Most Memorable Quotes:
"That's how life is," I said, turning to Georg. "We don't realize how far reaching our casual acts and mindless words, good or bad, can sometimes be." (p. 426)
This quote was made when Evelyne has returned to revisit her homeland as an adult and finds Irena who as a young girl had given the young starving Eva a slice of bread with a big red tomato. Irena does not remember Eva or their encounter, but Eva has remembered it and cherished it as a rare moment when she was shown kindness.
"I realized that acceptance, not time, is the healer of all emotional wounds." (p. 430)
What powerful words from a woman who endured numerous emotional wounds.
Read more FAB comments at:
http://fictionaddictionbookclub.blogspot.com/2011/09/abandoned-and-forgotten-orphan-girls.html
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
December 13, 2011 Selection – from F. Scott
Abandoned and Forgotten by Evelyne Tannehill
This book really stands out for me. Though not a professional writer, Tannehill tells the interesting and harrowing story of her life caught between Fascists and Communists during WWII. A year and a half later I can still remember many of the details and scenes she relates.
Read our review: http://luxuryreading.com/tag/evelyne-tannehill/
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The newest of over 50 reviews on Amazon
"A salute to your courage, Evchen"
By Mala (New Delhi, India)
This review is from: Abandoned and Forgotten: An Orphan Girl's Tale of Survival During World War II (Kindle Edition)
While we learn about the dark, dark side of human nature, in stories of survival we also see unbelievable courage, endurance and intelligence. I find these stories make me relook at my life, be doubly thankful for what I have, while still trying to take something away from these examples of courage.
It is with this reasoning that I read and was completely amazed by the story of one of East Prussia's "Wolfkinder" or Wolf Children; kids orphaned or abandoned during World War II. The war, from their point of view, is rarely seen by anyone. As is true with Evelyne Tannehill, a little girl who should have been playing with the dolls she desperately wanted, but who instead found herself abandoned and forgotten.
Evelyne, or Eva, lived in East Prussia (now Poland?) with her family. They were farmers and everyday life consisted of chasing the geese, playing with the cat, and waiting for presents from generous rich aunts. Then the war began. East Prussia became "Nazified" with no one being given much of a choice about whether to be part of Hitler's worldview or not. Then too, there was a with-us-or-against-us policy. If, as a German, you ddn't join the Hitler Youth, for example, you were slowly pushed out of school. Not before being hated by the classmates you had fun with not a few weeks earlier. The Nazis changed life as everyone knew it, but then along came the Russians, descending on the little quiet towns and villages of East Prussia like fiends from hell, raping, destroying, looting. Eva's parents' farm was destroyed. Her father disappeared, possibly shipped off to Siberia for his anti-Hitler views. Some of Eva's siblings suffered too - but some got away. At the age of nine, little Eva found herself all alone. Her mother hand died of typhoid, and also raped for good measure minutes before she died.
At such hard times, who wants to take responsibility for a nine-year-old kid? Someone else's kid. In her book, written much much later, we see just how lonely and baffled this poor little girl was. We see what she had to do to survive at an age when we molly coddle our kids and shield them from knowing too much about the word they live in.
Eva was thrown around from one place to the other with people who didn't want her. She even became a little slave on her own farm, treated harshly and pretty much starved into submission. Up until then, her brother was with her. But he just walked off, leaving her to her fate. How do you come to terms with that, when it's all over?
Eva's story isn't just a story - it's true. Evelyne only now refers to herself as being happy because her children and husband make up her world. But it was only after she was able to let the buried pain of so many years ago burst through in a book. It's a book that's beautifully written, gripping and heart wrenching. The first segment of this story was extremely descriptive, sometimes making me impatient as I felt the start of a story hadn't really been established. In retrospect, the descriptions fell into perspective as one realized that each little detail had its place in the book. A book I'm glad I read, even if it made me sad and marvel afresh at the cruelty and unfairness we can heap upon each other.
Friday, February 5, 2010
I Read - Review of "Abandoned and Forgotten"
This incredible book details the true survival story of a 9 year old girl orphaned in East Prussia, northeast Germany, at the end of WW2. Harrowing action, brilliant and sometimes heart-rendering trauma, and hilarious incidents give the book a fine page turning quality, the writing is also fast paced and of high quality given that English is the author’s second language.
This book comprises a slice of history seldom told from an eye witness to atrocities no less frightening than those engendered by Hitler’s Nazi regime. For those of you who are not yet aware of the history of eastern Germany at the end of WW2 this book is a must.
