The Peace of Wild Things

A few evenings ago when I was in state of inner turmoil, I read this poem.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear for what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. 

I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time 

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

The peaceful world of East Prussia before WW2
(C) Photo Gottlieb Property

  The magic of a peaceful world so eloquently expressed, led me to remember where true stillness lies. Closing the door to my home, I went down to the water to "rest in the grace" of the ocean's waves lapping against the shore.

  As I sat on the beach lost in a world of problems, a school of blue runners swam past, their silvery sides flashing like coins in the last rays of the fast setting Bahamian sun. How alive they were! How free and ready to jump and flip and change directions. How "untaxed by forethought of grief."

Blue Runners

 Watching them, something of their natural essence was transmitted to me. I had the sudden feeling that their beauty was drawing me out of my mental quagmire. As the disquiet in my mind subsided, I thought about my grandparents and what they must have felt during the war "when the despair of world grew inside them" and they "feared for what their lives and the lives of their children might be."


  From reading my grandfather Walter von Sanden's diary, I know that near the end of the war, on January 22nd 1945, just before embarking on the great trek that would forever take him and my grandmother away from their beloved home in Guja, East Prussia,  he too awoke in the night and went down to the water.

My grandfather by the water
(C) Photo Gottlieb Property

  Standing at the edge of the lake with a heart full of grief, he listened for the sounds of nature—the rustle of dry leaves in the winter wind, the soft crunch of a rabbit's paws on the snowy path beneath the linden trees. Waiting for dawn, he watched the sun rise, its first rays touching the reeds that lined the shore. Beyond the far embankment, the snow blanketed fields of the estate stretched out before him. He swallowed hard, knowing he would never again stand in that familiar stillness on the land he so dearly loved.  

 Great Crested Grebe with her eggs—this photograph
was taken by my grandfather in Guja, East Prussia long before the war.
He was well-known for his photographs and books about nature.
The environment was his passion.
(C) Photo Gottlieb Property

  Nevertheless, he felt embraced by what he saw, empowered even—despite the dire worldly circumstances, enemy gunfire moving ever closer—by an intelligence greater than his own. Only nature could imbue him with this kind of strength. The stillness outside in the trees and the lake, in the rocks and the earth, made it possible for him to access the realm of stillness inside. From him I learned that when humans become still, truly still, they go beyond thought. This is nature's gift to mankind. In nature's solace, the great troublemaker of arising thoughts is quieted and we are returned to faith and God and the sacred mystery.

Guja, East Prussia
(C) Photo Gottlieb Property

  My grandfather was a naturalist.  He was fully present in the world of plants, birds, animals and other natural forms of beauty. I am grateful for this sacred understanding that was passed down through the generations, first to his daughter Owanta—my mother— and then on to me. It has helped me move through life's difficulties with a kind of deep-rooted trust drawn from another dimension, one that is not visible yet clearly exists in the peaceful dignity of a flower, the strength of a tree, the innocence of a bird. Furthermore, his wisdom helped me write The Last Daughter of  Prussia.

My mother Owanta Gisela von Sanden as a little girl in Guja
(C) Photo Gottlieb Property

  When he and my grandmother fled Guja that night, they looked up at the waxing moon and "the day-blind stars." For the last time, they closed the heavy oak door to their home, leaving behind all personal belongings, all objects of sentimental value. Taking just their bicycles, they set off on the dangerous journey. A flock of cranes was passing overhead. They pedaled on, carrying with them the thought of survival and knowing that like the birds, they were free "for a time" of all earthly attachments.

The house in Guja as they left it in winter

(C) Photo Gottlieb Property

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

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

Excerpt: Dance Me to the End of Love

  This morning I was listening to music while working out at the gym. Of the hundreds of songs on my ipod, one came up that made me stop running –  Leonard Cohen's – Dance Me To The End Of Love. The music moved me so deeply, I had to sit down. All I could see before my eyes were Joshi and Manya –  the main characters in my novel. 

  I ran home and decided to take a small excerpt from The Last Daughter of Prussia to share with you. If you have a chance, listen to the song on You Tube – it's Joshi one thousand times over. 
The first line says, "Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin."
  I love it especially because Joshi is an amazing violin player and music is what saves him.
(Strangely, this particular You Tube video takes place in a death camp  – which is also where Joshi dreams of Manya.)
  Just so you know,  in the excerpt below - Ben is Joshi's friend and Aztec, Manya's Trakehner stallion.

