Submitted to "Die Huckere" by Melva Jean (Frick) Shults of Thornton, Colorado

THOSE LEFT BEHIND

Michael and Frederick Frick did not wish to come to America with the rest of the family, so they stayed in Russia, being connected with the big flour mill there.

By 1941, Michael and his wife Rosina had 2 daughters, Elizabeth, born about 1900, and Anna Margaretta born about 1902, 2 sons, Ehanes, born 1904, and Phillip, born 1905, and as the rest of the Fricks in Huck, were doing quite well. Micheal, as far as we know was well to do and had a comfortable life. He died before 1941.

Nothing else is known about Frederick except he had red hair and was a prize fighter.

In the 1930's, things were already going bad, the government was starving the people, Russians and Germans alike. Many of the families in America would send care packages, containing flour, lard and other vital grocery needs, plus clothing and money. My brother, Malvin Frick, remembers our grandfather, Peter Frick, Sr., showing him how he would write his letters on one side of the pages only. When those in Russia would answer the letter, they would write on the back side of the pages, take the envelope apart, turn it inside out, reglue it, address it and mail it with a stamp that Grandfather had sent with the letter. Then came the letters asking them not to send money, the government was confiscating it, then the letters, don't sent clothing, then don't send anything, they were not getting it. Then no contact, they were lost to those who were here.

On September 22, 1941, the end came to the little village of Huck. The Russians came in and seized all they had, notified them, they were being sent elsewhere, they could take one extra set of clothing, and three days worth of food. They (Russians) seized all their books and Bibles, tore them up and burned them in a big fire. But unseen by the Russians, Rosina had slipped her Bible into her underpants, thereby saving their Bible.

They were herded like cattle into railroad cars, and sent on their way on a trip that lasted for a whole month. Along the way, whenever the train stopped, they started selling their extra clothing, jewelry, whatever to the Russians at the stations for food, and the Russians didn't mind selling the food for very high prices, or they would try to scavenge for food whenever they could. Many died on the trip, when there was a dead person, they were thrown off the train like a dead animal. When they arrived in Kasachtstan, Siberia, it was very cold. Many did not have a place to stay, some lived in holes in the ground, some lived in caves in a hill side, some lived in poorly built shacks. Many froze and starved to death the first winter.

Elwira, her parents, George and Anna Margaretta (Frick) Bohl, sister, Alvina Bohl, a small baby, and grandmother Rosina Frick, made this trip. When they arrived there, her father was taken to a work camp. There they were treated very badly, they had to break rocks for long hours each day, They were given salt water for soup, and when they couldn't make it to work because they were sick or too weak from lack of nourishment, they were

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sometimes beaten, tortured, or killed, sometimes all three. In 1942 her father, George Bohl, was brought home the first time a very sick man, he was starved, had been buried alive twice and shot. The family nourished him back to health, in 1943 he was sent back to work camp. His wife, Anna Margaretta had become pregnant and delivered twins, a boy and a girl, Artur and Elsa. In 1945 they were all quite ill with Typhoid and the twin daughter Elsa died.

Elsa died in the winter time, when it was very cold and the bodies could not be buried, they were just tossed in a pile on the side of the town where the dogs and wolves could eat them, in the spring time the Russians and Cossacks would dispose of them. Elwira's mother, Anna Margaretta, had to see this every day with her baby's body there on that pile.

She was forced to go to work every day, driving a tractor, having to leave the children with her mother, Rosina to care for them. One day she was too ill to go to work, was in bed, when the Russian man came and asked why she wasn't at work, she replied she was too sick. He beat her. she had to crawl on her hands and knees to the tractor and go to work.

They were not being paid enough for food, so Rosina would send Elwira out to beg food off the streets, she was about seven at this time. One day she told Elwira to go to the neighboring village to beg. While she was there, a Russian man approached her and asked her who gave her permission to be there, she told him her grandmother had told her to come there. He took her and whipped her with a big whip, cutting the back of her legs, her back; and one hand so that they were bleeding till she got home. When her father found out about it, all he could say was that the man was Russian, they couldn't do anything about it.