You won’t forget this book, but you will recommend it to all your friends.
This book comprises a slice of history seldom told from an eye witness to atrocities no less frightening than those engendered by Hitler’s Nazi regime. For those of you who are not yet aware of the history of eastern Germany at the end of WW2 this book is a must.
You won’t forget this book, but you will recommend it to all your friends.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Brings 'american life' into proper prospective. Deeply moving!
An essential read!! An absolutely vital companion read for The Diary of Anne Frank. Tannehill's masterfully written account provides mature readers a beautiful, yet `in your face' experience; sweeping them into time and place as if a permanent fly on the wall. The child Evelyne seems to be always within arm's reach and her life's struggle become a salient, disturbing reality for the reader. Her short lived joys and affections, as well as her suffering, fear, and anguish become those of the reader's. Personally, this book exponentially deepened my own understanding of the East Prussian history, and the devastating effects of the Russian conflict. It provided me knowledge of historical events that I realize now were sadly were absent even in my college History instruction. The reading of this autobiography has provided me as a bridge of knowledge concerning historical events that are seemingly too abandoned and forgotten; I am awed by Evelyne Tannehill's ability to humbly, yet powerfully, bring this part of the past to the surface for re-examination; a true literary gift. This book pulled me out of an ocean of ignorance and now I stand on a firm land of insight.
Friday, September 11, 2009
‘Abandoned and Forgotten,' one woman's tale
Summit Daily News Friday, September 4, 2009
Evelyne Tannehill's book depicts the other side of World War II — what German children went through
By Kimberly Nicoletti
Evelyne Tannehill never discussed her abusive past, growing up in Germany during World War II and losing her family. She tried, once, as a young wife who revealed a couple horrors of her past to her mother-in-law. The response: disbelief.
And so, she clammed up, until several years ago, when she returned to Germany when the Berlin Wall came down. As she sat on a bus with German tourists sharing experiences about growing up during Hitler's reign, she realized her story was unique: She had been caught under the abusive power of the Russians and Poles after the war ended and lost her parents in the process.
While her tale is unique in that it depicts the German side of the Holocaust, it's particularly powerful in its compassion. Though she suffered terrible atrocities as an orphan after the war, she writes from an evolved place — one void of hatred and resentment toward her oppressors. She admits experiences like hers leave scars, but she sees that the situation “tested everyone's capacity for good and evil … cruelty of war spares no one, and atrocities were committed on all sides (regarding the Russians and the Germans, not the Jews).”
Her father was born a U.S. citizen but moved to Germany when he married her mother. He opposed Hitler and was singled out as a conspirator and placed in a concentration camp. Later, he was released, only to be forced into a labor camp in Siberia when the Russians invaded Germany after the war. Within a year, Tannehill had lost her father to the labor camp and her mother to typhoid fever, because the region no longer had good sanitation, doctors or hospitals.
“The Russians appear and unleash uncontrolled violence on us, their first German victims,” Tannehill wrote. “They rape the women and torture the men.”
Tannehill became a “street urchin,” without schooling, for three years. She eventually ended up back at her family's farm, but her parents were gone, and an abusive Polish family had taken over not only her home, but also everything in it, down to the dishes and medicine in the cabinets.
The 431-page book portrays her life, starting at about age 5 and ending a few days before her 16th birthday, as she is on her way to North America.
Still, Tannehill describes the true story as not one solely about her, but one about “a family and how we navigated these troubled waters — the war, the loss of the war, the invasion of the Russians.” But she adds, “You learn what happens when a child loses the protective web of her parents.” The four sections of her book describe life under Hitler, the Russian invasion, the Polish takeover and how Germany rebuilt itself.
Tannehill has talked to almost 100 book clubs and churches since the release of her book.
“The reaction I usually get is, ‘We didn't know all these things happened. We just thought in 1945 the war was over and it was business as usual,'” she said. “But even after 1945, it was years before the Germans could rebuild their lives. There were no jobs and there were food shortages into the 1950s.”
She's even had two Jewish women contact her, one to say the book caused her to reevaluate her entire attitude toward German people, and another to say she never thought of any Germans suffering — she thought of them as getting what they deserved — until she read Tannehill's account.
It took Tannehill six years to write her story and another four years to let it “sit.” For the first three years, no one knew she was writing a book — not even her family. But through the process, she persevered.
“It is my belief that history is best told by those who lived it,” she said. “I had a very important story to tell, especially for the American reader because it's a slice of history that very little is known … it's a story of war. This story could happen anywhere, any time. Even today, it is happening.”
