these losses I felt there was a correlating significance in their symbolism. Amber was an East Prussian specialty and the Amber Room was created out of tons of amber mined from that small province. Perhaps they both disappeared to show the world that looting and violence, greed and lack of respect for beauty, life and nature bring loss and separation. 

Baltic Amber Map
As you can see East Prussia no longer exists on maps today
but it used to be situated in that yellow-colored coastal area which is now labeled Russia and Poland
It was the area where most of the world's amber was mined. That is still the same today
 although now there are also mining sites in the Dominican Republic.

  Still, I'm hopeful that one day the Amber Room will reappear. If amber can last for millions of years, then those carved golden panels can remain buried in the earth or under the sea forever. And even if they are hidden they will continue hold the stories that belong to heart of history. 

The piece of East Prussian gold/amber my grandmother carried on the trek across the ice in WW2 .
She believed it would bring her luck.
In later years, she would press it to her ear and say she heard the heartbeat of her land.
Photo (c) Christine Matthäi

  
  As for me, I hope to give my piece of amber to my grandchildren and tell them the story of East Prussia and the Amber Room so they learn about the past and remember their heritage.

Replica of the Amber room

  (Note: In 1979 a reconstruction effort of the Amber Room began at Tsarskoye Selo based on the black and white photographs of the original chamber. With financial aid from the German company Ruhrgas AG the chamber was completed and dedicated by Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at the 300-year anniversary of the city of St Petersburg.)

Until next time...

—Marina Gottlieb Sarles

Amber and the Arachnid

  I remember the first time my mother showed me her jewelry box—a rusty old Maxwell House coffee tin which she kept hidden behind a stack of Stern magazines on the bookshelf. I watched her pry off the plastic lid and empty the contents onto the bed, fascinated as her heavy gold bracelet—made like a horse's snaffle—fell onto the bedspread, followed by a ruby ring, a pair of diamond earrings, a pink conch pearl brooch and some less valuable baubles. She tipped the can again and magically, a black velvet bag appeared. An object slipped out and my eyes fastened on a large carnelian-colored stone, clear and red as a burning ember.

The amber piece my mother kept in her Maxwell coffee can.
Photo by Christine Matthäi

  "What's that Mummy?" I asked, feeling a chill on my skin that let me know it was something important.

  My mother, a no nonsense zoologist, wasn't the kind to spout fairy tales. 


  "It's called Bernstein in German. Amber. It's fossilized resin from spruce trees and it's old—maybe even as old as a hundred million years. Your grandfather found this large cobble by the Baltic Sea in East Prussia." Suddenly, her eyes grew wistful. "It's one of the only things your grandparents took with them when they fled the old country. Your grandmother used to hold it close to her heart on the dangerous trek over the icy lagoon called the Frisches Haff when they were fleeing from the Russians. She thought it would protect her and bring her luck. It must have done its job because they survived. Here," she said handing me the piece. "Have a look." 

  To my surprise I found that it was as light as a feather. As I held it up to the light, I spotted a small black spider encapsulated in the transparent material. I turned the amber sideways to get a better look. 

A spider (arachnid) trapped in amber

  "Amber provides a window into the past due to its remarkable embalming qualities," my mother said, noticing my curiosity. "Sometimes, in a piece such as this, insects or pieces of earth, leaves, pine needles, even small plants are trapped in the fossilized sap giving scientists a unique opportunity to study the DNA of extinct species." She smiled. "Your grandmother was an artist and a poet. She believed that spiders are creative in nature and that they weave webs that are like roads to help us travel through life. For me though the amber will always hold the history and energy of my homeland—a land which no longer exists." 

  When I turned eighteen, my mother gave me the piece of amber. Now it went to my jewelry box—which was a much prettier that the coffee can and inlaid with silver. It was around that time that an East Prussian family friend named Marianne came to visit us in the Bahamas. One evening, she and I were sitting on the bed looking at the amber and talking about the war. Suddenly, she clasped the amber to her heart and began to weep, tears splashing down her round cheeks. I was young and not sure what to do, so I sat still, listening. In brief words, Marianne told me her story.


