I was born on May 8, 1940 in the Dnieper area of Ukraine
to German parents. The Second World War came to our part
of the country the same year. When the Germans were
coming, the Russians took anyone of German descent who
was living in Ukraine and put them on a train to Siberia––60
of our family members were sent there. Most died in the
next few years.
My father ended up being imprisoned and sentenced to 25
years in jail by the Russians while my mother escaped the
Russians by traveling from Russia to Germany on horse-
drawn carriages or trains. She was a 25-year-old refugee
who had my two kid brothers plus her cousin’s two children,
who were five and three years old and she was pregnant. She
gave birth to a daughter on the way to Germany but
tragically the baby froze to death. I ended up in the best
German children’s hospital suffering from tuberculosis.
Later we were all put into an orphanage and stayed there for
two years while my mother received treatment on her face,
which had frozen during the arduous journey to Germany.
Parkinson’s is nothing compared to those experiences.
Nick Kaethler, reprinted with permission
