“How was she, when she was young?”, I ask the Dedushka. I’m asking about my great-grandmother, his sister and the woman I’m named after. She was special, and I was lucky to spend 15 years of my life with her. Her story shapes the families history. My mums family is entirely German. German emigrants, who started a new life in Russia. They lived in German villages, visited German schools, spoke German – for generations.
During war they got deported. The government feared that they would join the German army. For generations, they were living in Russia and had nothing to do with this war.
I called her Oma, because she was speaking in German to everyone, very old German. Oma was deported to Sibiria with her newborn. Her young husband was send to a work camp. He tried to run away from there, to see his family again. They caught him and shot him, because “he wanted to run to the german army”. My grandmother never met her father.
Just fifty years ago the family found out what happened to him. When we had the opportunity to “come back” to Germany, the family had to prove that we are german. After some research a letter reached us, that told us about his murder.
This story, a part of my story is one reason for this trip.
Where have they lived? Who are German-russians and which of them is my culture?
