Remembering Riga
Dr. Johanssen was enjoying his visit to Northern California. In particular, he loved the views from his daughter’s hilltop house. On this beautiful sunny and crisp California morning, he was sitting with his daughter Libby and grandson Rory and watching a new documentary on the Holocaust. Through the sliding door of the upstairs living room, Dr. Johanssen could see most of the valley all the way to the hangers in Airfield in Mountain View and a small sliver of the San Francisco Bay. Rory was watching a new three-part series on the Holocaust, that discussed the US response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises. Rory was working on a paper for his school.
After the moving documentary ended, the three of them sat quietly for several minutes. Then, Libby spoke, “Until now, I did not know that Otto Frank made so many attempts to get to the US. Just think about it. If he had obtained his US visa, his family’s history could have been so different. Anne Frank could have been alive today.” Dr. Johanssen nodded and said, “Luck mattered a lot in that war, Libby. Some families just got lucky, and some others just did not. It was that simple.”
“Why don’t you tell the story of that other lucky family from Europe, Grandpa? The last time Mom and I visited your farm in Wyoming you said that I needed to know that story someday. Why not now, Mom can hear it as well, I’m sure she’ll like it.” Rory said hopefully, with a smile on his face.
Seeing the expression on Rory’s face Libby said, “Yes, why not Papa? But hold on for a couple of minutes, let me go to the kitchen a get you some tea. Do you want anything, Rory?” Rory shook his head. Libby came back with a jug of iced tea and glasses and sat down. Her Spaniel Sammy hopped right behind her and jumped onto Dr. Johanssen’s lap as if that was her personal space.
Dr. Johanssen patted Sammy, took a sip of the iced tea, and began... *************
Karlis Baumanis, aka Karl, was crawling on his stomach, he was dressed in his all-white winter outfit. His movements were well camouflaged in the snow, barely visible. However, because of the sloping ground, he had better visibility further ahead. Karl was strong and well-built; his grandma had named him Karlis for that reason. Karl didn’t remember how long he had been crawling, but it must have been long because daylight was fading. Until now, he had not realized crawling could be so slow and painful. He did not lift his head or his shoulders for he could not risk getting captured by the Germans. If he was caught, he would most certainly be shot at sight.
Karl had heard from his friend in the Latvian resistance that
Latvia was already incorporated
as Generalbezirk Lettland one of the four administrative subdivisions of Reichskommissariat Ostland, the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the Baltic States (i.e., Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was administratively subordinated to Reichskommissariat Ostland, an administrative subdivision of Nazi Germany. Igor, his friend in the Latvian resistance, had also said that as of July 1941, those that were racially unacceptable to the Germans or who opposed the German occupation were killed or sent to concentration camps in other parts of Europe in accordance with the Nazi General Plan. What was unimaginable a few years ago, was happening.
Karl could sense the lights at the German camp at a distance. The lights were bright, the occupying Germans clearly did not feel threatened by the lowly and fragmented Latvian resistance. After another hundred-odd yards of crawling, he pulled out the binoculars from his white tunic, very carefully he raised his head, making sure he was still below the top line of the small hedge that sprouted out of fresh snow. At a distance, Karl could see the German camp, one
officer shouted an order and a few soldiers scrambled into a large tent. There were many tents.
Must be some sort of operational briefing, Karl thought. Karl had to go around that camp unnoticed and then trek another fifteen or so miles to go to the place where the Latvian resistance had rescued his wife and daughter. Initially, he had not believed their good luck, but then Igor had confirmed the news. His wife Sofija and three-year-old daughter Anna had escaped their German camp the previous night and landed in the hands of the Latvian resistance fighters nearby. That was the best news Karl had heard in the summer of 1941. He was so eager to meet Sofija and
hold Anna in his arms. Anna must be very unsettled, Karl thought, too young to go through this.
