"Life begets stories that no author, artist or poet can more grippingly, colorfully & romantically devise. This is such a story. The life story of my grandmother."
"Growing up along the Black Sea Coast is Emilie, a child of German settlers-- cared for and protected but under deprived conditions. Upon the father's death, the family is brought back to the ancestral village by former neighbors. This village is in Bessarabia, a barren steppe landscape that ranges across today's Moldova and Ukraine to the Danube Delta. It was there until World War II that German settlements existed.
Upon homecoming, the mother had to release her children to adoption, and eleven-year-old Emilie was placed in the childless household of a carpenter. World War I erupts shortly before Emilie's wedding and her fiance is conscripted into military service. After years of hope and trepidation in which those staying behind for survival, he returns home unscathed. The young couple, along with a few other like-minded venturous souls, decide to resettle in another region of the country. Here they establish a new village.
Their budding prosperity is abruptly destroyed by the onset of World War II. What may have seemed far off in the future suddenly becomes a bitter reality: The Bessarabian Germans are compelled to return "home to the Reich." After years of detention in various camps, they are allotted a farmstead in Poland for settlement purposes. But even here they are denied a new home, for embittered partisans defend in which Emilie -- throughout turmoil of war, hunger and destitution -- frantically attempts to rescue her children. Will the family be so fortunate?
Comments about the book:
Nancy and I had the privilege of reviewing and editing James Gessele's excellent translation of the book, EMILIE. We were truly impressed and taken in by this amazing life story. Occasionally, books by Germans from Russia tend to gloss over some bad times, behaviors, and experiences and to remember only the best of the life of Black Sea and Volga colonists. However, as usual with Jim's translation projects, this story doesn't shy away from cases of people getting caught up by the evils or war, from not-so-great aspects of Black Sea culture, but it also describes a truly heroic person's life that included tragic and wonderful aspects of family life and of the general culture of mostly good and often struggling people, the ethnic Germans of Bessarabia. We are happy to recommend this well-told (and well-translated) story, a glimpse into an always real, sometimes happy, and often tragic life lived with courage and gusto.
--- Alex and Dr. Nancy Herzog, Boulder, Colorado
Ever since I learned decades ago that my German great and great-great-grandparents left South Russia (now Ukraine, Moldova and parts of Romania) to homestead in Dakota Territory, I have been hunting for details about the fate of the Germans that stayed behind.
In recent years there have been some excellent novels, memoirs, and first-person interviews with descendants of the families who stayed behind. If we think life on the prairie was hard, we can be assured that life in the Black Sea Villages in the decades following the first waves of emigration to America were equally challenging.
Angela Rommeiss’ novel based on the life of her grandmother, Emilie, takes the reader through the decades before and after two world wars. Through it all, Emilie is strong and resilient as she shepherds her family forward in spite of the powerlessness that comes from war and forced migration.
Especially helpful is the section on Page 7, “Concerning the Historical Setting” where the author offers four pages of historical context. Anyone of German from Russia descent will benefit from this information. This book is very capably translated from the original German language by James T Gessele in collaboration with Alex and Dr. Nancy Herzog.
“Emilie: The Girl from Bessarabia” is a valuable contribution to Germans from Russia literature.
--- Carol Just, St. Louis Park, MN, native of Berlin, ND.