  "I was only fifteen," she murmured. "The Russian Army was invading. They were close so I hid in a haystack. But they came...with pitchforks...stabbing at the hay. They dragged me in front of a battalion of soldiers who all took turns raping me. When they were done, they thought I was dead and so they left me battered and unconscious by the side of the road. Later, some American soldiers found me and took me to a hospital for medical treatment, but I was already full of syphilis."

Russian Soldiers enter the town of Eylau in East Prussia. February 6, 1945

 I remember how Marianne sat there holding the amber in her trembling hands as if it could heal her pain, draw out the memory of that terrible experience. When she saw my concern, she apologized. "I'm sorry. This story is better forgotten. I don't have a right to tell it because I am German and too many people suffered because of us. Jews, Gypsies, Ukranians and many others. Still... this piece of amber is special," she whispered. "Somehow it transported me back to the beautiful town where I grew up, where my roots are buried, but then the painful memories came too." 


  After that evening, the amber went back into its velvet bag where it lay in darkness for years—I think with Marianne's story right beside it. It was only when I contemplated writing The Last Daughter of Prussia that I took it out and began looking at all the striations and veins running alongside the trapped spider. It seemed the more I looked, the more I felt drawn to the past, to stories from that time in history. Strangely, the spider was my guide. It seemed to move inside the orange resin, bringing me strands of lost lives and loves, webbed tales of forgotten Trakehner horses, forests and lakes that called out from the past asking to be remembered and woven into the present. I followed that spider's spiraling web and wove my story. But really the story isn't mine. It belongs to others—to women like Marianne, whose voices were silenced.

My amber in the sunlight—a living fire
Photo by Christine Matthäi

  Just as a side note—the piece of amber no longer inhabits the black velvet bag. It sits on my desk now where the sun lights up its veins and brings the dark red resin to life with a soft golden gleam.


Until next time...
—Marina Gottlieb Sarles

c) All content and photos are the private property of the Gottlieb family, unless otherwise stated or linked,  and may not be used without permission.

(c) Privatbesitz Gottlieb Familie

You Tube tells a Story

East Prussians fleeing across the ice hoping to escape the invading Russian Army.
World War 2—Winter 1944/45

  A few days ago I came across four short You Tube clips that truly tell the tragic tale of what happened in East Prussia during the final winter of World War 2. I wanted to share them with you because they are so heartbreakingly sincere and because they encompass so much of what I have tried to bring to light in my upcoming novel—The Last Daughter of Prussia. 

  The clips are narrated in German with English subtitles—they aren't long and won't take up much of your time—but if you are a person who cares about  humanity they will break you open and stir your heart with compassion for all suffering meted out by the cruel hand of war. They will give you insight into that era of history and what happened to civilians in the East Prussian province at that time. I must say that I cried watching parts of the videos. The faces of the men and women stayed with me for days afterwards and their stories left bruises on my heart.

  As I post this I want you, dear reader, to understand that I am extremely conscious of the fact that what East Prussians suffered was only a fraction of the loss and suffering and pain that happened under Hitler's tyrannical rule. I have not and will never forget the Jews that died in the holocaust, the Roma gypsies that were persecuted for their culture, the handicapped that were killed because they did not fit the Aryan mold, the homosexuals and artists who died because they were seen as different—Hitler's list of the "separate, dirty and damned" was long, as is the list of the many who died fighting for what they thought they had to fight for.

  I warn you—the topics are tough—rape, death, killing. Somehow though they are brought in a manner that deeply touches the human heart. In a world where there is so much injury to mankind, to animals and to our planet, I grapple with whether or not to add more to the container full of shed tears. Still, I hope you understand that this story too must be told. It is my family's story. It belongs to my heritage and to a forgotten land. Thank you for understanding.

Part 1: Germany 1945 - The Other Story - East Prussia 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhWlUN0Sxlo&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Part 2: Germany 1945 -  The Other Story - East Prussia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfe__szTD7U&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Part 3: Germany 1945 Victim from Pommerania

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-VPqRCEQeI&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Part 4: Germany 1945 Victim from Pommerania - Rape by Russians

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upXJ8ijE-z0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

The caption reads—My soul is at peace in God
(C) Photo Gottlieb Family

Until next time ... 

