October 16, 2017. While we were in Burgdorf for the commemoration events, we met with friends and made many new ones. As Marilyn Berezowsky had commented, “It was like a family reunion.” One of the new friends was Alla Rusz, nee Sauch, a former resident of Camp Ohio.
Alla Rusz with Daria Valkenburg in Burgdorf. (Photo credit: Pieter Valkenburg)
Alla and her friend Else Greifenstein have a true friendship, one that the decades and distance have not diminished. Here on Prince Edward Island, where we live with the influence of the Anne of Green Gables books, we would say they are ‘kindred spirits’. Even a German newspaper reporter wrote about their friendship. If you can read German, here is the link to the original article, written by Joachim Dege in “Hannoversche Allgemeine”: http://www.haz.de/Hannover/Aus-der-Region/Burgdorf/Nachrichten/Geschichtsbuch-ueber-Lager-fuer-Heimatlose-in-Burgdorf-praesentiert. At the end of this blog entry is a rough English language translation of Joachim Dege’s article.
It seemed only fitting to let Alla tell about her friendship with Else, in her own words….. “Else and I were like sisters. When we were moved to Oerrel, the last camp we stayed at for two years before we came to the US, she came by bike and train to visit me, to say good-bye to me. We had been in the States for three years, living in a tiny two-bedroom apartment, when we made papers for Else to come to stay with us. We had nothing, but she left her job in Germany and came to be with us. We shared a bed, my mother, and food bought on my Mom’s meager salary, but we had fun: catching an early movie for 1/2 price, going dancing in the park for free, taking public transportation to the Chicago Symphony concerts and walking home on foot for miles and miles just to save a few cents. We lived in a cold-water flat. I was a student at one of the City Colleges, and I got Else a job at one of the places I worked at during the summer. Of course, after she went back to Germany (she had a boyfriend waiting for her), she got married.
I got married. We had families. But we always stayed in touch. She and her husband visited us in the US twice, when we were already mature adults, and I visited her twice. She was the one who told Pastor Bembenneck about my stay in Camp Ohio and he subsequently contacted me. Richard and I went to Dortmund before Else, Fritz, Richard and I came together to Burgdorf to experience this unique event together. I was Godmother in absentia to Else’s first-born, Daphne, and Daphne’s two grown sons spent a week with us a few summers ago. We share a lot of history, joys and sorrows. It’s not easy to relate such a connection in a newspaper article.”
What a beautiful reflection on friendship! Now, below is a rough translation of the article by Joachim Dege from the German newspaper “Hannoversche Allgemeine” (HAZ). The red highlights are additional information or corrections:
Burgdorf:”My only eternal friend” by Joachim Dege
The work group Stadtgeschichte, the city and the Region of Hanover presented the book “Im Schatten des Vergessens” (“In the Shadow of Forgetting“) in St. Pankratius Church on Thursday evening. The work tells the story of forced labourers, prisoners of war, and displaced persons in Burgdorf.
Else Greifenstein (left), nee Wolff, meets her school friend Alla Rusz, who formerly lived in the Ohio camp and immigrated to the USA in 1952, at the book show in Burgdorf. (Photo credit: Joachim Dege)
Burgdorf. In April 1945, the Allies set up Camp Ohio for foreigners in the buildings of the Fire Protection Police on Sorgenser Strasse, who were regarded as homeless by the Second World War: former forced labourers, prisoners of war, and refugees. 82-year-old Alla Rusz from the USA lived in the camp for a year. At that time she made friends with Else Greifenstein, nee Wolff, from Burgdorf. Friendship keeps a lifetime. On the occasion of the book presentation, both met again.
She did not want to miss the opportunity to meet her friend in Burgdorf again. Both women stayed at the Hotel Försterberg. Greifenstein traveled from Dortmund to where she now lives. They sat together at the reception of the city in the town hall. And in the St. Pankratius church, they were touched by the words that Heidelord Pedde, Brigitte Janssen, and Olaf Weinel read from the book, which also tells their story.
