Since beginning this project, countless people have told us their own family stories from the First and Second World Wars. We invite you to share words and images from your history, which we will post here periodically. We hope to hear lots of stories from a variety of perspectives, so if you have an anecdote or memory you would like to share, either anonymously or with your name attached, please write it down and send it to us. If the story is fuzzy or full of gaps and questions, that's fine - memories and passed-down tales are often that way. Please note that we are not looking for fiction, but for your family stories and an accompanying photo, if you have one. Send your contributions to us here.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Older Sister

A photograph, yellowed and faded, softened with age, inexpertly repaired, with fragments missing from the edges. I am the older one - Elzbieta Maria. I stand next to my baby sister's carriage. A smudge over my neck blots out a part of me. Or is it a fancy scarf tied in a bow? It is hard to tell, the shape is indistinct and blurred. You can't see my hands, but I am not holding anything - no teddy, no dolly. You can't see my feet. I am just a round face with round cheeks, in a round woolen hat tied under my chin, indistinct bangs over my forehead and scrunched up eyebrows.

You think that I am about three years old; my sister's age places us in the winter of '41-'42 and you know my date of birth: November 11, 1938. I am the first child of Piotr and Zofia. You also know that I died as a young child from meningitis, but you have not found my date of death or my grave; you are not even sure where I died. I am imprisoned in this sixty-five-year-old piece of cardboard. Let me out. Tell my story.

Malgorzata Nowaczyk

The Netherlands

Like your grandfather, my father was a florist/gardener, having spent his teen years working in the greenhouses in Amsterdam. He later moved back to Friesland, where he worked about 10 acres in Buitenpost. During the war, he buried a number of large rain tanks in the ground and covered them from branches from the fruit trees. During a roundup, he and number of men would hide in these rain tanks. My mother would bring them food during the night and advise them when it was safe to come out. Many in their village were caught and taken to Germany, never to return. Religion was also a big part of their lives, especially my mother's. She too had little success in passing this passion to her sons. The pictures on your website look as if they could have come from our family albums, especially those of your grandfather working in the fields.

Pete DeVries

The South Pacific and the USA

Home movies show my granddad trim, smiling and smart in his Navy uniform. This is shortly after Pearl Harbor, and he is shipping out from California to the South Pacific. His red hair and blue eyes are faded, as are all the colors. He is waving at the camera.

A general surgeon, my granddad was assigned to a triage ship, which would pull up close to shore so that medics could disembark, run to the still-warm battle ground, and do an initial sort of the bodies, living from dead. The wounded, brought aboard, were again triaged by my granddad. Most of the broken men were then ferried to leviathan hospital ships. My granddad tended those who needed immediate aid. He also watched over the dying.

I never heard him talk about any of this, but once.

When winnowing through a lifetime of stuff, in preparation for a move from his lakeshore home - where he had planted fruit trees and sailed a wooden boat and raised a family - to a "controlled community" close to a cluster of shopping malls, my granddad came across a box filled with home movies. 8mm.

Some of the reels, though, were missing.

It seems that there's a lot of hurry-up-and-wait in war. Doldrums punctuated by terrible storms. When he wasn't knee-deep in carnage, he and his fellow soldiers were stuck on a boat, waiting. Waiting not for battle to begin, but for it to end. That's when their work started.

During these waiting times, my granddad painted a map of the South Pacific on the inside of a trunk he made from scrap wood hinged with flattened bomb shells. Through binoculars, he watched the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. And he trained his movie camera on the spectacle of war.

My granddad was an amateur filmmaker of steady hand, repeated takes, composed shots and in-camera editing. He talks of shooting battle preparations, of hundreds of dark war ships powering in from all directions, forming great, precise lines in the water, a harrowing ballet. Then the assault. The pageantry, the immense scale, the fireworks of war. He captured all this on color film.

Many years later, there was some big gathering of WWII veterans. My granddad received an invitation to the event, along with a request to share relevant mementos. Though he was unable to attend, he sent in his war films. He never saw them again, though the loss of the films seemed not to faze him. They must have played anyway on a screen in the back of his mind.

Telling me about these missing reels, and then about the war, in a videotaped interview I did with him when he was almost ninety, my granddad often falls silent. You can see him sifting through images of horror and boredom, logistics and longing. He brings forth only those memories he deems necessary artifacts. Penicillin. Camaraderie. Sympathy for the devil. These are the things that might save us. At the end, he waves his hand in the front of the camera and says, Enough about the war.

