April 5, 2000

 Book Review by Edna Boardman

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    Reuer, Elvera Ziebart, written by Marjorie Knittel. _The Last Bridge:

Her Own True Story_. Order from Elvera Ziebart Reuer, 1871 W. Keating Avenue, Mesa, Arizona 85202. 602-839-9735. 1984.

Reuer, Elvera Ziebart, written by Glaphry Duff. _A Distant Promise: A

New Beginning_. Order from Elvera Ziebart Reuer, 1871 W. Keating Avenue, Mesa, Arizona 85202. 602-839-9735. 1998.

    The central character of Elvera Ziebart Reuer’s story is Eva

Ziebart, the mother of the clan whose story is told in these books. Eva,

who began life as a shy young orphan, lived in several villages and

buried two husbands and five children in Russia. Her stern practicality,

courage, astute perception of human nature, unrelenting work ethic,

faith, and aggressive planning saw her family through unimaginable

wartime hardships. The books trace the family’s journey from Bessarabia

to America.

     Eva, Elvera, 18, and the other members of the Ziebart family lived

in Arzis, Bessarabia, which had been part of southern Russia settled by

German farmers at the invitation of the Russian government more than a

century before. In 1918, without encountering resistance, “Rumanian

soldiers walked into the agricultural community and simply claimed it as

spoils of war.” The Ziebarts housed and fed an officer who set up his

headquarters in their once-pristine parlor. The Rumanians were followed

by Communist soldiers on May 15, 1940. The Russians, like the Rumanians

before them, were permitted to treat the people as they wished, and

physical and psychological abuse generated pervasive fear.

     Plainclothes visitors from Germany arrived in Arzis as early as

1938. They held special events such as games and dances, reignited the

people’s sense of German identity, and excited them about the

possibility of a proud future in Germany. So it was with dread of

Russian occupation mixed with anticipation that on June 25, 1940, Eva

Ziebart and her family of teenagers, Albert, Elvera, Gertrude, Alma, and

Linda hurriedly gathered essentials and got on a crowded train and left

for Germany. Eva’s stepsons, Gerhardt and Bruno, who remained behind to

bring in the harvest, made their way to Germany later, and were inducted

into the German army.

In Germany, the family found themselves encamped in a former

schoolhouse and in other crude, minimal shelters. Always they feared

bombs dropped by the Allies, so nighttime blackouts and hurried rushes

to the cellar were the norm. The conditions in all places were crowded,

and food, which consisted mostly of thin vegetable soup, was short.

    After many months, they realized why they had been brought from Arzis.

The Germans were summarily evicting Polish farmers from their farms and

replacing them with ethnic Germans, who were expected to raise food to

feed the German army. Eva demanded and achieved the return of the Polish

family that had lived on the farm assigned to her--a mother, father and

three sturdy sons--saying she was but a widow and needed their help for

the work. Few were less helpless than Eva, but only her children knew

that. They set about cleaning the farm and its buildings, acquiring food

and draft animals, raising grain and vegetables, and reaching out to the

many hungry and destitute people around them. In the midst of war, the

older children married and gave birth to children. The younger children

went to school and weekend camps, where their susceptibility to Nazi

ideology was muted by their mother’s careful warnings. Her proximity to

Germany meant Eva could care for Gerhardt when he was wounded, and

sometimes the girls could find jobs, as did one who cared for injured

men in a hospital.

   As the war ground on, the family sensed that Germany was losing.

Then they  heard that the fearsome Russian army was moving in from the

east. Eva and her family loaded necessities into the wagon she had so

carefully kept in good repair, and headed west. The trek, which

culminated with their ending up in the American zone, is as tense and

frightening an adventure as one would want in one’s lifetime. They

stumbled into several areas of active fighting, witnessed heartrending

atrocities, and crossed bridges just before explosives detonated or the

bridges were finally closed. Again and again, Eva’s careful foresight

made the difference. As an example, When she observed men painting some

wagons with a red X, she guessed that they were tagging wagons for

return to Russia. She bribed a soldier with food and was allowed to

continue west. Later, when Bruno was being separated from her, she told

him to get a job in a kitchen if he could. This advice served him well.

The story of how Bruno’s wife, three small children in tow, traveled

overland for over a year, after the war and appeared in rags at Eva’s

door is an astonishing story, of itself worth a whole book. Through all

this, they clung tenaciously to their faith in God.

     In the postwar years, life was difficult for the people who came to

be called displaced persons. Resourceful Eva traded her horses for a

cow, the girls found jobs, and she located her family members, all of

whom, miraculously, had survived the war. Some 134 packages sent to them

from relatives and agencies in America (CARE packages) provided food and

clothing and items that could be sold for other necessities, and the

family never ceased to marvel at the generosity of the Americans.

Elvera’s skill with needle and thread meant clothing and money for the

family.

     At the invitation of American relatives, Eva, Albert, Gertrude, and

Elvera, emigrated to Bowdle, South Dakota in 1949. There the work on

farms was also demanding, but they were welcomed wholeheartedly into an

extended family and it was possible to prosper. Eva returned to Germany

to live out her life with the family that remained there; Elvera married

and lives in Arizona today, where she enjoys the company of her children

and grandchildren.

     These books are reviewed together because their stories overlap.

_The Last Bridge_ especially is told in a good, fiction-writer’s style,

and ends when they first stepped  onto American soil. _A Distant

Promise_ has, as its pattern, Elvera answering her grandchildren’s

questions about how she got from Arzis, Bessarabia to America. Both have

some pictures, but _A Distant Promise_ has many more, which were taken

at points along the journey and today. Both books are worth reading.

Elvera recalls details somewhat differently from one book to the other,

and the second writer has a distinctive style. Details that are not

clear in the first book come into focus in the second. Both books needed

an editor who could have shaped up punctuation and usage details.

Elvera’s story is one of great personal courage and sometimes miraculous

deliverance experienced by people caught up in World War II. It is also

one of the few that tells the story of Bessarabian Germans who were sent

to live on the farms of Poland. The books are important to the Germans

from Russia experience.