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"My Ukrainian Family"
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Part II
As we left off, I was mentioning that while I don’t know the story well, I can tell you that Friedel and Artur had friction. I also mentioned that as I am also a mother of sons, I imagine Mimi had something to do with it. At this point in the story, Friedel was 13 and he was taken by the Russian soldiers to fight. Oh, that's a new story. To be continued..
Continued...
Mimi had something to do with the men's difficult relationship. It was too much for Mimi taking care of two young boys on her own during the middle of the Holodomor. Her parents were more wealthy, so They took the oldest grandson, Friedl. He never forgived her. Artur went with Mimi as she went to work in Turkey.
Mimi was a teacher. Not sure what kind of credentials you needed, but she was sent to Turkey to teach the Turkish troops some of the Russian language.
She told me only two stories of that time. On one occasion, when at supper, the Turkish soldiers passed the cleaning bowl. They gave it to her first, and she didn't know it was a cleaning bowl. She thought she was supposed to drink from it. Fortunately, the bowl never touched her lips. She said she is still embarrassed.
The second occasion, Mimi told me about the Turkish people she taught, was their personal cleaning habits. After a bowel movement, there was no toilet paper, so it was necessary to use what was available. In this case, available were used trees' leaves. No problem, right? Except, they used the leaves of the hundreds of trees the Russians had just planted in place of those destroyed.
I know, I digress.
So, back to Friedl and Artur. Artur stuck with Mimi throughout time in Ukrainian Russia, after she remarried, when her mother gave birth to two more children. He helped with family chores and wartime efforts.
Artur traveled with Mimi to Poland, Germany and America. Once in America, he met a woman, married and had his own life. He was no longer close to my Mama. His wife fought with my Mama and his daughter called me names.
Friedl was taken from my great grandparents and given a rifle at 13. He was made a Russian soldier, but here is where the story is mustered.
My father tells me that he and Friedl became close. Friedl told him this.
Your Uncle Friedl was caught by the German SS. He was put in a prisoner of war camp with his military partner. Uncle Friedl had a passion for art. He took what he could find and drew a characature of Hitler. What he didn't know what Hitler was coming down the prisoner barracks and in passing my Uncle, he stopped to look at the drawing.
"That's a good likeness," said Hitler.
"It should be. It's you. You idiot," said the brazen 13-year-old Friedl in perfect German.
Hitler's face lit up. His friend thought Friedl had just committed suicide.
"Is this not a Russian pow camp," asked Hitler of his entourage.
When the answer came back as yes, he asked my uncle how he and his buddy knew such a good German.
"I am Black Sea German," said Friedl.
With that new knowledge, Hitler asked others how many were German there. So many spoke German and had blond hair and light colored eyes. He removed them all and put them in German soldier barracks.
"You are German. You are on our team."
So impressed with Friedl, he put him into an art school in Munich. It was opportunity. Friedl said his friend was an artist also. They both were then sent to Hitler's art school.
Friedl was
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