— Marina Gottlieb Sarles

c) All content and photos are the private property of the Gottlieb family, unless otherwise stated or linked,  and may not be used without permission.

(c) Privatbesitz Gottlieb Familie

Acknowledgments Along the Way

  I'm back after going through The Last Daughter of Prussia manuscript one more time, combing every line for edits, typos, backward quotation marks, and adding in a word or a sentence or subtracting both. The novel feels good to me now, really solid. I can't wait for you all to read it. But you have to wait just a bit longer.

My editor Joy Stocke and I getting ready for a yoga session after HOURS of work!

  I am so grateful to my editor and friend, Joy Stocke, for her skill and integrity and heart. I have been blessed. Really. And to my other editors, Kim Nagy and Libby Bako - I bow to their brilliance, enthusiasm and feedback. All three of these articulate goddesses work together to create a magazine called Wild River Review.

  Dear blog friends, if you haven't yet looked at this online magazine take the time to do it now. You won't regret it. It weaves a rich tapestry of art, literature, poetry, in depth reporting about current events, interviews, columns by and about contemporary artists, photographers and writers and much more. They have  published several of my articles and excerpts from The Last Daughter of Prussia.

Painting—Edith von Sanden 

  Naming these women reminds me that I wrote my acknowledgment page yesterday. I thought it would be difficult, but I had so much joy remembering the many friends, colleagues, strangers, spiritual teachers and family members who held a vision for this book right from the start and, who generously shared information but also supported me through the dark periods which weren't infrequent.

This angel holds the hope and vision that so many people held for me.
I had many angels helping me during the writing of this book.
I couldn't have done it without them.
Photo by Christine Matthäi

  The book itself required me to live, (quite literally, for the five years it took to write it) with my characters, in the bleakest of times, in winter, in war and in concentration camps.

The bleakest of times.
After researching this time period and the trek
I have to say I felt I lived it.
What must it have been like for those poor souls
who really fled over the ice and who died in the cold and from starvation?
 Or who were captured by the Russian Army and raped, shot, sent to Siberian prison camps.?

War - the bleakest of times when young men  (of any nationality) are sent out to kill or be killed.
Photo- (c) Gottlieb Family

Concentration camps - the bleakest, most hopeless of places
This is a photo of Robert Ritter (a Nazi camp doctor) arresting a Roma gypsy woman.
 Her face—the way she still looks hopeful that they won't take her  away—just breaks my heart.

Stutthof concentration camp in winter.
I visited this place for my research.
One is never the same after having been in a place such as this.
Photo courtesy of The Stutthof Museum Guide

  Yes, I did live with loss and death while researching and writing, but thankfully, I also lived with love and hope, with the dreams, faith and fortitude of lovers—Manya and Joshi—my main characters.

Lovers
Photo (c) Christine Matthäi

  I lived with the heroism and loyalty of Trakehner horses and I lived with the beauty of East Prussia.

Fetysz Ox - The beautiful Trakehner stallion who inspired this novel.
 I bow to him - he is on my page of acknowledgements big time,
but he also has a high place of honor in my heart.

East Prussia - the beauty of this land takes my breath away.
Researching the the birds, forests and plants,
looking at the photographs my grandfather took was a pleasurable relief
 from the difficult reading I had to do.
I found that I could only research prison camps for a few hours a week.
Otherwise I fell into a deep depression.
Photo (c) Gottlieb Family.

  Back to my acknowledgments. Honestly, I have such appreciation and gratitude for the creative input, unconditional support, generosity and inspiration that many, many people so willingly shared with me. Somehow, even in the most difficult moments, I always felt the faith that friends and strangers had in the project. I  believe too that the spirit of East Prussia carried me along on my journey. In the words of author, Siegfried Lenz:

     A homeland is truly lost when one keeps silent about it or when no one remembers it anymore.

Until next time....

—Marina Gottlieb Sarles

c) All content and photos are the private property of the Gottlieb family, unless otherwise stated or linked,  and may not be used without permission.

(c) Privatbesitz Gottlieb Familie

On The Fly and In Between Edits

  You know by now how much I love writing posts for this blog. When I sit down to think about what I will say, I feel as though I am connecting with you, my readers (both those whom I know and those whom I haven't yet met) through the heart of the ethers. And each time it is meaningful and rich for me.

