After WWI, the Treaty of Versailles made Danzig, my father’s hometown, a free city/state. He was ethnically German, however, at the time of his birth, 1937, Danzig was not Germany or Poland, instead it was it’s own free governing city. Hitler was angry that this free city of Danzig, which he still considered to be a German city was now separated by the Polish Corridor and cut off from the rest of the Reich. He demanded Danzig be returned to Germany, and access be granted between Germany and Danzig, and when the Polish refused, the invasion of Poland began. On September 1, 1939, the first shots of WW2 rang out as my father slept in his crib. So, by the age of 2, he now lived in Germany, as Danzig was annexed along with Poland. Citizenship by German descent.

This would be short-lived however, when in January 1945, he and his family would be forced to flee their city due to the advancing Soviet army. By March 1945, the Soviets would have taken full control of Danzig, which had been reduced to rubble, so there was no hope of return. They would eventually make their way to Austria as refugees, which had also been annexed by Germany. This is where they were living at the end of WW2.

As ethnic Germans (Reichsdeutshe), who had moved to Austria AFTER it had been annexed by Germany, they would soon find themselves forced to move again. After the war ended, the Allied powers in Austria were trying to disentangle Austria from Germany. Anyone who was clearly Reichsdeutsche, regardless of their precise pre-war origins in places like Danzig, was considered a foreign national in the context of Austria’s re-establishment as an independent state. The Allies wanted to send these German citizens back to Allied-occupied Germany.

And with this, begins the story of the second time my father was forced to leave his home, with no place to go, before his 8th birthday in 1945.

“We were starting to truly love living in Austria. With the war now officially over, we were able to relax a bit more and start settling into life in the Alps. Mutti loved hiking and taking long walks through the mountains with her new blossoming love Walter, and although still a prisoner-of-war, they began planning their life together once he would be released. His home had been in Riga, Latvia, which was now Soviet territory, so he could not return there. Our home had been in Danzig, Germany, which was now Poland, so we could not return there either. So, starting a new life together in Austria, where the air was fresh and the Alps were stunning, seemed like a wonderful plan.

One month after our vacation trip with Walter, we came home to find Mutti sobbing at the kitchen table. “What am I going to do?  Where will we go?  We have no money.  We will have no food.  How can they do this to a woman with two small children?” Mutti had just been notified that we were being forced to leave Austria immediately. We had one week to leave the country voluntarily or would be deported forcefully. Trains were being provided. We were being deported for being ethnic Germans.

Just when the world had started returning to some semblance of normal. Just when Mutti had found a new partner and had hoped that life for her children would start to improve, everything was once again turned upside-down. We had no food, no money, no home, and Mutti had no idea where to find anyone who could help us. Despite everything we had been through, she would later say that this was the worst day of her life. The day she found out we had to leave once again, with nowhere to go.

Walter came to console her, and they spoke long into the night. He said she should try to resettle somewhere in the western part of Germany, because he felt that the Russians would try to keep the Eastern counties as part of their territory. He offered us some military rations for our journey, and promised that he would find her again once he was released. She hugged him goodbye, and then a few days later, on July 10, 1945, we were once again loaded onto the same cattle-cars that had taken us here towards the end of a war we had been trying to escape months ago.

At least, this time we were “old pros”. We knew to choose straw bunks near the sliding doors for better ventilation. We knew to bring as much food as possible since we had no idea how long the journey would take and had no way to get food wherever we ended up. And despite Mutti’s opposition, we knew how to hop out and quickly steal food from the fields of crops that we passed. Mutti had hidden and saved some of our food we had been gifted in Tulfes, which she had packed along with the C Rations from Walter.

So our journey began again, back on the cattle-cars that had once transported the prisoners and Jews to the Camps, now taking us on our second refugee-train to places unknown.” – Jochen

Looking for more informations about the circumstances of their sudden order to depart Austria, my dad being the child a Waffen-SS Officer, may have added to his family being  targeted by for immediate need to return to Germany sooner than others.  As they say, “guilt by association.”  Despite a nearly unheard of at the time divorce in 1942 and despite his Vati never having been with them in Austria, any record of them being family of an officer would have been a huge red flag against them. They most certainly would have been quickly targeted in the “De-Nazification” measures of Austria by the Allied Forces in support of the Austrian government. They never would have been allowed to stay. These measures sought to send anyone with possible Nazi connections or affiliations, out of once annexed nations, and back to Allied-occupied Germany, with little proof necessary. This, along with them being classified as “Reichsdeutsche,” was the nail in the coffin of their dreams of starting their lives fresh in Austria.  Even if their hometown had still been standing, no ethnic Germans were allowed to return to Danzig/Gdansk because it was now part of Poland. The place they were from no longer existed.

The strange circumstances of my father being an ethnic German, but not born in Germany, along with them being forced to also leave Austria, is the exact reason why he and his brother would have qualified as Displaced Persons who could immigrate to the United States of America. They wouldn’t have been able to qualify at first, as Germans were first excluded in the US Displaced Persons Act of 1948, however in 1950, when it was amended to include Germans, their no “repatriation” status would have been the qualifying key to their eventual immigration years later.

But, I guess things happen for a reason. Had they been born in Germany, they may not have been able to qualify to immigrate to the United States. Had Austria allowed them to stay, they also may not have had the necessity to immigrate to the U.S. So, therefore, without these terrible circumstances, my Dad probably never moves to America. He never meets my mom. I never exist.

Life is all about finding the silver lining. Seeing the blessings that come from the places that rock our world the most. The things that turn our lives upside down often have to take place in order for some of the greatest things in our lives to ever have the possibility of happening. My father went through hell, but at least something good came out of it when roughly 10 years later, that hell gave him the opportunity to become an American.

So, when you talk poorly about refugees around me, when you say they are a burden to our country and it’s a good thing that the Trump Administration has ended Refugee Resettlement, you are saying to me, “Verina, I wish you didn’t exist.”  Because if my father had not been allowed to immigrate to our country due to his refugee “displaced person” status, that is the reality of what would have happened.  My mother is from Rhode Island, she has absolutely no connections to Germany, she never would have gone there.  I cease to exist.

He wanted a piece of the American Dream after surviving a brutal war and Post-Ww2 Germany,  and when given that opportunity, look what he did with it. He worked hard, built hundreds of homes and boats, served in the Marines (before obtaining citizenship), owned businesses, and created a beautiful family. He paid his taxes and didn’t break the law. He took part in our democracy, served his community, and exercised his rights as a U.S. Citizen.

He’s no more deserving of asylum than any other person seeking a better life for themselves and their families, especially those fleeing war or violence or who have been displaced by no fault of their own, like he was.

He’s almost 88 years old, and yesterday, he joined 11 million people on the streets of America to stand up for the rights of immigrants and refugees and the preservation of our Democracy. He put on his “No Kings in America” shirt and rode his motorized scooter down the streets of his town with thousands of others. Because he still loves our country fiercely. He’s seen first hand what can happen when a power-hungry leader goes unchecked, and he doesn’t want it happening here.

Love thy neighbor. Don’t talk shit about immigrants and refugees.

They are people. They are human, and they’ve probably been through a lot.

And if all else fails and you love me, but you still can’t convince yourself to support refugee resettlement and immigrants, remember, without the United States accepting Displaced Persons… I … go… poof…..gone.

Fin.