East Germany and the Escape: Kitchen Table Memoirs
Released November, 2011
Author – Doris Kienitz
Publisher – FriesenPress
Hello Friends!
This book has been in the works for about 5 years. It is the compelling story about my father’s life…growing up in communist East Germany, surviving WW2, the aftermath, risking his life helping others escape into West Berlin, before he, my mother and four siblings escaped, three months before the wall went up! My father had a dream to come to Canada to make a better life for his young family. Emigrating in 1962 with just $124 in their pocket and speaking no English, my parents made Toronto their home. As my father says, ‘We had nothing, no chair, no table…nothing!’ At least they had each other.
Just when they started to get on their feet, my mother found out she was pregnant again – with me. Depressed at the prospect of another mouth to feed, my mother felt hopelessly alone. But with my father’s urging, my parents trudged on. We were very poor in our modest home in Scarborough. Eventually my parents scraped together enough money and bought a butcher business in Hagersville, in Southern Ontario. It was a very tough go at first! After working extremely hard, my parents retired just 10 years later to the small community of Cheapside.
Growing up hearing dad retell of his stories from ‘back home’ made me appreciate more of what I had. About eight years ago, while driving home from a meditation class, the idea of writing a book came to me. I remember how vivid it was. It sounded so simple! Yet when we began, dad was all over the place, telling me stories not as they appeared chronologically. It was quite a task to sort them out. It was also a challenge to get dad to tell me more of his emotions (he is a guy after all!) while explaining some of his more difficult moments such as when his twin daughters (my sisters) died. He could tell me much more about his hunting excursions! Not that dad isn’t emotional – he cries openly – he just has a hard time SAYING how he is feeling. We are a much more expressive society now than back in East Germany, where survival was most important. Feelings were pushed down in order to carry on.
East Germany and the Escape: Kitchen Table Memoirs 