  I haven't written for a little while though, firstly because I was having fun in Italy at the Lake of Garda where my husband and I had the great fortune of staying with close friends who have a beautiful stone cottage in an ancient village called Piovere, built right into in mountains with a view to die for. Not to mention the wine, cheese, truffles, pasta, grilled coregone (trout), spiedo, (kebab with all sorts of spiced meats (including the traditional small singing birds ugh! which I did NOT ingest  - but we still had a fabulous time as the kind Italian mason, Antonio, who lives in Piovere prepared the meal)) gelatto - oh my gosh - the list is endless...   I must mention our daily swims in the lake, past Mussolini's former mansion and the lemon estates. And, unforgettable for any woman who loves shopping - the markets where you can buy cool T-shirts for 8 Euro and much, much more.

Here we are - my husband Jamie and I drinking our favorite Italian drink -  "SPRITZ"
This delicious refreshing beverage is made with Aperol, Prosecco and sparkling water.
I don't believe though that Manya and Joshi - my heroine and hero in The Last Daughter of Prussia ever tasted this delightful orange substance.
( Photo Gabi Noack)

View of Lake Garda from our friends' home in Piovere

(Photo Gabi Noack)

This church stands right next to where we were staying.
(Photo James Sarles)

 The Monte Castello Monastery which we saw every time we gazed to the north
(Photo Gabi Noack)

  The second reason I've been absent is that since my return, I've been in the throes, yet again, of another set of edits. My editor is amazing. She has helped shape this book with the mind of a genius and the patience of an angel. What I am finding is that this final process, this tweaking of words and phrases is both enjoyable and rewarding, but it does take time. So, in keeping with ease and alacrity (which I must confess, my German personality needs to practice) I'd just like to share these photos of Italy with you – a country that sings and dances in my heart as deeply as East Prussia.

Castle on Lake Garda - I'd live in the tower if I could!

Our swimming pool in Italy.
Point of entrance was  always the little pebble beach
by the Fontanella Bar in Garngano.
First a swim followed by an Aperol Spritz!

Then Gelatto - yum - for someone who doesn't normally eat ice cream, I made up for lifetimes.

Last day in Piovere - didn't want to leave.
Felt like I had lived in Italy for lifetimes.

  PS: The Last Daughter of Prussia - is really coming on. It is fun to tweak and find a thought, a word or an action for one of my characters that deepens their experience. I never thought that this process could be so exciting, so enticing and pleasurable. So you know, what happens now is that this is the last edit before the manuscript goes to the publisher. Once that happens and the galleys are sent back to me and for yet another proofing .... THEN, yay! the book will go into publication.

  I'm still holding strong for early next spring 2012.

  Thanks as always for your support. Until next time. And I promise once I get through this there will be more about East Prussia. Ciao and Auf Wiedersehen...

– Marina Gottlieb Sarles

c) All content and photos are the private property of the Gottlieb family, unless otherwise stated or linked,  and may not be used without permission.

(c) Privatbesitz Gottlieb Familie

A Lost Home – First Impressions

Writing a book about a certain time period requires research. When I decided to write The Last Daughter of Prussia I knew that I would have to learn about the Great Trek of 1944/45, Trakehner horses, Roma gypsies, and concentration camps (the latter being the most difficult of all for me to read about.)  I decided to retrace my roots and travel to East Prussia (now Poland) to find my family's estate, see for myself, the forests and lakes they so loved while letting the spirits of the land feed my inspiration.


Twice I traveled there. Each time was a revelation, an unveiling of unconscious memories stored in my bones and my ancestral DNA.


I kept a diary. From time to time I'd like to share excerpts with you, my readers to give you an insight into my travels.


Diary Excerpt: First Impressions 


  As the car bounced along, I clutched the Polish map I had bought in Warsaw at the train station, my index finger gliding across all the undecipherable Polish names of towns and villages. I gave a sigh of relief, grateful that out of all the names in Poland, the government cartographers had left my grandparent's village - Guja - unaltered. 
  The car braked. Andrea, my college classmate from Berlin who had decided to come along with me and my son Nikolai, turned onto an oak-lined road bordered on both sides by blindingly bright fields of yellow rapeseed.