Julie Trimingham

North Africa

German Surrender: Memoirs of a Navigator

It was May 1945 and I had almost completed three years overseas. I was transferred to Tripoli for a short period, after which I was to head to England, and then home to Canada for a much-anticipated leave. On VE Day, I was on duty alone in the control tower at the far side of the airfield when word came through that Germany had capitulated. As this was the greatest news I could possibly receive, it called for a celebration - but how could I celebrate all alone in a control tower miles from the station? I looked at the rows of Very cartridges and distress rockets lined up in the tower and began my celebration the only way I could think of. Taking a Very pistol and a supply of cartridges outside, I started firing in all directions, stopping only to set off a distress rocket now and again. My hand became numb and sore from firing cartridges, but I kept at it until a Royal Air Force truck made its appearance. It was driven by an Italian P.O.W. and was sent by my mess buddies with a supply of beer to do me until my duty tour in the tower was over. It was a welcome relief to have someone to share my jubilation, even an Italian prisoner of war. I handed him the Very pistol and some cartridges and ordered him to start firing. He did as I asked, but with some hesitation as he was supposed to deliver the beer and return immediately to the station. I won out for a short period of time, and we stopped only because I didn't want to deplete the entire stock of Very cartridges. It was an unusual celebration, but one I will never forget.

Kenneth Livingstone Rutherford

England & Norway

Lost At Sea

Red Cross Street in Southwark, London, England, was a row of working-class brick houses. My uncle, Joe Deverill, was born there on 17 January 1898. His family, including a younger brother and two sisters, were members of the Salvation Army and his dad played a number of brass instruments in the band. The tuba he played was as big as Joe's little brother. When Joe was only 14, his dad died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving Joe as the man of the family to help his mother. What a responsibility for a boy so young! By the time he was 17, Joe had decided to join the Navy. The First World War had begun in 1914 and this would be a good way to have a steady job and serve his country. He left home to enlist in the Royal Navy on 30 March 1915, for a volunteer period of 12 years.

Uncle Joe was small for his age. His Royal Navy Service Record states that he is 4 feet 11 1/2 inches tall as a boy of 17. A few years later on his advancement to a man's rating he is still only 5 feet tall, has brown hair, gray eyes and a fair complexion. In pictures of him with his Navy mates, he is the small one, and liked to have his picture taken seated so he didn't look so short. His daughter Joan describes him as having "a quiet personality and kind disposition." He loved his work and decided to make the Royal Navy his career.

During this time, Joe's mother became seriously ill, so his siblings were fostered with relatives, and Joe, home on leave, sometimes took his little sister to visit their mother in the hospital.

During the First World War Joe was serving on the British destroyer H.M.S. Mary Rose. On October 17, 1917, his ship was escorting a convoy of 12 merchant ships (2 British, 1 Belgian, 9 Scandinavian) in the North Sea between the Shetland Islands and Norway. The Mary Rose led the convoy, about 6 miles ahead. Another British ship called the Strongbow, was at the rear of the convoy. Two mine-laying German cruisers disguised as British ships crept close to the convoy and attacked at the rear. The Strongbow tried to transmit a warning ahead to the Mary Rose, but the Germans jammed the signal. The Mary Rose heard the firing behind and returned fire, but as the ship turned it was hit full on and sank in a very short time. The Strongbow was badly damaged and was scuttled, and 9 of the 12 merchant ships were also sunk by the enemy. This was a disastrous day. Altogether about 250 lives were lost in the battle, and only ten men (2 officers and 8 men) from the Mary Rose survived. One of these lucky men was my 19-year-old Uncle Joe. Huddled in their lifeboat, battling the winds and waves of the cold North Sea, the survivors eventually reached the Norwegian coast near Bergen where the lighthouse keeper took in the bedraggled sailors, fed them and tended to their injuries.

After the North Sea battle, the first telegram from the Admiralty brought news that Joe was lost at sea and presumed dead. But just a few days later another telegram was received that brought the wonderful news that Joe had been rescued and was in Norway. Sadly this last telegram was received five days after his mother was buried.