  The photos were taken by my talented photographer friend, Christine Matthäi who generously lends her work to this blog. 

Lovers
(c) Christine Matthäi
Visit her website. You will be amazed!

Excerpt: 

  That night Joshi dreamed he was flying high above Stutthof prison camp in a body that was light and clean and free. In the distance, where the sandy shore ran beside the Baltic Sea, a group of people was following a flock of cranes into the west. He recognized Manya and called her name, his heart pounding with excitement. She was walking backwards, looking up at a lagging bird when it suddenly swooped to ground and landed beside her boot, turning the sand into ice and changing itself into Aztec. Afraid that Aztec would slip, she began to tug at his reins.

  Joshi rushed forward on the wind to help her, but when he looked down, he saw that he was naked, his legs just skin and bones. Manya didn’t know him anymore and swinging herself onto the stallion, she cantered off.

  “Wake up,” he heard Ben say. Joshi groaned and opened his eyes. “Sorry,” whispered Ben, “but you were shouting for someone and I was afraid you’d wake Esser.”

  Joshi lay still, trying to hold on to the dream.

  “So, who’s Manya?” asked Ben.

  “Along with my sister, she’s my reason for living.” 

Photo by (c) Christine Matthäi

Dance Me To The End Of Love Lyrics
Songwriters: Cohen, Leonard;


Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love, dance me to the end of love

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Oh dance me to the end of love, dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love, dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love, dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

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

Excerpt - The Last Daughter of Prussia

  In The Last Daughter of Prussia, my hero Joshi Karas, a charismatic Roma Gypsy is captured by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp together with his sister Sofia and a gypsy dancer named Nuri. This excerpt describes his first impressions.

The Death Gate that Joshi passes through when he arrives in
Stutthof concentration camp.
Located on the Baltic coast some 23 kilometers east of Danzig,
 it was the first labour camp outside the Reich's borders to be established by the Nazis.
It was set up on Sept. 2 1939
(Photo taken from the Stutthof Museum Guide for Historical Information
- Author J. Grabowska-Chalka)

 “Marsch!” barked another voice. “March!”

  Joshi fell in line with about fifty other men, the group quickly moving along the cobblestone walkway that led through the iron gate onto a field. At the edge of the field, he saw a row of shabby buildings under a single common roof. The prisoner’s barracks, he thought, with a sinking feeling. He turned to look for Sofia and Nuri.

The prisoners' barracks Joshi sees when  he and his sister arrive at the camp.
(Photo taken from the Stutthof Museum Guide for Historical Information -
Author J. Grabowska-Chalka)

  He spotted them in a column of women to his left, being directed by a female warden. The warden he noticed was lithe and muscular, pretty too, in a hardened sort of way, with red lips and flawless white skin. In her right hand, she held a whip with long leather tassels. She played with the tassels, making them twitch with such an air of menace that every single woman gave her their undivided attention.

  She decides who lives and who dies, thought Joshi, staring at her thick auburn ponytail held in place by a white pearl clasp.

  In no time at all, the warden had lined her prisoners up in front of a roofless barrack. Sofia stood as still as a tree in the forest, fear shining in her eyes.

High ranking officers in Stutthof
(Photo taken from the Stutthof Museum Guide for Historical Information -
Author J. Grabowska-Chalka)

  He watched the warden saunter past the male guards, a noticeable swing in her hips. Smoothing down her skirt, held at her narrow waist by a wide black belt, she looked boldly at her captives, her voice quiet and severe.
  “You will follow the rules or you will die. Work is your life now, so get used to it.” She paused to take in the faces. “You there,” she called to Nuri. “Can you sew?” Nuri nodded. “Good. You will be sent to the stocking darners’ Kommando.” She grinned as if she knew the job would kill.      
 

This was a car hitched to a locomotive that carried unsuspecting women  skilled at darning stockings
 to their death.
Picked out at roll call, the women were loaded into the special car.
Somewhere outside Stutthof, the car was filled with gas (Zyklon B) and the women all died.
I took this photo when I visited the Museum in Stutthof.
I remember standing there, the silence a loud roar in my ears as I looked into the green forest.
Suddenly, a lark began to sing and I thought there can never be enough hymns here for the dead.
(Photo (c) Marina Gottlieb Sarles)

 “Is she your daughter?” she asked, pointing the whip at Sofia. Nuri was too afraid to answer, but her eyes darted toward Joshi. Curious, the warden followed her gaze. “Ah,” she murmured, “He must be your husband. Or your lover.” Taking her time, she scrutinized Joshi’s face, her eyes slowly roaming over his shoulders and chest, until they came to stop at his crotch. He felt a chill in the pit of his stomach. He was sure this warden got whatever she desired.