Fields of yellow in East Prussia
(C) Photo Christine Matthäi

  My heart beat fast in my chest. There was the street sign indicating we were close, but where was my family's home? And how on earth would I find it? I had no clue where to go. I sent a silent request up through the ethers to my dead mother, asking her for help.

The first sign I saw for Guja
(c) Photo Marina Gottlieb Sarles

  We drove on. Just ahead, I saw a small building where several Polish farmhands were drinking beer on porch. Andrea stopped the car and waved. A bearded man with a apple-sized tumor growing out of the side of his neck hobbled up to my window.
  "I'm looking for the von Sanden estate," I said, knowing he didn't understand a word.
  "Von Sanden?' he muttered, repeating my grandparent's name as a question. 
  My heart sank. How would he know? My grandparents had been gone for 55 years.
  Much to my surprise he nodded.
  "Von Sanden – Malla Guja." (von Sanden - Guja estate) He smiled and pointed up the road and to the back seat of the car, gesturing that he wanted to climb in and show us where to go.
  We drove alongside a river, (a tributary surely of the Angerapp) turning onto smaller roads and finally passing through a forest thick with poplars, oaks, firs and birch trees. This must be the Guja forest, I thought. The one that Grossvati told me about. I could just imagine him riding along this same road in his green hunting jacket and high riding boots on one of his fine Trakehner horses. 

The Guja Forest
(c) Photo Marina Gottlieb Sarles

  The car bumped up a muddy hill, the tires falling in and out of potholes, kicking up stones.
  Had my mother skipped up this hill as a little girl? My heart was pounding now. Where was the house she'd been born in? Was it still standing or had it collapsed in ruins after all these years? I looked back at Nikolai as if I might see answers in his young eyes, but at ten, he was more interested in the rap music coming through his headphones than the scenery. Still, something in him understood that I needed contact with a blood member of my family and he stopped his head bobbing long enough to lean forward and pat my arm. 
  The Polish man said something and just then the forest opened. Before me I saw a house. I don't know what I was expecting but because of all the stories I'd heard and photographs I'd seen, I knew that this was the place my mother and grandparents had so lovingly called Guja.

Guja before the war
(c) Photo Gottlieb Property-Familienbesitz Gottlieb

  Dilapidated, run down and uninhabited, the house seemed smaller than I imagined yet as I opened my car door I felt the spirits of my ancestors looming larger than ever.

Guja as I found it
(c) Photo Marina Gottlieb Sarles

  I looked around. Though old and falling to pieces the structures still were standing – the coach house, the red brick building used for firing bricks, the barns and livestock quarters, and finally, the stables I had heard so much about. Nikolai and I waded through the high grass and blooming cornflowers entering into that sanctuary that had once housed so many horses. I thought about my mother and her beloved Dandy - the Trakehner pinto she'd so loved. How many times had she come running into his stall to saddle him and ride out over the endless meadows? And where was his stall? 

Baby swallows nesting in the barn in Guja before the war.
(c) Photo Gottlieb Property-Familienbesitz Gottlieb

  Suddenly, I felt as if my mother had fallen in step beside me and I was drawn to a soft chirping sound. Glancing up I saw a pair of nesting swallows. Was it a sign? Was she telling me that this was where I should stop? She'd always spoken of swallows nesting in Dandy's stall. She'd said they were fearless because they knew Dandy would never hurt them and they would always have grains. I smiled. I knew she was happy I'd come.

Nikolai in the stables.
It's strange to think that if the war had not happened, if my family had not fled the estate,
he might have grown up in East Prussia.
But growing up in the Bahamas wasn't too bad either!!
(c) Photo Marina Gottlieb Sarles

  I realize there are so many more passages from my diary to share but I think blogs posts are better kept short. So, I'll be back with second impressions. Til then... Tschüss

– Marina Gottlieb Sarles

(c) All content and photos are the private property of the Gottlieb family, unless otherwise stated or linked,  and may not be used without permission.

(c) Privatbesitz Gottlieb Familie