They knew that the Russians liked to take naps after their noon meal, so when it was nap time, Elvira and her sister would go milk the Russians cows. In the springtime when the ewes had little lambs, they would crawl in beside the ewe and suckle from her unnoticed.

In 1947 Anna Margaretta died of starvation. In 1948 George was brought home again, in worse shape this time, with broken bones. He was nursed back to health again. That fall he married again, this woman wanted nothing to do with the grandmother, Rosina, or the three remaining children. The government made her take the children but not the grandmother. In 1950 the other twin Artur was poisoned by this stepmother and he died. Rosina had to live in a shack by herself, with no way to fend for herself. Elwira would sneak food out to her and try to care for her, but she died in 1951 of starvation, Elwira was only 13 years old at that time.

George was in and out of the work camps through all of this and the stepmother would beat Elwira and her sister Alvina, Alvina mostly, because she was smaller. Elvira and Alvina got to the point, when their father had to go to work camp, they would run away, just live anywhere they could, they lived on what they could, like grass soup, sometimes if they were lucky, there would be a lost duckling in the grass, so they would have some protein in their soup. When their father was home they would go home,

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when he was taken away, they would run away.

The stepmother wouldn't let them go to school, she said because they were orphans, without a mother, they didn't belong in school. For a short while, Elvira was able to go to work for a schoolteacher, who taught her to read and write, and work with numbers. She also worked for 16 years tending sheep and working in the cow barns.

In 1955, they moved into a town where there were Russians, in the day she worked in the fields and at night she did cleaning work. She made everything for herself and her sister so they could survive. At this time she was permanently kicked out of the house and told to get married. She did meet this young man who was all alone, he had been deported from Kaukasas, and they married, but she was still only 16, so the marriage couldn't be recorded until she was 18, by that time she had her first child.

They had to work long hard hours, seven days a week. On one of her jobs, she was working in a store, keeping books mostly, but it was her job to drive the tractor 3 kilometers each day to get the wares to be sold that day. One day she got stuck in a snow drift and couldn't get out, it was so cold, it thickened the oil of the motor. She sat there for 2 days before anyone found her. In the meantime people were coming and stealing the wares. When they found her, she was frozen, they rubbed her body with whiskey, she was in the hospital for 40 days. From this unfortunate experience, she suffered from extreme headaches, so bad that she couldn't stoop over and would bleed from the nose and ears, since she has been in Germany, she has overcome everything except for the headaches.

The wares stolen from her was worth 40,000 Rubles and her boss put her on trial and wanted her to pay for all of it. But the authorities had a meeting and said since she had worked there for ten years, she was trustworthy and did not have to pay for it.

Elvira and her husband Paul Wentnagel had 4 children. the oldest was Waldemar. He had 11 years of schooling, then joined the Russian Army, as you were looked down on if you didn't. They didn't have to serve a full year. After that, he became a truck driver, which he still does in Germany. He is married and has 6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls. The children all learn English in school.

The second child is Hilde. She was an excellent student in Russia, should have got the Gold Star, the equivalent to our Scholarship, but because she was German, she couldn't get it. She wanted to go to college so she could be a teacher. Her parents talked with the authorities, they had a meeting and told Elvira and Paul that she could go for the price of so many butchered beef, pigs, sheep, and chickens. They agreed to this, and did all the butchering for them, and Hilde went to college. But, every 6 months the authorities would come for more, until Hilde got her teaching certificate from the school. Then she was sent 1,000 miles from home to a school to teach German. She taught there for three years, then came home. She got married and has 3 sons. Since she is in Germany, she can't teach until she goes to their college to be re-certified, and since it takes both the husband

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and wife to make a living, she can't teach.

The third child is Paul, who accompanied his mother to America. He is also a truck driver and loves trucks. He took a picture of every truck that passed us on the roads. He also had joined the Russian Army for 8 months. He is married and has two surviving sons. While they were still in Russia, his oldest son had just finished the first grade, and was on his way home, when two teen aged boys, one 17, threw him from a large rock into a lake, the little boy could not swim. The older boys became scared and ran away. This is the story told to Paul and his wife, but they were never able to find out who the boys were. They didn't find the little boy until the next day. Paul still has a hard time talking about it. The boy would be 15 now. His name was Paul, the same as his father and grandfather.

