Germany - Ukraine - What happened? What is going on? What is coming?
By Yuriy Vlasishen, Odessa, Ukraine, first prize winner in
essay contest sponsored by Goethe Institute, 2001.
Translation from German to English by Christine
Woods.
Our appreciation is extended to Margaret
Wolf, Vandalia, Illinois, for providing this information.
Deutsch
October 3, 1990 - Reunification Germany's
August 24, 1991 - Independence of the Ukraine
Since this time much has changed between the
relationship of those two countries. Economic relations, cultural
exchange as well as personal contact. Write about the development,
position and especially the future German-Ukraine connection:
starting with the close-knit private surroundings up to the big
political picture.
Highlight various positions and point out:
Germany-Ukraine: What happened? What is going
on? What is coming?
Yuriy Vlasishen,
Odessa, First prize
At the verge of change:
I am living at the border. At the border of
epochs, the border of an outbreak of information and nerves, at
the border between Odessa and non-Odessa. From my apartment to
the next little town it is ten minutes by street car, called Tschornomorka,
to the former Lustdorf, a happy German village which used to be
called Luisdorf. But since its foundation be the resettlers of
the German colony from Württemberg at the picturesque but
treacherous and instable coast of the black sea in the year of
1805, has it been carrying the noble name "Kaiserheim".
Today it seems that Lustdorf has recaptured
its historical name. It's not on the Tschornomorsker road anymore
but on the Lustdorfer street through which the overly crowded
Pomeranzen-street car drives back and forth to Odessa. Just like
it used to be at one time . . .
Lustdorf, Lustdorf ... The first vineyard (1807),
the first school and church (1820), the first really big building
(1823), the theater that performed plays in German, Ukrainian
and Russian but not only in their home town but also in Odessa
as well as in dozens of other Germany colonies which had ended
up settling a long time ago in the southern Ukraine steppe.
The Lustdorf people and other colonists survived
together with the Ukrainian people the misery and scare of the
first half of the stormy century: The first world war, the revolution
and the civil war, the famine of 1921-1922 and 1931-1933, the
expropriation and the Stalin repression ...
Until the black day came - the 22nd of June
1941. In the grey sky over Lustdorf appeared an airplane which
turned out to be a bad thing. Out of the airplane black specs
came out over the black sea. Those are parachutists! Germans!
The hospital people from Lustdorf gave their fellow country men
full of trust a place to stay but they turned out to be disguised
Tschekists. What happened afterwards is hardly difficult
to guess. Arrest and summary trials. The "lucky ones"
found themselves together with thousand of Volga-Germans and "other
elements" in Siberia.
There is another, probably believable version
of the decline of Lustdorf. Apparently the two versions were "mixed"
together in the real situation. According to the "duties"
of Odessa by the red army, a certain amount of colonist stayed
behind in their village which wasn't so happy anymore and it was
held in occupation. Of course the German and Rumanian powers treated
them differently than the Slavic and especially the Jewish population
but even here the humanity rarely surpassed the politics and brotherly
quarrel and fear. Many Ukrainians, Russians, Moldauer, Bulgarians,
Jews, resistant fighters or other citizens from various nations
or other beliefs that were sentenced by the Nazis were saved by
the black sea Germans.
Nevertheless, the people from Lustdorf that
didn’t compromise with the occupants, couldn't hope for
mercy from the totalitarian Soviet system which by that time had
already recorded larger military victories. After Stalingrad many
colonists were aware that they had to separate themselves from
their home country. They had been on this fertile Ukraine soil
for almost 150 years, five generations and who knows how much
work and love they had put into these places which were more familiar
to them than the far way Württemberg and now they had to
leave it all behind - could this really be true? Yes, it is and
it hurt but it is better than giving your life away.
And that is how it happened. On March 17, 1944
all inhabitants of Lustdorf - the old people as well the really
young ones - moved with their animals and all their belongings
towards the west (they went by foot and only the weak were allowed
to sit on the hand-carts) behind the German army that had been
pushed back by the Soviet troops. Finally, in the little Serbian
city of Pantschewo on the Danube were they able to get on the
train to Lodz? They didn't reach Germany until the end of the
year, at the end of their strength. But the men had to join the
army right away - in defense of the historical home country.
By now Germany was starting to get occupied.
The new power punished the war criminals harshly. The black sea
Germans that survived were deported to the USSR, to the exactly
same Siberia because by law they were Soviet citizens. Only some
very lucky ones that were in the American occupied zone were
able to stay in their home country.
Lustdorf, Lustdorf - your faith has been anything
but happy. The only reminder of the olden days are the topographical
terms: The central Ernst-Thälmann-Straße, the kolkhoz
"Karl Liebknecht" where nothing has changed since the
Soviet times - today however, God behold, is isn't called kolkhoz
anymore but instead "collective farming enterprise".
Nevertheless, I like to walk on your neglected
beaches. Are you listening, Lustdorf? I like to stroll along the
endless ocean with its standing winds to remember and to dream.
What would have happened if there hadn't been any parachutists,
any war, if we didn't carry cruelty, envy and the low desire to
insult the person next to us, inside of us, if we didn't make
the most out of the misery of others? ... If we didn't dream of
absolute power and absolute humility?
Over and above that, I love the church. No,
"I love" that isn't the right word, it doesn't fit to
God's houses, even if I have the feeling to be enchanted when
I look upon it, at times a little sad and in pain (by the way,
it is the main church of the German Evangelic-Lutheran church
in the Ukraine). With all the master architectural works of which
Odessa is so plentiful, the Sankt-Pauls-Kirche brings my soul
to a tremble. Why is that, actually I am an atheist? Maybe it
is because it is half way destroyed just like my country? It is
a tragic story. Not an easy present. And an even more uncertain
future.
To be understanding it the most important
thing:
We are different: Germans and Ukrainians but
we are also similar. We speak different languages but many of
the words are the same. It this world the word is at the beginning
and together we have to live in this world. And this world was
given to us, to make it more beautiful - but only together!
Therefore "Razon" (together).