They had never been separated for so long! Karl and Sofija had a good life in Riga before the Germans came in. He didn’t know if they’d ever get their old life back. As a Veterinary Doctor Karl had a good income, his clinic was busy, and his services were in demand. Karl had a way with the animals, he loved animals, and the animals loved him back in equal measure. Sometimes Karl’s friends asked him how he became so comfortable with all kinds of animals, big and small. Karl always gave the same answer his grandma had taught him. “Do not be or do not appear to be a threat to the animals, Karlis. You’d see they would embrace you and love you. Animals are less complicated than humans, they are very trusting. It comes to them naturally.” Their own
house had a horse, dogs, cats, two rabbits, and Anna’s parrot, Val. Val always mimicked Anna.
As a teacher, Sofija was also meaningfully employed as well. After their daughter Anna was born, they became even happier. They had built a home and a good life for themselves, sometimes when relatives in Lithuania, Sweden, or Estonia called and said they should relocate, Sofija would confidently say, “Karl and I would never leave Riga. Why should we move to Tallinn or Helsinki? Riga is our city, Latvia is our own country; we were both born here, and we would die here.” That good life got interrupted as soon as the Nazis came. Within weeks their lives were unrecognizable,
hope and optimism were replaced by fear and uncertainty. No trace of their old life was left.
Their separation started months ago when Karl was forced to join the Gestapo against his will. Karl had tried to reason with Gestapo Colonel who came to take him. He had suggested, “I could keep my practice and be of assistance to you. Perhaps I could even assist your cavalry or take care of their horses?” The Colonel replied, “You aren’t a real doctor, who needs an animal doctor? Our horses are quite fit, and more importantly, the Fatherland has security needs. You should feel honored because you are being pressed into the service of the Fatherland with the best Gestapo organization. Who knows, if you do well, even as a local you might get a promotion someday.”
The Nazis mandated that he left his family and moved in with the other Latvians that outwardly supported the German occupation. Karl managed to stay in touch with Sofija through Igor in Latvian resistance, but it was intermittent. His stint with the Nazis was unbearable from the start. Initially, Karl was tossed around between the two organizations Riga-Rural and Riga-Urban, and then he was transferred to Mitau or Jelgava. For a brief period, he was even assigned to the Latvian auxiliary police, or Arāja komanda led by SS commander and Nazi collaborator Viktors Arajs. Wherever he went, Karl saw unspeakable horror and atrocities committed by the Nazis.
In Karl’s assessment, tens of thousands of Jews and Roma were shot in 1941, only because who they were, and no one could do anything about it. By the late summer of 1941, Karl could not take it anymore, so at the first opportunity during a prisoner transfer exercise, he escaped the clutches of the Gestapo. Since then, he had been a fugitive and a ‘dead man walking’ as the Nazis would put it. The Nazis had circulated notices with his picture and announced a reward for his capture. The Nazis had also advised local Latvians not to shelter a bad criminal like Dr. Karlis Baumanis. When the news of his escape became known, the Nazis raided his home, confiscated all his belongings, and destroyed his veterinary practice. Karl didn’t know what happened to his animals.
Not just that, the Nazis took Sofija and Anna hostage and transported them to a low-security prison camp for women. Igor had a cousin in that camp, Karl used to get occasional updates on Sofija and Anna from her but that had stopped a few weeks ago. It was becoming increasingly risky for Igor’s cousin to share prisoner information. Karl could not expose her to more risks.
Since the daylight had faded, Karl had a bit of an advantage, but then he was warned about the large sweeping searchlights and the German shepherds in the camp. Karl scanned the German campsite for several more minutes. He was trying to get the camp layout imprinted in his mind. He was more worried about the German shepherds than the searchlights, the searchlights did not have the olfactory abilities of that legendary dog breed. That dog breed had a strong sense of smell, his smell could waft into their nostrils at a great distance even with the slightest flutter of wind. He knew he should try to be far away from the kennels and skirt the camp around altogether.
Early evening is feeding time for the dogs, so the guards and the dogs would be a bit preoccupied. That distraction was his best chance. After eight in the evening those dogs would be unleashed by their Nazi guards, at that point they would roam freely within the camp boundary. That was the scariest time for Karl because he knew this breed. In order to avoid detection, by that time Karl had to be far away from the camp. Karl had a small window of opportunity, about a couple of hours; he knew he had to make the most of it. After this camp, the rest of the journey was easy.
