There and Back: May 2008

From Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Regarding the Russian Revolution):

".....If you charged someone with the task of creating a new world, of starting a new era, he would ask you first to clear the ground. He would wait for the old centuries to finish before undertaking to build the new ones, he'd want to begin a new paragraph, a new page.

"But here, they don't bother with anything like that. This new thing, this marvel of history, this revelation, is exploded right into the very thick of daily life without the slightest consideration for its course. It doesn't start at the beginning, it starts in the middle, without any schedule, on the first weekday that comes along, while the traffic in the street is at its height....."

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Photos

The Ridinger family circa 1908. My Great-grandfather is seated in the middle. My grandfather is the boy standing second from right. Great grandfather died in the famine of 1932. Grandfather was executed in 1937. Of the 7 children surviving to adulthood, three immigrated to America, four were sent to the Soviet Union.

My grandfather on the right, circa 1920

William and Maria Ridinger, my parents (Germany circa 1959)

Me (center) with brothers - Germany 1959

Acknowledgements

My father was born in 1919 in Rohrbach, Ukraine and lived through the collectivizations, famines and World War II. Upon his release from an American POW camp, he found his family in a refugee camp in Germany. After stints in the coal mines of England and Belgium, he returned to Germany to start a family. Still afraid of deportation back to the Soviet Union, he decided to take his family and immigrate to America. Two brothers, one of which died in a Soviet prison, along with several aunts and uncles, were re-located to the far reaches of the Soviet Union, raised families, then later emigrated to Germany.

Despite the hardships he endured, my father always had a sense of humor and a positive outlook. It was him that inspired me to make this journey.