Review of my Memoir brings Tears to my Eyes

Posted on 2017/08/13 by gmroeder

Nikki Landis, a Goodreads author, reviewed my memoir “We Don’t Talk About That: An Amazing Story of Survival”
Her rating: 5 Stars.

Nikki Landis is an award winning author of about a dozen books. She is well known for her “Fight for Light Novels”, “The NightWatchers Saga” and the “Freedom Fighters Series”. In 2017 she was the proud recipient of the IPPY Gold Star for her latest book “Refugee Road”. I have just started to read it and am fascinated.

Nikki is not only a prolific writer, she also reads more than anyone I know, and reviews all the books on Goodreads. Plus, she is a wife and the mother of five boys (7 years to 18!) and works full time. How does she do it? Do her days have more than 24 hours? Oh, I forgot – the night also has 12! Funny! Thank you, Nikki, from all my heart.

Read Nikki Landis’s review:
Read in Aug 2017

Some stories must be told, no matter how disturbing, horrible, or unbelievable they may seem. Some truths devastate because you can’t imagine how they are possibly true. You DON’T WANT them to be true. How can such brutality exist? How can one individual possibly survive after so much horror? How much can the human spirit endure and bounce back from the brink of destruction and continue on?

This book, I think, is probably one of the most emotional and life changing stories I have ever read. It truly touched my soul. I have the utmost respect for the author and her courage, bravery, and willingness to step forward and tell the truth about the shocking and brutal events of her life. She is, WAS, a victim. Her family were victims. Her friends and neighbors. In fact, many German women were and yet they survived. They pushed forward. They endured the despicable and impossible, and they persevered.

This book is not an easy read. I had to stop often, take a breath or break, and come back to the story. Over several days I read and witnessed the horrific events that changed a nation and destroyed a country. As an American woman in 2017, what do I truly know of suffering? What do I know of survival, fighting with everything I have in order to make it through each day? What do I know of living in fear for my life or waiting for the next man to knock on my door, ordering me to disrobe? What do I know of losing all that I own, of being displaced without a home or country, and losing everything, including the people I love? What do I know of starvation?

The answer is simple. I do not. But by reading this story, I have an idea. My heart just aches. I’m devastated. I cannot imagine enduring for even one day what the author and these other women endured for months, years of their lives. How did they go on? How did they later marry and have families? How did not lose their very soul to such inhumane acts?

The story does not end there. The author takes us on a journey of self-discovery and the search for freedom. I found myself cheering her on throughout the book, hoping that she would finally find peace, love, and happiness. I don’t think you can give away spoilers in a novel like this. It’s a true account of suffering and perseverance, of losing everything and finding what truly matters, and because of that, I am happy to say I think the author found what she was looking for in the end.

Chronicling the first thirty or so years of her life, the author lays out life in the 1940’s and 50’s and her youth, her family, and life before the war. Once the war starts, it’s a shocking read. Be warned, this novel tells the brutal truth and is in parts almost too much, but only because of content. The way in which the books is written, in a narrative that feels like you are listening to a close friend, is the only way to get through the stories.

There is a lot of wonderful historical detail from life back in that era, landmarks, cities, geography, and much information about the war and its effects on the German people. For me this is one of the most interesting parts of the book. You hear much growing up about World War II and its effects on the world, the atrocity of so many lives lost, the hatred of the Jewish people, but I don’t think I can recollect much learning in school about the German people and their struggles. It’s wrong. We can’t forget as a society what happened. We can’t condone what happened. We can’t let it happen again.

WE CAN’T FORGET.

Stories like this must be told and published. They must be shared. They need to be read. What hope do we have for humanity if we forget, if the dust covers the words of these atrocities and God forbid, history tries to repeat itself? No, we can’t let that happen. And the author is right to share this story, to talk about what happened, and to ensure her words are written down for all eternity. In her own words, no embellishment, she describes the gritty and grueling aspects of her life from start to finish. There’s no other way the story could be written.

I have a much better understanding of history now. Such experiences must mark a person for life. This is a memoir I would recommend to everyone, but especially I will recommend to the women I know. It’s an emotional, courageous, and extraordinary story that MUST BE READ. I highly recommend purchasing this book and owning a copy for yourself. “We Don’t Talk About That” is truly an amazing story of survival.

Rape, Abuse and the Law

Posted on 2016/03/29 by gmroeder

Lately, the media in Canada had a ball with a case involving a well-known talk-show host of their own: A “handsome devil” attracting a lot of attention from the ladies and he seems to have reveled in it. His abuse and sexual harassment within his working environment reached dimensions such that his contract was terminated. Then several ladies came forward, they told their stories and accused him of sexual abuse, rape and physical abuse during their interactions. What I cannot understand is that it was revealed in court that one of them had sent him e-mails after some horrible experiences caused by his so-called lovemaking. Another was photographed in a park cuddling up to him after the affair had ended. Apparently they also told the police and the courts slightly different stories. There were lots of discrepancies in their re-calling of the happenings. The judge declared the witnesses not reliable and in the end, this man received the verdict “Not guilty.”

I can imagine how happy he was that he got away with it. The general impression is that he was, and remains, “guilty as hell”. He left the court by the back door since lots of women were demonstrating outside the courtroom. But the lawyers are fighting for their clients and the law states no one is supposed to be judged until ‘proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt’. In this case, there was a lot of reasonable doubt.