Karl lowered his binoculars and secured those inside his tunic. He waited for another ten minutes and resumed crawling. After a few hundred yards Karl reached a ravine that surrounded the camp on two sides, he was on a lower ground now. At the ravine, Karl rose up and opted for a faster crawl on his knees. Because of the elevation of the camp chances of his being seen were a lot lower, he reasoned in his mind. He was still very well camouflaged. After another hour and a half, Karl managed to go around the camp entirely and reached the line of pine trees, the tree line was at a distance and gave him good cover. The long crawl had cramped the muscles in Karl’s upper and lower body, he needed to stretch and rest to get the lactic acid out of his system. As he settled down to rest for a few minutes and took a sip from his water bottle, he started hearing the
sustained barks. The dogs would have been unleashed by now, he thought. He dodged a bullet.
Karl’s remaining trek to the village of the resistance fighters was not entirely uneventful. At one point he came dangerously close to a band of German soldiers and their halftrack. Luckily, it was dark, and a major disaster was averted. As Karl went closer to the village, he became very worried about Sofija and Anna’s safety. They were sheltered by the resistance for the moment but resistance in Latvia was very confusing, loyalties could shift quickly. It included people resisting the Soviet occupation who were happy to work with the German forces, Soviet supporters resisting the German occupation, and nationalists resisting everyone who was occupying or trying to occupy Latvia. Then some people changed their loyalty when the Soviets started arresting and deporting people. Some shifted loyalties when the Nazi soldiers started killing Latvians.
Some others did when the Soviet Red Army returned. Lastly, there were people who felt persecuted, mainly the Jews and the Roma. They resisted anyone trying to kill them. Many resistance people joined either the German or Soviet armies as a means of fighting. Very few were able to live as independent bands in the forests. For Karl, that group was the most reliable; they were loyal to Latvia. He had to depend on one such group for Sofija and Anna’s transit.
When the Germans first arrived in Latvia, they found anti-Soviet guerrilla bands operating in many areas, some of those groups were swollen by deserters from Soviet units. The largest and most effective was led by K. Aperats who moved on to become a Standartenführer (full colonel) in the Waffen SS. Some Latvians resisted the German occupation undertaking solo acts of bravery to save Jews and the Roma. The Latvian resistance movement was divided between the pro- independence units under the Latvian Central Council and the pro-Soviet forces under the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement in Moscow. Eventually, the Russians took control. At this point in 1941, Karl had zero interest in their direction or ideology, his main goal was to send Sofija and Anna to safety across the English Channel and then join them later as soon as he could. Karl had the resources to arrange his family’s transit to England, his friends and relatives outside Latvia had been a big help because everybody knew how bad the situation had become.
But he still needed a few reliable friends on the ground in Latvia for Sofija and Anna’s safety. Since Sweden was a neutral country, he had paid a fortune and obtained new documents for the three of them. Through a distant relative in Stockholm, he got three new Swedish passports, they were safer now. He had arranged Sofija and Anna's transit in a fishing trawler, but that journey was days away. They needed a safe place or places to stay until then. Each additional day of stay in Riga had its risks. At some point, the Nazis would figure out that the fugitive Dr. Karlis Baumanis and his family had escaped their clutches. At that point, the Nazis would come after them with all their resources, that was scary. One of the other things that worried Karl was the fact that Sofija’s side of the family had some distant Jewish heritage. If they were captured, that fact could come out during interrogation. Just by the thought of that prospect, Karl started sweating under his tunic.
Karl arrived at the small village around midnight because of multiple stops and detours. For safety reasons all the houses were dark, but he had detailed instructions, it did not take him long to locate the brick outhouse behind the Orthodox Church. He waited outside in a bush for several minutes and then approached the main door. The door was opened from the inside as soon as he went closer, Karl recognized the tall muscular frame of Alexi holding a flashlight pointed to the floor in the doorway. Alexi was his other friend in the resistance, they went to the same school.
