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GV woman tells chilling tale of survival
GV woman tells chilling tale of survival - By Ellen Sussman
Green Valley News and Sun
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Evelyne Tannehill’s childhood story of living in the former German province of East Prussia in the 1940s has been hidden—until now.
The stories of atrocities relating to World War II have centered on what the Germans did to the Jews; it doesn’t tell what the Russians did to innocent Germans, those who weren’t part of Hitler’s regime.
Orphaned at age nine and separated from her sister and three brothers by Russian soldiers, 50 years later in 1990 Tannehill returned to her family’s farm in East Prussia. That trip back was the genesis for “Abandoned and Forgotten: An Orphan Girl’s Tale of Survival During World War II.”
As gripping and telling as “The Diary of Anne Frank” this is Evelyne Tannehill’s story of survival.
“People felt my story was unique, that it was unbelievable and needed to be told,” she says. For six years Tannehill wrote from her heart so the world might learn that not all Germans were, or are, bad people.
“It’s not a story about me, Evelyne, although it’s written in the first person. It’s about the historical background and what war does to the civilian populous… it’s the story of a German family who tried to survive the war,” she says.
Now living a seemingly idyllic life in Green Valley in a lovely home facing the mountains with her companion Jack Schlaefli, Tannehill’s tale tells about innocent children who paid a heavy price when they didn’t know what was going on.
“The farm area where we lived was the bread basket; it wasn’t political. Everyone was so farm oriented; just simple farmers working the land,” she tells.
Her father was a U.S. citizen who had gone to the U.S. in the late 1930s to buy land. When he returned to East Prussia Hitler’s regime was beginning to take over and it was too late… the family was unable to emigrate.
As a result of the Russians who came through inflicting atrocities on the Germans, Tannehill’s father was sent to a concentration camp for speaking out; at age 48 her mother was raped while dying of typhoid fever.
“It made no difference who we were—men, women, children... we the innocents ended up paying the price.”
Not one to wear her heart on her shoulder Tannehill said as an adult in America she never told her children about her childhood. Her daughter didn’t know her mother’s story until she read the 430-page book and said, “I can’t believe this story is about you, my mother.”
Ultimately saved by aunts and sent to America at age 16 because of her father’s U.S. citizenship, Tannehill was the last of the five children to arrive in the U.S. She married at age 20 and says while her husband was a good man, he wasn’t for her.
It was in her second marriage that she was finally able to put the ghosts of the past to rest. “I finally found love,” she said.
Tannehill divides her story into four parts: The Germans, The Russians, The Poles and The New Germans.
About the Germans, Tannehill writes: “I witnessed the sudden absence of my playmates’ fathers, the military build up around us, my father’s incarceration to a concentration camp...
The Russians appear and unleash uncontrolled violence on us, their first German victims. They rape the women and torture the men. We witness starvation and brutality with an occasional act of kindness. Tannehill and one brother are left to the mercy of strangers.
The Poles, she writes, follow the Russians as the new occupants of our properties. Living a life of hell with an abusive family she finally is able to get away “only to enter the hell of sexual molestation.”
The New Germans bring liberation eventually allowing Tannehill to be reunited with her siblings in America. Separated from her two oldest brothers and sisters for ten years; she said when they are reunited all are married.
Determined to make a new life for herself she made taking command of the English language her top priority.
Now 60+ years later, when asked what the happiest memory of her childhood was Tannehill says, “Being a little girl; my parents were alive.”
And although she personally witnessed beatings, rape and starvation she says her worst memory is that of her mother’s death. “Mother is raped as she lies dying of typhoid fever… she was 48; I was nine.”
When the Berlin Wall came down Tannehill revisited her family’s farm. Stopping at her mother’s gravesite, she wrote, “Sitting at the edge of a potato field where her body lies buried I tell her about my life in America.”
“Abandoned and Forgotten” is available at the Joyner-Green Valley Library, The Book Shop in the Green Valley Mall and Amazon.com.
For more information: www.abandonedandforgotten.com
Ellen Sussman is a freelance writer in Green Valley. Contact her at ellen2414@cox.net