Dancing Under the Red Star (42 page)

Also, for important “plugs” along this sometimes broken road of life, I must thank the following:
(You know who you are, and, of equal importance, why I thank you.)

Jerry, Danny, Bobby and Billy Harris
(for so many early dreams in the grass. Can we still get back there?);
Bill Shepherd,
a prophet;
Tom Cook; Orther Shell
(for going against the grain. I’ll never forget);
Joel Crowe; Ken and Reva Calloway; Marty Celaya; Carol Hughes; Josephine Tringali; Arlene Piersall; Mabel Leach; Pat Fannon; Dave Lovejoy; Todd Cole; Rod Best; Art and Nina; Smiling Bea; Sandy Zimmerman; Leo Rittenhouse; Donna and Nathan Johnson; Char and Gordon Lumley; Fermon Williams; Dora Whitaker and Stephen Gerzeli; Debra Graves; Larry Albaugh; George Denlinger; Larry Lloyd; “Coach Mike” Connaway; Michael Gilliland; Darrell W. Davis; Jerry Kunin; Chuck Burke; the boys at “Friars”; Tony and Susan Faeth; Randall Dunn; Kathy Morris; Mike and Tammy Fisher; Leon and Joyce Barrett; Dan Norris; Tim Lamphier; Dan Petrey; Mark Ertel; Chris Dolle; Max Meyers; Luis Chiappi; Laurin Hiteman; Dr. Daniel Courtade
(for precious “time”);
Jackson Browne,
special thanks…for everyman!

In addition to their personal support and friendship, I owe a profound debt of gratitude and thanks to these folks for their inspired professional guidance, direction, vision, and creative talents in so many different areas of my project, which have greatly contributed to its completion:

B. J. Parker—
for ignition and takeoff; for painting a great roadmap!

Tomm Knutson—
thanks…for catching it! (You did not fumble; God had other plans.)

Don Pape—
thank you, sir! (“That cover will jump off the shelves!”)

Bruce Nygren—
thank you for your gentle ways and your discerning “steel tip shoes.”

Mark Ford—
for the cover that is “jumping off the shelves!”

Phyllis Gail Klein—
for your tough-love, brilliant, inspired editing, I am most grateful.

Carol Bartley—
Max was right; you are incredible!

Joel Kneedler—
for vision…and for not missing a beat.

Don Milam—
my special friend; I can’t thank you enough, brother, for your heart… and for everything else! Don’t forget: we have a date.

Alice Crider—
for your prophetic, visionary ways; your faith; your comforting and encouraging spirit of support; for teaching and for always knowing—and sharing—the right approach; for dealing with my psychotic e-mails; and for those three Dobermans of yours… I thank you, my friend!

My mother, Margaret Werner, who’s surely
dancing
circles around the throne room now, would undoubtedly like to thank her very special friends and loved ones:

Tina Tobien,
her best friend, the daughter she never had;
her loving grandkids: Karla, Matthew, and Kaleb Tobien,
whom she loved more than life itself,
and Khloe:
God just brought you a little too late, sweetheart, to meet your incredible Grandma Margaret, but you will see her later, I promise!;
Marie Nesbitt,
a true and precious friend!;
Harro Hall
(for so very much, then and after, which eternity will not forget);
Marita und Sylvia Kadlec; Nellie Burnet; Mildred Venable; Orther Shell; Bob Lenon; Chris and Teresa Holman
(for such new beginnings; for more than words can express!);
the Sehrs; the Prugels; the Knolls; Margie Cook; Carl Werner…
now you have found integrity!;
Elisabeth Werner,
her precious Mama, whom she loved most and best of all!

There are, no question, a host of others whom Maidie would need to thank. Some, I’m sure, she has and others now in her prayers, whom the dependable laws of this grand harvest have faithfully logged and have certainly not forgotten…

GLOSSARY

American Village
—Housing location for the Americans and all foreign workers under contract with Ford at Gorky’s automobile factory

aurora borealis
—The northern lights, or “paintings in the sky,” best seen in the northwestern hemisphere, which are brilliantly colorful and luminous displays of earth’s natural lights

Autostroy
—Automobile factory in Gorky under contract with Detroit’s Ford Motor Company

Blatnoi
—A petty thief or common criminal

Bolsheviks
—The radical faction of the Democratic Labor Party that eventually became the Russian Communist Party (in 1918) under Lenin

Bremen
—West German city

Brno
—Czechoslovakian city

Burepolom
—A much-feared Siberian lumber camp

Byelorussia
—A landlocked republic in Eastern Europe now known as Belarus; formerly a Soviet republic; sometimes spelled Belorussia or Byeloroosia and often referred to as White Russia

Chornyi Voron
—Trucks or vans called “Black Crows”; used to transport prisoners to and from the prisons of the Gulag

collectivization
—From 1929 to 1932, the Soviet policy that prohibited landowners and peasants from farming their ground for profit. Instead, their land and agricultural resources were pooled as a collective.