As soon as he entered, Alexi switched off the flashlight and closed the door. He did not leave the door immediately though, instead, he stood next to the door silently and kept looking through the eyehole. Then he turned to Karl and said, “You are a wanted man with a large reward on your head. Got to check if you had a trail, we could not endanger others.” Karl was exhausted, but he understood the logic, he simply nodded in agreement and stood silently. If the Germans came to know, it would be a disaster for all who were sheltered there, including Sofija and Anna. After a few minutes, Alexi led Karl to a passage, at the end of that passage he saw a small windowless room. It seemed like a storage room occasionally used by the church. Several people were sleeping on mattresses on the floor of that storeroom. At the very end, Karl could spot Sofija and Anna because of Anna’s bright red sweater. He had purchased that sweater for Anna in a fancy store in Riga after her second birthday. It was not that far back but it seemed like a long time ago.
Karl felt like rushing to them, but Alexi’s hand on his shoulder restrained him. Alexi lowered his face and whispered, “Stand on the side and be very quiet. We do not want to wake the others and more importantly, we do not want them to see you.” Saying that he tiptoed to Sofija’s mattress in silence and woke her up. Without waking Anna, Sofija got up from the mattress and walked to the side where Karl was standing. Her eyes took a few seconds to adjust, then she saw Karl. On
seeing Karl, she jumped and flung herself to him and sobbed on his shoulder for several minutes.
After that Karl and Sofija climbed up the stairs and sat down in the landing and talked for a while. Sofija looked pale and stressed out. Who wouldn’t, Karl felt. He saw that Alexi had left discreetly, to give them privacy. When they were alone, Karl asked, “How did you manage to escape, Sofi? She smiled and said, “It was not that hard actually. We were in a low-security facility guarded by local Latvians, the place was not far from where you and I went to school, so I knew the area.
“I observed the pattern of the guards all week. Every Friday evening, after their German Colonel left the prison, they would start drinking and having fun. They did not even do a headcount until the following Monday right before the Nazi Colonel came in at noon. After observing the patterns for some time, I used that window of opportunity last Friday. They would not have noticed our absence till mid-day on Monday. The guards had taken our passports and papers, they thought
we would not leave the facility without their papers. Igor’s cousin had said so when I asked her.
“But I knew that the Nazis will never return those documents and even if they did, after you became a fugitive, those passports were not safe for travel. Since I knew the area, I maintained a low profile till daylight faded and headed for the neighborhood where the resistance fighters were likely to be. Nobody knew us there, it was okay. I met Alexi’s elder brother there; he brought us to this Church site and said he would let you know. I had no idea how long that would take or when you might come. We have been here since then. This place seems to be remote and safe, nobody asked us who we were or even our names. Places of worship are still a bit safer; I think.”
He and Sofija held each other, both did not want to let go. They hugged and kissed multiple times; Karl kissed Sofija all over her face. Sofija’s grip was so tight that the binoculars inside Karl’s tunic cut into his skin and made an impression. They wanted to savor the moment because they did not know if they would be able to see each other anytime soon. Their life had suddenly become very uncertain and equally unsafe, nothing could be taken for granted. After some time, Sofija said, “I will go and get Anna, you have no idea how happy she is going to be. She has been asking
about you virtually non-stop. She does not quite understand what is going on with our lives.”
As she was getting up to go Alexi appeared from nowhere and said, “Don’t do that Sofija. It is not safe for you and Anna. She is a child; she might talk about meeting her father. It is also not safe for you two, if others see you, they will immediately figure out you are a family and start connecting the dots. You don’t want the Nazis to know that Karl connected up with his family. I’d suggest Karl could go to Anna’s mattress and hug her without waking her. If she wakes up, she might start crying, which would attract attention. I do not know all the folks in this shelter personally, some of them might talk, under duress or for their warped ideology. Some of them could even be German
sympathizers. Our resistance movement in Latvia could have split loyalties, please be careful.”
Karl’s heart ached, he longed to wake up Anna and embrace her, but his head understood the cold logic in what Alexi had said. So, he nodded and quietly walked to Sofija’s mattress and hugged and kissed Anna on her cheek. He also whispered in her ears “Daddy came to see you.”
Anna was fast asleep; she did not even stir. After that, Karl spent another half hour with Sofija. He gave her their passports with different names, other important papers, and detailed instructions on how to travel to the coast and who would pick her up. He explained all the necessary steps in detail including the date and time of their departure on the fishing trawler. Karl explained to Sofija that her Jewish relatives would finally pick them up at the English port of Dover.