Evelyne Tannehill's book depicts the other side of World War II — what German children went through
By Kimberly Nicoletti
Evelyne Tannehill never discussed her abusive past, growing up in Germany during World War II and losing her family. She tried, once, as a young wife who revealed a couple horrors of her past to her mother-in-law. The response: disbelief.
And so, she clammed up, until several years ago, when she returned to Germany when the Berlin Wall came down. As she sat on a bus with German tourists sharing experiences about growing up during Hitler's reign, she realized her story was unique: She had been caught under the abusive power of the Russians and Poles after the war ended and lost her parents in the process.
While her tale is unique in that it depicts the German side of the Holocaust, it's particularly powerful in its compassion. Though she suffered terrible atrocities as an orphan after the war, she writes from an evolved place — one void of hatred and resentment toward her oppressors. She admits experiences like hers leave scars, but she sees that the situation “tested everyone's capacity for good and evil … cruelty of war spares no one, and atrocities were committed on all sides (regarding the Russians and the Germans, not the Jews).”
Her father was born a U.S. citizen but moved to Germany when he married her mother. He opposed Hitler and was singled out as a conspirator and placed in a concentration camp. Later, he was released, only to be forced into a labor camp in Siberia when the Russians invaded Germany after the war. Within a year, Tannehill had lost her father to the labor camp and her mother to typhoid fever, because the region no longer had good sanitation, doctors or hospitals.
“The Russians appear and unleash uncontrolled violence on us, their first German victims,” Tannehill wrote. “They rape the women and torture the men.”
Tannehill became a “street urchin,” without schooling, for three years. She eventually ended up back at her family's farm, but her parents were gone, and an abusive Polish family had taken over not only her home, but also everything in it, down to the dishes and medicine in the cabinets.
The 431-page book portrays her life, starting at about age 5 and ending a few days before her 16th birthday, as she is on her way to North America.
Still, Tannehill describes the true story as not one solely about her, but one about “a family and how we navigated these troubled waters — the war, the loss of the war, the invasion of the Russians.” But she adds, “You learn what happens when a child loses the protective web of her parents.” The four sections of her book describe life under Hitler, the Russian invasion, the Polish takeover and how Germany rebuilt itself.
Tannehill has talked to almost 100 book clubs and churches since the release of her book.
“The reaction I usually get is, ‘We didn't know all these things happened. We just thought in 1945 the war was over and it was business as usual,'” she said. “But even after 1945, it was years before the Germans could rebuild their lives. There were no jobs and there were food shortages into the 1950s.”
She's even had two Jewish women contact her, one to say the book caused her to reevaluate her entire attitude toward German people, and another to say she never thought of any Germans suffering — she thought of them as getting what they deserved — until she read Tannehill's account.
It took Tannehill six years to write her story and another four years to let it “sit.” For the first three years, no one knew she was writing a book — not even her family. But through the process, she persevered.
“It is my belief that history is best told by those who lived it,” she said. “I had a very important story to tell, especially for the American reader because it's a slice of history that very little is known … it's a story of war. This story could happen anywhere, any time. Even today, it is happening.”
Friday, September 4, 2009
Summit Daily News, Friday, September 4, 2009
‘Abandoned and Forgotten,' one woman's tale
Evelyne Tannehill's book depicts the other side of World War II — what German children went through By Kimberly Nicoletti
Evelyne Tannehill never discussed her abusive past, growing up in Germany during World War II and losing her family. She tried, once, as a young wife who revealed a couple horrors of her past to her mother-in-law. The response: disbelief.
And so, she clammed up, until several years ago, when she returned to Germany when the Berlin Wall came down. As she sat on a bus with German tourists sharing experiences about growing up during Hitler's reign, she realized her story was unique: She had been caught under the abusive power of the Russians and Poles after the war ended and lost her parents in the process.
More to come!
Evelyne Tannehill's book depicts the other side of World War II — what German children went through By Kimberly Nicoletti
Evelyne Tannehill never discussed her abusive past, growing up in Germany during World War II and losing her family. She tried, once, as a young wife who revealed a couple horrors of her past to her mother-in-law. The response: disbelief.
And so, she clammed up, until several years ago, when she returned to Germany when the Berlin Wall came down. As she sat on a bus with German tourists sharing experiences about growing up during Hitler's reign, she realized her story was unique: She had been caught under the abusive power of the Russians and Poles after the war ended and lost her parents in the process.
More to come!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
