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Review: Dr. Albert E. Jabs
A Daughter/Mother Story … Never To Be Forgotten
by Dr. Albert E. Jabs
German World Alliance
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Jesus wept. I have wept. My father wept. A church father, friend of mine, also shed tears. Strong men do cry. Read Evelyne Tannehill’s “Abandoned and Forgotten,” and you will understand why weeping is in order. Evelyne Tannehill, had to tell this unforgettable story, her story, for it has been a recurring nightmare for sixty plus years.
As a male, I made an attempt to get into the pathos and pain of this mother, who writes, and remembers, as a nine year old girl, the draconian death of her typhoid ridden mother, who , before the very eyes of young Evelyn, a rampaging Red Army soldier pushes himself on to the sick bed of this ethnic German woman, irrespective of frailties. Evelyn’s mother, wanting to spare her nine year old daughter, of this war crime, tells Evelyn to leave the room. On her return, the wounded and sick mother, gives a few sentences to Evelyn, and then is released from the horror of it all by death. Evelyne is now an orphan, and goes outside to weep. The story is in Elbing, Prussia. The book is important for today.
It is very difficult to enter in such tragedy, and so, I prepared myself by rereading the account of Hermine Hausner, who as an ethnic German in the Sudetenland (Czech Republic), saw how her own father and others were massacred on May l7, l945. I also reflected on the fact that Marianne Bouvier, Medical Doctor, and displaced person, like Dr. Martha Kent, psychiatrist, who spent years in a Potulice prison camp in Poland, would grasp the sorrow, shock, and confusion of such human degradation. The expulsion for these women (Vertreibung) is very real and their stories compel me to get the story out through the spoken or written word.
Yet, there was my own family story that connects. Elbing is about three hours north from the Vistula River area of Poland (Gross Dembe near Plock), where on that frigid day in January, l945, all along the Eastern front, thousands upon thousands of Fluchtlinge (refugees) were gathering up their wagons to trek west. Nemmersdorf, in East Prussia, had occurred (a genocidal action), and every ethnic German realized that they were in mortal danger. They knew, contrary to Goebbell’s propaganda, that driven by the psychopathic propaganda of Ilya Ehrenberg and the equally psychopathic Stalin, every women from nine to ninety was in danger of being raped, ganged raped, and brutalized beyond description. Those are the facts. But valuable lessons can be learned....
Back to Evelyn Tannehill, pierced in soul and body, the horror of seeing rapes, murder, massacres, losing both parents, and having her brothers lost in prison camps, and trying to make sense of it all, it is no wonder that Evelyne feels abandoned and forgotten. Born into the world as a beautiful child, she is exposed to beastly behaviors during this period. Who will help me, she wonders?. Some one gives her a Bible picture book, and somehow hope is born, even in such desperate hopelessness.
Yet, the story does not end. When the Russians leave, the Poles take over her property, and quickly put her into slave service. Not only that, but she is sexually molested, by Walek and others; if located in present day Poland, they should be made to stand justice, for exploiting German ethnic orphans. Perhaps an expost facto law, can be established by the Polish Government, so that this law can be made retroactive, and proper adjudication can be made. This could involve financial reparations as part of the adjudication process After all …children and women should be protected, at any time, by any national group.
When we read the mesmerizing story of Evelyne, we are reading a story of ethnic Germans who wanted no part of the Hitler regime, but they had to suffer as innocent victims, and that is another reason why this story should be read. In fact, the father was a naturalized American citizen, who came to America in 1910 and stayed until l922.
The story of Evelyne Tannehill, will undoubtedly not make CBS 60 Minutes, but it should. The story of Evelyn, is really the tip of the iceberg, for this story is part of the thousands, no,…millions of stories of innocent children and women who make up the Vertreibung (Expulsion), where 2.5 million perished. Yet, this story is not generally known, and even when it is known, is often relegated to the proper desserts of the guilty. No, this story of Evelyn should be read, reread, and discussed and made into plays. I pray in this review of this story, that it will be discussed, and maybe, just maybe, hit the major networks. Wheatmark is to be commended for bringing out this great work.
It is a story of a brave women, a daunting child, and provides unforgettable lessons that cruelty is always wrong. Jesus wept. One can weep in reading this book. When teaching in Lithuania, some years ago, there was a story of how “Russians and Germans" came together and wept over their crimes. The long nightmare can be over. Mrs. Tannehill, your story, is worthy, a remembered reading.