Sofija and Anna would stay in three different villages with three different Latvian families until their departure for England. When Sofija left, Karl spent a few extra minutes with Alexi and explained the necessary bits to him, Alexi did not need to know everything but just about enough for Sofija and Anna’s next destination. Alexi said he understood the need for secrecy. Alexi suggested that they communicate through Igor’s team going forward, and Karl agreed. That was the safest way.
The next one week would prove to be the longest seven-day period in Karl’s life. As Sofija and Anna’s handlers moved them from place to place. Karl had to move too. He needed to be close to them just to make sure everything went as per plan; he could not do so visibly so he had to depend on Igor to provide him cover. He would typically travel after dark and pick up food and other supplies from Igor’s trusted contacts along the way. Some days and nights he would have to go without food. He sheltered wherever he could, some villagers were kind and offered to help, but more often than not Karl could not trust total strangers. After several weeks of being out in the open, Karl’s appearance had changed noticeably. He had long hair and a long and shabby-looking unkempt beard. He thought that suited his purpose, he looked like a typical army deserter. A local
deserter would be unworthy of German attention, Nazis liked disciplined people like themselves.
On the day of their departure, everything worked as planned. A small boat ferried Sofija, Anna, and two older women to the Swedish fishing trawler anchored farther into the sea. While boarding the boat at the jetty, Sofija waved at the empty coastline. At no one in particular. She knew Karl would be somewhere nearby. Karl knew what it meant, he prayed and wept inside his binoculars. The news of the fugitive Dr. Karlis Baumanis and his family escaping spread in Nazi circles faster than Karl and Igor had anticipated. They responded by creating more checkpoints and herding a number of people from resistance into Latvian prisons. Igor’s cousin was questioned twice about Sofija and Anna. For the immediate future, it became necessary for Karl to avoid populated areas.
Karl started spending more time in the open countryside. Only occasionally, Igor was able to arrange for a good meal and a place to stay. Igor himself was getting quite worried about Karl’s safety. A few days later when they met inside the forest, Igor said, “Karl, Latvia, and the vicinity of Riga would become increasingly dangerous for you. I am told the Nazis have increased the reward on your capture and they have circulated new notices – they have taken your family’s escape as an insult to their vaunted ego and efficiency. It is not going to be easy for us to get you out in the sea from the port of Riga. You should start moving west towards Tukums and then to Talsi. When the time is right you could get out of the Port of Ventspils, that port is not used by the
Germans as much. Most importantly, that would be much closer to Swedish-controlled Gotland.
“If we can get you to Gotland, from there more transportation options will open up. Once you start moving west, I’ll activate my underground network to assist you.” Igor also shared another piece of great news. His contact had informed Igor that Sofija and Anna had reached their destination. Karl knew that Riga was roughly one hundred miles east of Ventspils, and Talsi was about halfway or approximately fifty miles. Under normal circumstances, if one had good transportation, these are not great distances, but Karl did not. Karl didn’t dare to carry anything other than a small bag.
He had to constantly improvise, and that brought its own risks. In any case, he followed Igor’s advice and started moving west, it took him several days to get to Talsi. By this time Karl was almost unrecognizable, he was thinner, weaker, and shabbier looking. His hair and beard had grown longer almost obscuring his once-handsome face. During the last leg of his travel to Talsi, Karl hitched a ride in a Lumber truck that was going to Ventspils, the driver told him about the new German checkpoints and the Gestapo looking for a fugitive ‘animal doctor’. Karl remembered Igor’s warning and knew he had to be much more careful. Each day, he carefully evaluated his options for food and shelter and selected the one that provided more security and less exposure.
A day after he had arrived in the Talsi area, Karl was offered shelter in a Farmer’s outhouse. The Farmer seemed to be a kind old man, he offered Karl some old bread and wild berries. Karl moved to the dilapidated outhouse after dark and made himself comfortable by lighting a small fire. In the glow of the fire, Karl saw that the outhouse was quite dirty, it had a pile of firewood in one corner, and the whole place stank like hell. Karl did not mind any of that, safety was the only thing that mattered to him. He made a makeshift bed for himself and decided to lie down. Karl was tired, he had a great deal of accumulated fatigue. Somehow that smelly, dirty, outhouse offered him a
sense of security he was longing for. Karl fell into a deep restful sleep almost immediately.
