I Heard My People Cry: One Family's Escape from Russia FROM THE PUBLISHER
Written as a narrative, this is a true story of this period in history when thousands in the Ukraine and Crimea were forced to escape from Stalin's Russia. The "tells it like it was, exposing the myth and propaganda used to cover up what really happened to Lise and her Mennonite Brethren family. The "is full of the life of the times, the inescapable resolution to survive and a passion for freedom. It is told entirely through the lives and actions of the people of Tchongraw, Crimea and Lise Huebert Toews Gerig who escaped in their midst.
It employs daily journals from 1917 to 1945 and Lise's words about her spellbinding childhood. Lise's father, Nikolai, urges his pregnant wife to flee Russia, promising that he will find her. One hundred and seventy people of Tchongraw refuse to leave anyone behind and march through the Ukraine singing forbidden hymns. Events are detailed as they affect individual members of Lise's people whose personalities, and the cultures that surround them, bring home the reality of their struggle.
Johann is a mystery, Nick Enns walks out of Siberia to hold Mariechen in his arms. Justina defies Stalin's officers. Heroic Elizabeth Koop Huebert empowers her husband's people and places herself in peril to help her children out of Russia. Lise tells us, "Love is all we had, Walter and I. We found each other again in time to say good-bye."
Lise becomes a photographer of note in Canada after she is able to emigrate. Her story enriches the literature of these ethnic-German people whose ancestors were among the first Mennonite Brethren of Holland. Publication of this "awaited the freeing of a cousin who was granted Asylum in 1998."
About theAuthor
Elizabeth Lenci-Downs was born in Virginia, Minnesota-a city settled by European and Scandinavian immigrants - an area rich with a mosaic of cultures and nature. "Growing up in that area provided me with unique parallels to Lise's life in Russia that are evident in I Heard My People Cry: One Family's Escape From Russia." says Elizabeth Lenci-Downs. They supplied the excitement and confidence that carried the "through five years of research and writing. A graduate of National Louis University, Illinois, she received her MA from Columbia University, New York. Lenci-Downs taught for twenty-five years. Currently she travels, writes and is a professional artist, awarded the 1995 YWCA Woman of the Year in Fine Arts Award for Maricopa County, Arizona. She lives with her husband Floyd L. Downs in Fountain Hills, Arizona. "
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