Since I was old enough to comprehend, my mother has bent my ear with stories of how awful it was in the old country, before she immigrated to Canada when she was 14. Although my mother is a born storyteller, she can only remember so far back. She also passed on stories my grandmother told her, but these were painted with broad brushstrokes.
So as I began writing her story, I found there were a few holes. I wanted to understand more about the time my mother was born–1915 in Russia (now Ukraine), a year after World War I had begun. One of my contacts suggested the book A Whole Empire Walking by Peter Gatrell. It’s an account of refugees in Russia during World War I. I knew my grandmother had to escape the village with her family just after my mother’s birth–as the Germans and Austrians were coming–but I never knew about the terrors that awaited them as refugees. What I heard was bad enough, what I’ve learned from reading A Whole Empire Walking is worse than I could’ve imagined.
It’s no wonder my mother, now at 96, sits and reminisces about those hard times. Although the latter half of her life was more than comfortable, the early years left scars that still aren’t healed.
It’s impossible to read A Whole Empire Walking without thinking about other refugees running away from war or a natural disaster, like what’s happening now in Somalia or what happened after the hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.
Living in peace in Canada, it’s hard to understand the inhumanity that occurs during stressful times of war and natural disaster. It’s also hard to understand the kind of courage it takes to survive the humiliation and other kinds of abuse that come with threats of starvation and disease. The dislocation and the toll it takes on families is unfathomable. These are families, who through no fault of their own find themselves lost and without means of support.
The author, Peter Gatrell quotes John Berger, author of A Seventh Man: “The road itself is a passing of stories, with its listeners in the grass on either side.”
It’s the passing of stories that give meaning to our lives. These stories of courage, sacrifice, and determination make us thankful for what we have, and help us realize how much we owe to those who came before us.