Rusz explained that she is a Volksdeutsche from Ukraine. From Dresden, where she survived the devastating bomb attack with her aunt and her mother, she first went to Camp Colorado in Hänigsen and in 1948 to Camp Ohio in Burgdorf. Hungry for education she attended high school. Her classmate Else was the only classmate “who had the courage and heart” to invite her to her home and come to her in her barrack, says Rusz. She does not forget this: “Else is my only eternal friend.”
The way they both tell their story, it sounds like it just happened. “She had long golden hair, she was the best in the class, and the most beautiful,” says Greifenstein about her girlfriend, who moved to a Camp in Oerrel in the Lüneburg Heath in 1949 [annotation: it was actually in April 1950 when Camp Ohio was closed] before immigrating to the USA in 1952. “We did not want to go back to Ukraine to Stalin.” Her father had been expelled to Siberia, where he had perished.
The first half year in the new home near Chicago was difficult, wrote Rusz to her friend Else, then in Burgdorf. Then she invited her to visit. One year later Else Wolff went over for two and a half years: “We were like a family.” It was only when her future husband, Fritz Greifenstein, had finished his studies, that Else returned and married. She has two daughters, and now has four grandchildren. Rusz also married, divorced, married again. She has been married for 37 years to her second husband, with whom she travels a lot. Rusz has three children and eight grandchildren. Again and again the girlfriends had contact, and also met. Now probably this was the last meeting, both women believe.
An apology that touches deeply
Mayor Alfred Baxmann said afterwards that the event had touched him deeply. He only spoke of what many might have felt in the full St. Pankratius church on Thursday evening. The presentation of the history book “In the Shadow of Forgetting”, written by people from Burgdorf [as well as from Berlin and Canada] around their mentor Rudolf Bembenneck, and published by the Region of Hannover, had it all on its own. It wasn’t only because of the dramatic title song from the film “Schindler’s List” performed by Matthias Schorr (violin) and Michael Chalamov (piano). And it wasn’t only because of the speech of the former Minister of Cultural Affairs and former President of the Parliament of Lower Saxony, Rolf Wernstedt, who praised the book in the highest tones as a “necessary supplement to our view of home and an important source for the work of educational institutions”.
Judith Rohde, a confidant of Rudolf Bembenneck, who had moved from the clinic after a serious operation and followed the presentation in a wheelchair, guided the program sympathetically. The guests from abroad (France, USA, Belgium, Brazil, Sweden, Canada), all greeted him personally and introduced themselves. Meanwhile, Roman Berezowsky suddenly stood up and turned to the audience with an apology for the fact that he, as a hungry four-year-old, had been raiding the neighboring gardens of Camp Ohio camp for brussel sprouts and apples.
The reading from the book got quite moving, where the inhabitants of the camp reported on their time in Burgdorf and about their inhumane treatment as forced labourers. When Bembenneck’s daughter, Christina, came to the microphone and read a plea for the respect of human dignity dictated by her father, there was a standing ovation.
Plaque
With a bronze plaque, the city recalls immediately the former barrack camp Ohio, where after the end of the Second World War on both sides of the Sorgenser Strasse to Germany, abducted and homeless people were accommodated. Mayor Alfred Baxmann and Adolf W. Pilgrim unveiled the memorial note on Friday morning next to the entrance to the event center “StadtHaus”. According to Baxmann, it is intended to contribute to the remembrance of the worst that happened in Burgdorf in dealing with people who were regarded as inferior by the National Socialists.
When Karolin Kallina then read letters of regret from people who could not come to the book presentation and remembrance of the memorial, but gave thanks and respect to the people of Burgdorf, many of those present were in tears. Daria Valkenburg, who had arrived from Canada, showed a slideshow about camp life in the “StadtHaus”. Among others, there was a picture with a baptismal child, Eugene Rurka. He now lives in the USA and had also come to Burgdorf.
There is one more entry about the events in Burgdorf to come in the next blog entry. If you have any stories, photos, or documents you are willing to share about these events, or of Camp Ohio, please comment on this blog, or email to dariadv@yahoo.ca.
© Daria Valkenburg
Camp Ohio Research Project 