Cornberg Displaced Persons Camp, page 2
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8/8/06 Olga,
I found your site as I was researching Dad. Thank you so much for it. Keep up the good work!
Where was Dad after the war?
It's funny how these questions about your parents only occur to you after they're dead.
I knew Dad was a Ukrainian, drafted into the Red Army. He was captured on the first day of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, on 22 June 1941. After that, he told me, it was a German prison camp. The war ended in May 1945 - should have been great news. But like other POWs he feared prison by Stalin for treason. After all, he had allowed himself to be captured. He was interrogated by SMERSH, at one point forced to dig his grave--a gun to his head. When he got the chance, he squeezed under the barbed wire and made his way into the American zone, changing his name as he went.
Dad was a DP until 1948, when he came to Australia and married Mum. Nearly three years in limbo. But where? What was it actually like? What thoughts went through his head? Despair? Frustration? Hope?
It's hard to imagine Europe from here. Australia is sunny and bright; its buildings new and its people naively optimistic. Returning Aussie soldiers were met by nice ladies at the docks, with cups of tea and lamington cakes: Did you have a nice war? It has small experience of ancient quarrels, complex cohabitations and invasion; history happens someplace else. It's even harder to imagine a Europe destroyed by bombs, people brutalized by want and daily cruelties -- traumatized by the prospect of random death. Scarred. Dad had to put all that behind him. This is Australia mate. Don't wanna hear about all that wog stuff.
But Dad wrote poems as he grew old. Poems in Ukrainian. None of us kids read Ukrainian. For all these years, they might as well have been written with invisible ink. A long time after he died, I finally became curious about them. I asked a nice Ukrainian lady to translate some. He writes about Ukraine, his mother, the war; but moslty about lost loves. And he mentions his DP camp. Korenburg. Korenburg? Must be easy to find in any atlas. Nope. Konigsberg? That's in the book, but not likely. Did he forget the name? Did he make it all up?
I stumbled onto the DP Camps site. Wow. So much stuff. Gotta love modern technology. What fine people -- those generous souls who made it. Let's see now. Dad was in the American zone. Not that many camps. How hard could it be? But no Korenburg.
Sunday afternoon. Kids outside playing. I'm on the computer, again. Searching. Hmm. 'DP Camps in Germany'. Maybe the K was a C. Cammer? No that's the British zone. Not even close. Coburg? That's closer. But nope. Cornberg? Doubtful. Hang on, there's a photo album of Cornberg, a fat photo album of Cornberg -- posted by Judy Hrynenko. Nothing else to do!
I almost fall out of my chair. Slide 38: "A lecture in the course for drivers." That's Dad, surely. The guy giving the class! Dad once said that in the camp "I was lecturer." I pull out some old photos Dad had. The buildings in the background look similar, those shutters are the same. And there's a door with those V-pattern slats. And here he is about that time in another photo fatter in the face than normal but he looks just like the man giving the class. What are the chances? What are the chances? Doubt creeps in. 'Cornberg' isn't that close to 'Korenburg'. I email my brothers. We all believe we have found the camp, pretty much. And the photographs are superb. But...
Mum died this winter. She married Dad in a double wedding in 1950; her sister also married a Ukrainian -- two Australians marry two Ukrainians. It made the newspapers: "Canberra Sisters Marry New Australians" and "Talk to them of love -- and they need a dictionary."
Among Mum's papers I found a thin yellow sheet, spotted and ravaged at its edges: Cornberg.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
21st January 1947
This is to certify that Szafranowycz Wolodymyr, a registered Displaced Person of Camp 566, werked (sic) in the Camp as driver school teacher from November 1945 to December 1946.
He proved himself to be a hard working honest man.D. Davies
Welfare Officer
UNRAA Area Team 1023
DP Camp 566 Cornberg
1946
Click to enclarge photos
1946 Arbeitsbuch (work book)
1946-or 1947
Thank you Judy. Thank
you Olga.
Peter Shafron/Szafranowycz Email: janeandpeter@cox.net