Karl did not know how long he had slept; he was suddenly awakened by several dogs barking. For a few seconds, he was disoriented he was not sure where he was. He regained his bearings quickly and peeped through the eye hole. What he saw in the moonlight startled him and a shiver ran down his spine. He saw a Gestapo officer with a few soldiers and two German shepherds talking to the farmer. They were still across the field, several hundred yards away, but he knew his day of reckoning had arrived. The Gestapo officer was talking to the farmer for a while, asking a lot of questions, as if he was a bit unsure. Karl’s mind started racing: he knew running was not an option because that would prove his guilt and he could not outrun the bullets and the dogs.
The more he thought, the calmer his mind became. At one level, he was at peace knowing that Sofija and Anna would survive the war. At another level, he accepted his fate, that he might not see them again. With that thought, a strange sense of peace settled in Karl’s mind. If he were to die that day in that filthy outhouse in Talsi, it was okay. He had done his duty; he did the best he could for Sofija. Among all these strange thoughts, while watching the two restless German shepherds, suddenly, Karl remembered his grandma’s words. She always said, “Never be a threat to any animal, Karlis. You’ll see their behavior change. Don’t show weakness just respect them, they are creations of God just like you and me. In your mind tell them, you are a friend, not an enemy. Somehow, they’ll hear your voice, that is how their behavior changes. You trust them and you’ll be trusted.” Karl had no idea why grandma appeared in his mind, but her voice calmed him.
Karl quietly opened the latch on the weather-beaten door of the outhouse and went back to his makeshift bed. He left the door slightly ajar; the inside was still dark. In about ten minutes he heard the dogs barking right outside his door. Then he heard a sharp order in German with a few clicks. Karl sat up on his bed slowly, he realized that the dogs had been unleashed. As soon as the dogs came through the door their barking stopped, there was no moonlight inside it was pitch dark. It took a few seconds for them to adjust, by then Karl was sitting on his makeshift bed and making a welcoming sound through his tongue he had learned from grandma in his childhood. One by one the dogs came to him, he patted them and started caressing their ears and coat. Both of them slowly sat next to him and allowed him to touch and pat them. There was no aggression.
The Germans outside the door were expecting a different outcome. After a minute went by Karl heard more sharp orders in German, but the dogs did not leave his side. A few seconds later, two soldiers and their Gestapo officer entered the outhouse with large flashlights. They weren’t happy.
They saw Karl huddled with the dogs in one corner. Two soldiers pointed their flashlights at Karl’s face but saw a different person. There was no resemblance with the handsome face in the Gestapo uniform they had seen in the notice. That notice was circulated recently by their bosses in Riga. Now, they were looking at a tramp, who might not have had a proper meal in days. Sitting next to the dogs quietly, he was looking vulnerable and harmless. The soldiers could not fathom what the old Latvian farmer saw in him that made him trek all the way to the German outpost and alert them. Karl’s mind was racing, he thought they had recognized him, and they’d start shooting!
Finally, the Gestapo officer stepped forward looked hard at Karl, and said, “This filth must be a Bolshevik deserter, who knows when he left his unit. Look at his condition, he smells like a rat; he is even sleeping with the door open. He has stopped caring about his security from animals; he is not worried about getting arrested by the Waffen SS. Even our dogs do not find him civilized enough to grab. They think he is another animal just like them. He cannot be the fugitive our Riga headquarters is looking for.” The soldiers with him nodded. Agreeing with the boss was a requirement in the German army; they attached the dogs to their chains and left promptly. The whole episode was all over in less than two minutes! Karl was so stunned he could not move for a few seconds; he remained still in a sitting position on his makeshift bed as if he was paralyzed.
