Family mythologies are a hell of a thing. Today I found out why my Dad’s birthday is August 17.
I don’t remember how old I was when I found out that my Dad was adopted, only that I always knew. I also know that he didn’t tell me himself, someone else did.
The story that formed in my brain from overhearing whispered adult conversations and innuendo was this:
My Dad was German. He was born in 1943 in the Prussian province of Koenigsburg (today’s Kaliningrad) and after Soviet troops captured the city, along with the rest of its German population, he was loaded onto a train and deported. To save him, my biological grandmother threw him out of the cattle car, and he was shot and left for dead by the Soviet troops guarding the transport. A kind local woman found him by the tracks, and brought him to my adoptive grandmother, knowing both that a) my grandmother couldn’t have children and b) that she and my grandfather were such high ranking officials in the Soviet railroad so that they could get away with adopting a German child.
And this is what I believed pretty much my whole life, until my Dad died and I inherited his papers. Then I found out the “real” story, recorded on three yellowing, disintegrating scraps, some nearly a century old.
The most recent dates from 1977, four years before I was born. It’s a newspaper clipping, a letter to the editor.
It’s titled “And Yet, He Waits”:
To the editor,
We’re writing to you with the hope that after the publication of this letter, perhaps our multiyear search will move forward. And so we decided to share our story, even though it isn’t easy for us to tell.
In the spring of 1946 (possibly in April), a sick boy was admitted to Insterburg city hospital (now Chernyakhovsk). His name, as recorded in the hospital records, was Alexander Makeyev, born 1943 in Kresty, Velikiye Luki region. Diagnosis: “extreme dystrophy, pneumonia.” He also had a fresh wound through his left knee. Back then, he would recall that he was in a “train car without windows,” that “his Mom Elena had no more bread in her bag.” He allegedly fell from that train.
The woman who delivered him to the hospital left her Field Post address. But a letter we sent in August 1946 was returned stamped: “addressee departed.”
Alex got better and stayed with us. Grew up, got an education, has a career. Lives with his own family, is raising a 12-year old daughter.
Alex has long known that we, the people who raised him, are not his biological parents. And of course, he desperately wants to know if he has blood relatives.
Our search has not yielded results, no matter where we’ve written. We’re writing to your newspaper because soon after the war a number of people from Velikiye Luki region moved to Kalinigrad.
Maybe someone who knows something about Alex will respond? Perhaps we’ll find the woman who dropped him off at the hospital?
We want to relieve his heartache. We know that the love and respect of our son (yes, we consider him our son) will not diminish. But his happiness will increase.
Respectfully,
Ivan and Bronislava
That letter from 1946 is still there, too. It asks “Citizen Makeyeva” to come to the hospital and either confirm her intention to continue caring for her son, or sign a declaration giving him up for adoption. And just as my grandparents described, it is returned to sender for failure to find its addressee.
And then, there’s another piece of paper: it’s a contract signed by my grandparents, agreeing to serve as my father’s guardians.
It’s dated August 17, 1946.
