Parents Were Born in Poland

Parents:

Mother: Olga Lenz (nee Weiss - Jewish father, German-Ukranian mother)

Father: Julius Lenz (German Ukranian father and mother)

Parents were born in Poland.

Parents left Poland with oldest daughter to start a new life in the Ukraine, because living circumstances for people of German background in Poland were not good - the native Polish population resented them for taking up land, and because they were generally better off than the local Polish people - they had worked hard for many generations, and were generally more successful because of this hard work. Many of the local Polish workers were employed as farm-hands on farms owned by people of German background in Poland. Tensions were quite high, especially in the post WWI era.

Parents settled in one village of a string of 5 predominately German speaking settlers. Julius, her father was educated - worked as a legal secretary, also as a scribe and translator for many of the villagers. He was also the manager of the local mill (where grains were ground into flour).

Olga was born in this village (Georgsthal) in 1926. A younger brother was born 5 years later. Generally a happy life, although there were some concerns over anti-German attitudes beginning to develop as a result of German re-militarization under the National Worker Party, led by Adolf Hitler. When war broke out in 1939, at first the effects were not felt in the Ukraine. Poland was divided between the Germans and Russians, and most of the war was being fought in the west of Europe - Belgium, Holland, France. However, in 1941, the German army invaded Russia, and within several months has swept across the Steppes to within 20 kilometers of Moscow. Then the winter hit. The German advance turned into a long, slow, retreat, with terrible fighting. Anyone of German background had to leave before the advancing Soviet Army arrived, or else they would be brutally treated, beaten, abused, tortured, or shot. There was no love for anything German.

In 1942, in the early winter, Olga, along with her brother and mother, began the 6 month long refugee trek to the west, always staying just ahead of the Soviet Army, and then being shipped into Poland, and then Germany. Her Father has been taken at gunpoint one summer evening by the NKVD (the Soviet secret police, responsible for national security) several weeks before the German army advance reached her village. Her father was deemed to be a threat because he was educated, German, and had not been interested in joining the Soviet Workers Party (Communist). He was never to be seen by his family again, although many years later a third or fourth hand report found its way to the family that Julius had died in a work camp in Siberia in late 1943 or early 1944. He had basically died from starvation.

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