We were sitting with a cup of tea in grandmother's seven-square-meter kitchen when she suddenly began to talk in a mixture of Volga German and Russian. "My parents," she said, trying to get up on her cane. Trembled something. It almost seemed to fall on getting up. She reached for the Aldi nougat chocolate bars on the kitchen counter. And sat down again. Then my grandmother talked about the morning she was put in a train wagon with her mother, father and siblings. “I can still remember exactly,” she said, and took a loud breath, “how we had to leave our German shepherd behind. He ran a few meters behind us. "
We actually talked about my studies.
But such memories often came out of nowhere for her.
Grandmother had Alzheimer's.
The memories seemed to haunt her like ghosts.
Her hands moved back and forth on the turquoise handle of the walking stick.
Her eyes were as cloudy as an old mirror.
She didn't notice that we had just talked about anything else.
Suddenly she was talking about the Siberian winter, about the death of her mother, about the labor camp: "My brother died in the labor camp," she said.
My grandmother was a Volga German, a Russian German.
Post-Soviet migrant.
Like their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren.
Like me.
She died a year ago.
Ten years ago, my parents, my brother and I drove through the former Republic of the Volga Germans for the last time.
It should be there, somewhere between Saratow and Samara, the village of Schöntal.
The village my grandparents come from.
It was founded in 1857.
Volga, watermelons and ruins
But the story of the Russian Germans began much earlier. With Catherine the Great. The Tsarina signed a ukase in the summer of 1763. Some call it a "colonialist letter", some an "invitation manifesto". It was an appeal to German settlers. So the Tsarina wanted to conquer the "wild field" of Russia and strengthen it economically. But it was also about their own strength, about bringing loyal citizens into the country. In return, it offered a lot: self-administration, tax breaks, free religious practice, exemption from military service and 30 hectares of land for each colonist family. And these families, they came. The beginning was not easy, some settlers did not even survive the first winter. They endured assaults and famine.
In 1857 there were 162 families in my grandmother's village. I can only guess whether their ancestors were among these founding members. Our story is too confused.
Back then, during our trip to Kazakhstan ten years ago, I looked out the car window and saw the Volga, watermelons and ruins. Is this our home? No not really. The Russian story of the Russian Germans and my family begins on the Volga, but ends in Siberia and the Kazakh steppe. Because with the attack by the National Socialists on the Soviet Union in 1941, hatred of Germans from Russia increased. They were suspected of being German spies. Anyone who spoke German was automatically a fascist. At the end of August, they were deported and sent to labor camps. Also my grandparents, their siblings and parents. When I was able to ask my grandma, she only replied in fragments of her memories: “Winter, trees that have been brought down. And death, ”she kept saying.Neither my grandma nor my grandpa spoke about the conditions in these camps.