                              ***


As I post this excerpt and the photos I think about the terror of that time.
Like life itself, my novel The Last Daughter of Prussia has dark chapters, yet I want you the reader to know that on the pages hope and love are ever-present too.
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

 

  

New Excerpt –The Last Daughter of Prussia

  Thank you all for the comments and encouragement regarding The Last Daughter of Prussia. I am SO looking forward to holding the finished product in my hands! (Next spring, Yay!) Though still in the throes of editing, I'm finding it is an interesting process. To look at every comma and quotation mark and wonder -  are they placed properly? To mull over each word and ask myself - is it necessary? It feels like an never-ending work in progress, yet one day I know I'll get there. 


  Many of you have said you enjoyed the last little excerpt and so as promised I'm posting another one. In this chapter my heroine Manya rides to the Roma gypsy camp to see her best friend Joshi and his mother Vavara. This scene happens just before tragedy strikes the Roma clan.


  I know you understand that these excerpts are always a little out of context as I take them from different chapters. All the same I hope they give you a sense of what the book is about without divulging too much because I really want you to read the entire novel when it comes out next year.

My grandmother Edith von Sanden with the old gypsy woman Frau Florian
who lived on the Eulen Hof - Owl Farm mentioned below in my excerpt
 from  The Last Daughter of Prussia.
The Eulen Hof was near Guja, East Prussia and the Roma gypsies lived there.
The SS drafted Frau Florian's sons into the army even though at that time
most Roma gypsies were persecuted and sent to concentration camps..
All of her sons - I believe there were five - died fighting on the Eastern Front.
Frau Florian could not understand war. She said gypsies never want to fight.
She asked my grandmother,
"Why? Why if we gypsies are so hated by the Nazis, do they take my sons and make them fight for Germany?"
(c) Photo Gottlieb Property-Familienbesitz Gottlieb

Excerpt:

  Snow rose in powdery gusts under Aztec's hooves, filling the air around them with glittering flakes. They cantered past the Guja forest that was draped in strings of icy pearls, leaving behind the tiny hamlets of five or six cottages where fishermen’s nets still hung in the frozen gardens. A few lonely dogs barked in the doorways.

My grandfather Walter von Sanden in Guja, East Prussia before WW2
with the long poles that  he used to set his fishing nets in the lakes and the Angerapp River.
(c) Photo Gottlieb Property-Familienbesitz Gottlieb

  After a thirty-five minute ride, Manya saw thin scarves of smoke rising from the Karas camp. She slowed Aztec to a trot and turned onto a trail running along the Angerapp River. Up ahead in the river bend two women in wide flowered skirts were scrubbing sheets in a big metal tub. They both wore yellow headscarves, but the older woman managed to keep a pipe between her teeth even while she worked. They waved at her, their bare hands chaffed and red from the cold. She wondered briefly if she would ever see them like that again. 

A gypsy woman who like Frau Florian used to visit my grandmother.
I don't know her name but her face is unforgettable..
(c) Photo Gottlieb Property-Familienbesitz Gottlieb

In the weeds to her right, an empty beer keg lay on its side. The words Eulen Hof – Owl Farm had been painted on its circular belly. It marked the entrance to the settlement. The familiar smells of wood smoke, wild garlic and herbs drew her forward. She’d never been to the camp when there wasn’t a pot of stew on the stove.

  Near the edge of the encampment, she caught sight of a sturdy mare, with gorgeous tufts on her lower legs. The mare snorted.

  “You’re a good guard dog, Tsura,” laughed Manya.

I don't have a photo of Tsura, the loyal, devoted gypsy mare.
However , this mare has a lovely face, so sweet and gentle
and she lived during that time in East Prussia.
She's a good stand-in, I think.
(c) Photo Gottlieb Property-Familienbesitz Gottlieb

  Within seconds, a young man waved from behind an upturned cart, the large metal cufflinks in his jacket sparkling in the sunlight.

  “Hello Harman,” she smiled.

  “Mistress von Falken,” he called to her teasingly. “Is it Big Man Karas’s son, Joshi, who brings you here? Or is it his wife?”

  Hearing Joshi's name, Manya blushed.

  “His wife, sir,” she replied quickly, relieved to see Vavara’s curvy figure coming down the muddy path.

 

See you next time. As always, thanks for visiting this blog.

– 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