In 1968 Elvira had a fourth child, a boy. When it came time for him to be born, she was by herself, as her husband had to go to work. The Doctor was 3 kilometers away, and when he finally got there, she was in a bad way. She was so big, the Doctor told her she was going to have twins, but it was one big boy, so large, the doctor had to use something like forceps to help him, but he was born dead. The day before, she had been out in the fields loading potatoes with a pitch fork into the trucks and carrying 100 lb. bags of potatoes. There was absolutely no excuse to stay home from work. After the children were born, the women were expected to be right back on the job again.

After Gorbechev had been to America and saw how the farmers were doing here, he went from village to village, calling the best farmers to a meeting. He told them how the American Farmers were doing and that they could do the same thing. Elvira said that he wasn't demanding, more or less giving them a pep talk.

At this time, her son Waldemar was farming, with his father, brother Paul, and brother-in-law Robert all helping him. He had one of the better farms. In the winter time he would haul snow from surrounding areas and spread it on the fields, keeping moisture on them as much as possible. He had good crops. They grew 25,000 hector of wheat, hay, and maize, they should have had 1,000's of rubles, but because they were German, they had to settle for 160 rubles. The neighbor, who thought Waldemar was silly for hauling the snow, didn't have good crops as his fields were too dry.

In 1989, the family, Elvira, her husband Paul, their 2 sons and daughter and their spouses bought a big farm, it had a big house and barn buildings. They lived there for 1 year when they got the chance to go to Germany, they took the chance but had to leave every thing behind, They could not sell it and take the money for it.

They returned to Geroldstien, where her husbands family had originated.

Elvira said that 200 years ago, when the Germans first went to Russia, the agreement was made that if the Germans wanted to come back, that Germany would supply them with a pension until they were able to find work. Elvira's children were on this pension until they and their spouses did find work. Waldemar and Paul both drive trucks 12 hours a day, except for Sunday, that is

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a day of rest.

Elvira and her husband Paul are on disability pension. He was affected by the poison in the fertilizer he had to use in Russia. It damaged the nerves in his head and his left eye. Elvira has a bad heart. Her husband Paul gets 834DM a month and Elvira gets 400DM a month. They pay 531DM a month for rent, 50DM for lights, 60DM for the telephone, leaving them 293DM for food and necessities. They live in an apartment which is about 53 sq. yards. It has a front room, kitchen, bedroom, and toilette, all small rooms.

All three children, their spouses and their children live in a large house, which the oldest son, Waldemar is buying. Elvira goes to their house every day but Sunday to get them all off to work, the children off to school, she does all the cooking for them, and other household chores. she also watches "Guiding Light". One day when we were flipping channels, when we happened to see that, she became very excited, and told us the whole story, who was married to who and this one man had been married to this one woman four different times!

Elvira and her sister Alvina go to an Evangelical Church, the husbands don't go, the children believe Church is for old people.

Elvira had helped many people make the trip to Germany, and settle in Geroldstien, so when she wanted to come to Denver so badly, they all came with money for them and gifts to give us, and all they wanted in return was a souvenir from America. We did a lot of shopping. They came with one suitcase and went home with three.

When she was young, she promised her mother and grandmother she would find us some day and thank the family for the care packages in the thirties, they were what kept them alive at times.

God Bless you, Elvira! For enlightening us on what our lost family has been through and bringing us your beams of sunshine.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND DUES

A deep appreciation to those of you who have sent a few dollars, enclosed some postage stamps and have given me encouragement and support for "Die Huckere."

I'm also grateful for those who have shared family stories, information and helpful tips. Your contributions and subscriptions to "Die Huckere" will determine the success and continuance of our Newsletter. This is the first of four issues of "Die Huckere" for 1997. Those who have not sent in a subscription will not receive the remaining 1997 issues.

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