After some time, Karl regained his senses. He tiptoed to the door and looked through the eye hole into the moonlit night. The Germans were still there, standing in the middle of the yard, their loud voices were carried by the gentle nightly breeze. He heard the Gestapo officer reprimanding the farmer for wasting their time with a false alarm. The officer concluded by saying, “We do not tolerate this type of incompetence, if you do this again, next time I come here, I am going to arrest you.” Karl watched that exchange and realized that the ‘kind’ farmer had reported him to the nearest Nazi unit hoping to receive the reward. The farmer wanted him to feel secure and stay for the night, that was why he had offered bread and berries. That was the insurance policy to buy some goodwill with the Nazis. He also realized that the dogs probably did not have the time to prepare by smelling his old belongings. The Germans responded to the farmer’s call with some degree of urgency and that probably saved his life. That realization also meant that he had to leave as soon as possible because the next set of dogs could be very well-prepared! Karl left the farmer's outhouse before daybreak and met up with Igor’s resistance contact in the nearby forest.
When Karl recounted the whole incident, Igor’s associate panicked, he repeatedly said that it was a close call. He also stated that Karl needed to leave Latvia immediately because his presence was putting Igor’s team at risk as well. Karl’s next twenty-four hours in Latvia went really fast. Igor’s team arranged for a truck driver to take him directly to the post of Ventspils within eight hours. Germans were rarely using that port; Ventspils’ main traffic was due to the transportation of lumber from Latvia. The nearest coast from there was that of Sweden, a neutral country, so the
Nazi attention to that port was minimal, but the resistance found that port extremely useful.
The resistance talked to several ships that were going to Gotland, and finally, one fishing vessel agreed to take Karl for a small sum of money. Igor immediately advised Karl to change his appearance one more time. This time Karl shaved his beard and all his hair, and with the sailor's clothes Igor had loaned him Karl looked different. Just like a lowly Swedish fisherman or a deckhand who was bored with life. Thus, about forty-eight hours after the visit from the Gestapo dogs Dr. Karlis Baumanis entered Sweden. In less than a week from then, he boarded another cargo ship bound for the English port of Dover, and exactly thirty-one days from that fateful visit from the Gestapo he took Sofija and Anna in his arms on a platform in a railway station in England.
***************
Dr. Johanssen finished the story and took a long sip of his tea, the ice cubes had melted inside.
Rory sat through the whole narrative quietly, now he and Sammy were stirring both about to get up. But Libby had a strange expression on her face, she started wiping tears from her eyes and said in a choked voice, “Is that why my passport states I was born in the UK, Papa? And it is the
same reason why Anna’s, Mama’s, and your passports said you were all born in Sweden?”
“Yes, Libby. We had you, exactly three years after I took your mother and Anna in my arms in a
station on the Southern coast of England. That is how you and Anna are six years apart.”
So far, Rory was listening to this conversation passively, he suddenly sprang up on his feet, “What, Grandpa, what? That was you? That was your own story, the story of how our family
survived the war? Oh my God, you and Grandma migrated from Latvia to the United States?”
Dr. Johanssen waited for Rory to calm down a bit. Then he said, “Yes, Rory. Karlis Baumanis was my name at birth in Riga, Latvia. I became Karl Johanssen when we got our Swedish passports. Both your grandma and I escaped from the Nazis more than once because of circumstances and pure dumb luck. Many families weren’t that lucky which is why I do not like discussing this story often. I do not like remembering my days with the Gestapo and the other Nazis either, I’d rather forget that trauma forever. But I can never forget that. That is why I told you in my farmhouse that someday you should know the story of this lucky family. Without that luck, you wouldn’t be here.”
After he finished, Libby said, “I had heard part of this story from Mama before she passed away, that was how I could connect the dots so quickly. Anna never said anything because she was
probably too young to remember Riga. Her memory starts in her kindergarten in Manchester.”
Dr. Johansen concluded, “That is quite true. A few years after that we moved to the United States. Initially, we were in New York and then we settled in Philadelphia. You both went to high school there. When I look back, I wish all families got as lucky. For example, my high school classmate and best friend, Igor, who helped me escape did not survive the war. Without his help, I would not
exist today. But that’s life. That’s why we should be humble and be thankful for what we have.”
This fictional story (changed names and places) is based on the real-life experience of the author’s friend’s grandfather.