Cultural Brigade
—Official name given to the theatrical entertainment troupe in the labor camp

Donauschwaben
—German-speaking Hungarians with a unique German dialect

Dresden
—German city nearly obliterated during World War II by the incendiary bombings of the Allied forces

Finsterwalde
—East German city

Fürstenwalde—
East German city

Gedächtniskirche
—The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin; devastated by Allied bombing in 1943 and preserved in its debilitated state as a reminder of the destruction of war

Great Terror
—Sometimes referred to simply as “1937”—a time of acute persecution, injustice, and suffering throughout Russia

Gulag
—Political term for the place, the administration, and the operations of all Soviet labor camps. The secret police division that managed the camps was also commonly referred to as the gulag.

Hanover
—West German city

Inta
—Coal-mining town and site of several slave-labor camps in the far northern Siberian Republic of Komi. The city was built during World War II for the purpose of supplying coal to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) during the German siege.

Kanavino
—Suburb and major industrial center of Gorky

Kazakh ASSR
—In central Asia; now known as the Republic of Kazakhstan

Kiev
—The capital of Ukraine

Kiev City Ballet
—World-renowned ballet company in the Ukraine

kipfeln
—An apricot-jam-filled pastry of Hungarian origin

Kirov Ballet School
—The world’s oldest and perhaps most respected performing ballet company, headquartered in Leningrad

kolkhoz
—A collective farm

Kolyma
—An area in the far northeastern corner of Russia, on the Pacific coast, and home to one of the largest labor-camp networks in the Soviet Union

Komi
—The northeastern section of European Russia, west of the Urals; now known as the Komi Republic

koptyorka
—A Russian warehouse or storage facility

Krasnoyarsk
—Sub-Arctic lumbering region of Siberia well known for its brutal labor camp

kulak
—Term used to describe a wealthy peasant and those who opposed Soviet authority or the collectivization policy

Lend-Lease Act
—Also known as “lease-lend” in the U.K. This 1941 legislation permitted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to sell, exchange, lend, lease, or otherwise dispense to any Allied government matériel or services that could be repaid after the war.

Leningrad
—Seaport city in northwestern Russia (also called St. Petersburg), founded in 1703 by Peter the Great. It was besieged and nearly destroyed by German forces during World War II.

lesso-povalka
—Russian term given to the logging brigades of the labor camps

Lubyanka
—Notorious Moscow prison

Malyi Theater
—Originating in Moscow in 1756, Russia’s oldest drama theater

Minsk
—Capital city of Belarus (formerly known as Byeloroosia or White Russia)

MVD
—Ministry of Internal Affairs (secret police in charge of jails and prison camps)

Nine-hundred day German blockade
—The Siege of Leningrad or the Leningrad blockade, September 8, 1941-January 27, 1944, during which several hundred thousand Russians perished, due to starvation, disease, and cold during the German occupation

Nizhni Novgorod
—City situated at the confluence of the Oka and Volga rivers; from 1932 to 1991 known as Gorky in honor of Maxim Gorky, Russian novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist, who was born there

NKVD
—People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (secret police during the 1930s and World War II)

Oka River
—Approximately six hundred miles long; located in southern and central Siberia

parasha
—The common toilet or slop bucket in prison cells and barracks

People’s Court
—Gorky’s pre-World War II court, where Russian nationals were unjustly brought to trial by the NKVD for petty crimes based on trumped-up charges

pleurisy
—Medical condition caused by swelling and irritation of the membrane that surrounds the lungs

Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
—An executive committee (similar in most Communist countries) headed by the president and having power to act for a larger governing body

Prater
—Famous amusement park in Vienna, Austria

Proletarian Party
—U.S. political party involved in worker education and industrial labor movements; founded in 1920 by a group of Michigan radicals who were expelled from both the Socialist and Communist parties