Why do I bring this up, a topic that I would rather “not talk about”? Because in my book “We Don’t Talk About That” I have not only written about the wholesale rapes by the Russian soldiers ordered by Stalin when on their way to Berlin in 1945. I have also revealed my own experiences of abuse that I could not report because nobody would have believed me. A senior colleague with power over me and of high reputation held a pistol to my head. Another time he parked his car with my side close to a very prickly hedge so that I could not escape. He practically abused me for several years, stalked me for more years after I got away and never gave up pursuing me, claiming to love me. He was totally obsessed with me. How many women keep quiet when abused or raped by their boss, superiors or co-workers? Why are we women so afraid to report it? Because we may lose our job, we may not be believed, we may be judged by not just other men but also by women. We try to avoid embarrassment within our families and don’t talk about it. In the meantime, we suffer from a stress disorder and often our bodies react with a disease, in my case with pneumonia. In the hospital, I felt safe and I couldn’t get well because of it.

Months later I had a new job, walked along a beach and enjoyed the sunset. A man followed me. I did not know about his intentions, ignored him but, unbeknownst to me, he was a convicted rapist on parole. He attacked me. Naturally I reported the case, had several witnesses who had rescued me after several hours fighting him off and there was a court case. He got off with a slap on the wrist because “he had not actually raped me”. Asked by the judge why he didn’t give up after I gave him a black eye with my ring and knocked him out he turned to me and said: “I liked her then and, I must say, I still like her”. The courtroom erupted in laughter and I stood there with a red face. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble had I not reported it and accused him. I bet that hardly any woman would have been able to hold him off for more than five hours until help arrived.

In both my cases I said then and I say it now: A woman cannot win. Abuse is rampant in our society and most women “Do not talk about it.” And when they do as in the above case of the talk-show host they may not have told all in the first instance. And then, when in court, being humiliated, they tell a different story. Men in some societies can rape a woman and she is stoned to death for adultery. No, not in medieval times, right now.

Let me add another thought: What about the young woman who was sexually abused at her university in B.C.? She was told to find another university when she reported it. Why her and not the abuser? It seems it is always the women who become further victimized.

Life is interesting – on the ground or in the air

Posted on 2016/03/16 by gmroeder

After flying for three hours, landing and walking out of the arrival airport you are surprised by the different type of air you breathe, and, looking around, by the totally different colours surrounding you. It’s March, and you have just left a green landscape, blooming cherry trees, daffodils and some tulips behind. Now, with a slight little shock, even if you knew about the possibility – you look at leftover snow at the edge of the roads, icy frozen heaps at corners where the snow has been piled up and lots of puddles hiding the potholes and nothing but grey cars. You ask me “Why grey cars?” I should have told you, nobody washes their car here during the winter months because of the chance of frozen door locks. In spring, they don’t because as soon as you enter the traffic it’s covered in mud again anyway. I couldn’t believe seeing part of the residential streets looking like rivers. Why is the water not draining away? Are all the drains plugged up with leftover leaves from last fall? Or is it all the sand washed towards the drains and forming little dikes? Only three hours away from almost ‘paradise’ I was still in the same country: Canada. Several time zones across this land and variations in weather make you feel you are somewhere totally different.

Boarding to fly home

I left Vancouver Island by Harbour Air flying with a float plane. With small suitcases and seated tightly together with only a few people you are flying over beautiful little islands and in just seventeen minutes you are landing on a river not too far from Vancouver International Airport. A shuttle bus brings you there and you are lucky not to get lost among thousands of people milling around you. After passing long lineups in the international terminal, I was actually surprised to see how few people were flying to other destinations at the domestic terminal. But don’t be fooled, the planes are full. It’s just that the check-in is very well organized and orderly. There were lots of self-check-in machines, different places for baggage drop-off and other counters for people who can’t make friends with any machine. I am one of the people who prefers a live person!

Checking into the Clarion Hotel in Winnipeg they were so welcoming as if I were the proverbial ‘lost son’, sorry, daughter. The car licence plates proclaim that you are in “Friendly Manitoba” – if you can read it because of the mud covering everything. The next day I got lost in the shopping center across from the hotel. I couldn’t find my way out. I asked an elderly lady for directions. She started to explain but then decided to accompany me as it was easier. We walked through the whole shopping center and all the way across the parking lot, crossed the muddy streets and jumping over puddles. On the way she told me about, and showed me, her beautiful daughter living and working in Hollywood. We stood outside the hotel door until we shivered and I asked her inside. We exchanged e-mail addresses. That is Winnipeg, Manitoba – were the most friendly and helpful people you might ever encounter live.

Intro Forget Me Not At my book signing at Chapters Polo Park, lots of people were standing around my table. They listened to mine and told some of their own stories and, in two hours, I laughed more than I had laughed in two years! My shopping center rescue lady, Dorothy, was among them. And Audry was there, an e-mail friend, who had written to me after she had read and was impressed by my book. The thought that it might be “healthy” for me to move back to this fair city (Oh yes, thirty-two years ago I had lived there) went through my head. What is the weather, the mud, the puddles and the snow when you are laughing? But I realized that I was the cause for the laughter that evening. Why? Because I was happy. I picked funny stories to read. I am a people person, I like to share my stories and I love the people who listen and react to me by sharing their own stories. We all became part of an extended family. It felt good.

The absolute highlight of my trip was meeting the charming and experienced interviewer Dahlia Kurtz at the CJOB Radio Station. She is a rather small and pretty person, but a force to be reckoned with. I would like you to meet her yourself, sit back and listen to our exchange on air. Dahlia has interviewed Nobel Prize winners, world leaders, inventors and many other dignitaries but she is herself, sensitive to the expression of feelings and has a knack of keeping, or getting you back on track.