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An Immigrant Remembers I have been an immigrant since childhood. Born in Russia of German parents in 1933, I was labeled a foreigner for the first eight years of my life. This stigma was even more debilitating after my father had been banished to Siberia by the GPU when I was two years old. His crime - mail we were receiving from relatives in Germany. I never saw him again. When the German Army advanced into Russia in 1941 during the Second World
War, If we were despised as Germans in Russia, we were also despised as Russians in Germany. I could not even speak my mother tongue. During the 24 years that my mother was forced to live in Russia, where she had been left behind to look after some wood that needed to be sold when the rest of her family returned to Germany in 1917, (unable to join them because of the Bolshevik Revolution), she did not even dare to speak German at home. Our passports said we were "stateless" and feelings of rejection and worthlessness ran deep. This all changed when my family and I emigrated to Canada, arriving at the Quebec Harbor August 20, 1950. We had been refugees from the Russian and Allied Forces since 1943. Having found shelter in Arrild, Schleswig-Holsytein, the most northern part of Germany close to the Danish border, gave us the safety we needed at that time. Living in one room of the large Farm Estate that had to take in three other refugee families besides us, there was no hope of a future for us, even after the war ended in 1945. Germany was in a state of devastation. When a cousin of mine who had emigrated to Canada the year before offered us an opportunity to join her, it was the only hope for starting a new life for my mother and her two teenage daughters. I celebrated my 17th birthday shortly after our arrival. In Germany, Canada had the enviable reputation of being "a land of milk and honey" and that is what we expected to find when we arrived. The long trainride from Quebec City to Winnipeg at times crushed our spirits. Those vast distances with only a few towns and Indian Reservations in between made us wonder about our choice. We thought we had come to the end of the world! Once we arrived in Winnipeg the "milk and honey" reputation lived up to its name. My mother and 19-year-old sister Gertrud spoke no English at all. I knew a bit of English from Highschool in Germany. Three days after our arrival, all three of us got a job in the Housekeeping Department of the Winnipeg General Hospital, now the Health Sciences Center. Our work consisted of keeping the ward kitchens clean, washing dishes and re-setting the patient's trays for the next meal. The hospital even provided accommodation for us. There was an entire floor above K5, which was the Children's ward at that time, set aside for the housekeeping staff. This was a tremendous help for us. Having shelter, work uniforms and our meals at the hospital enabled us to save all our wages in order to pay off our huge debt of $750.00 ($250. for each of us). That was the cost of our passage on the Beaverbrae across the Atlantic Ocean. We even saved the nickels and dimes we received for returning pop bottles that we collected dutifully. To us that was a lot of money at that time. My mother would not let us buy anything but postage stamps for letters to Germany until our debt was paid in full. The labyrinth of hallways at the hospital was intimidating at first, and sometimes we had trouble finding the kitchen we were individually assigned to. Not knowing the language many times was a conundrum, but the people were all so friendly that in time even my mother could speak enough English to get by. For the first time in my life I did not feel like an immigrant at all. Finally I felt accepted not for where I came from, but for who I was as a person. That is what makes Canada so great. It is a real melting pot of diverse people and cultures, yet everybody is given equal opportunity. I will never forget the story of our Lieutenant-Governor Peter Liba, whose father Theodore Liba who as a 23-year-old had emigrated to Canada from the Ukraine in 1926 had the privilege of serving King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at a dinner at Government House in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II. He was employed by the Fort Garry Hotel who catered the royal dinner that evening. Sixty years later, his son Peter Liba was sworn in as the 22nd Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba. In his own words: "Where else, in one generation, could you go from serving as a waiter at Government House for a royal reception to now serving the vice-regal role as the Queen's representative in Manitoba? Using the front door, not the side entrance?" Where else indeed! Last year I celebrated the 50th anniversary of my arrival in Canada with a commemorative dinner for my children and grandchildren with a special cake proudly displaying the flag of Canada, our great and glorious land. I thank God for the privilege of dropping the "immigrant" label and enjoying the freedom and security of this wonderful country as a citizen. Despite all the hardships of the early pioneers, this is what they appreciated and enjoyed also.
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