While convalescing, Joe made some beautiful hooked wool rugs, and when he married in 1920, the rugs were used proudly in his home. He continued with his naval career, which kept him away at sea for months at a time, and when his younger brother and sisters left England to emigrate to Canada in 1923, Joe was away on HMS Verdun. He wrote them a heart-wrenching letter, saying he was very sad that he was unable to see them off. As the older brother he felt responsible and advised them to be careful with their money, to be wary of strangers aboard ship, and wished them well in their new life in Canada. "Well, dear brother and sisters," he wrote, "I hope you have a good trip across, and I want you all to remember that although the Old Home has broken up, we are still sisters and brothers and I would like you to write and let me know how you get on." As it turned out, Joe would not see his three siblings again for 40 years.

When they finally went "back home" to visit, about 1966, Joe was retired, living a quiet life in London, England with his wife and daughters. He still had the beautiful rugs he'd made as a convalescent, and proudly showed them to his sisters and brother. A year later, in 1967, Uncle Joe died of a heart attack.

Marilyn Charbonneau

Yangzhou, China

Before the war my father and his family lived in the town of Yangzhou, China, in Jiangsu Province north of the Yangtze River. At that time my grandfather was a schoolmaster at a local boarding school. The war began in 1937 when the Japanese Imperial Army invaded China. As the war approached Yangzhou, my grandfather decided to leave town with his family. Many of the teachers and pupils in his school chose to follow him as well, having nowhere else to go. As they traveled impromptu classes would be held at roadside stops. The greatest danger when traveling on the roads was roving bandit gangs who would steal from and kill passing refugees. To deter the bandits, the students carved wooden rifles from tree branches and marched like soldiers, so that they would appear to be a passing column of army infantry.

Towards the end of the war, around 1944, it became safe for my family to return to Yangzhou, although it was still under Japanese occupation. At around this time my father contracted acute appendicitis. He was about eight years old. The only hospital nearby was the Japanese military hospital, so they decided to take my father there. This decision caused a lot of anxiety for my grandfather, as he was an active member of the anti-Japanese resistance, and was concerned that he would be exposed if he took his son to the Japanese Army base. Nonetheless, a Japanese Army doctor operated on my father, and he remained in the hospital for about three months after developing an infection.

In 1945, as the war ended, negotiations began in Yangzhou to evacuate the remaining Japanese occupation forces and repatriate them to Japan. The townspeople had already looted the Japanese base and hospital. My grandmother gathered some blankets and food. She told my father and his brother to take them to the Japanese army hospital and find the doctor who had operated on my father. When they found him in the hospital he was shivering and nearly naked as most of his clothing had been stripped and taken. He wept as he received the blankets my father had brought. A few days later my father watched the defeated Japanese troops march out of town in a ragged column, including the doctor who now wore only the blankets my father had given him.

Sean Tai

Memories of a Nobleton Girl

Our public school in Nobleton, Ontario, was a one-room schoolhouse for eight grades. There was one teacher for about forty kids. During the war, we were divided into three teams – Army, Navy, and Air Force – and we had a great big map on the wall showing North America and Europe with the big Atlantic Ocean in between. There was a plane and a ship and a troop carrier to represent each of the three services, and every Friday we’d take 25 cents or more – 25 cents bought a War Savings Stamp, and you pasted them in a book. Depending on how many stamps were sold that day, the teacher would move each vehicle a little farther across the ocean. It was a great race, each of these three teams. It was up to us to get them there faster.

--

We collected newspaper and fat and lard and put it in cans, but I don’t know why. “For the war effort,” we were told. A local dad would pick these things up and take them somewhere, but I don’t know where. Lots of things were a bit of a mystery to me. But I know we knitted. A local lady came to the school and brought lovely soft yarn and string. My mother and grandmother were knitting all the time back then. We schoolgirls made these plain facecloths, soft soft soft, using big needles, and they were given to local ladies who packed parcels full of soap, cigarettes, balaclavas, and so on, for the Red Cross to send to the soldiers. My mother also made Christmas cake and packed butter into old baking soda tins – it came in tins back then – and she packed tins of salmon and things like that that would last, and she’d send these care packages to our relatives in England, whose food was more severely rationed than ours.

--

In Nobleton we used to stand at the side of the road and salute when the army trucks went by to their base in a convoy. And I don’t know if it was every Friday in the fall, but certainly often in September and October we used to go out with these great burlap sacks, and we’d pull milkweed pods* – the white sap was sticky and it would ooze out and there was this silky stuff inside. I think the pods we collected went towards the making of parachutes. In our town there were lots of men who were truckers and they’d collect these things and take them to the basement of the school. That basement was always full of things in those days.

Children from across Canada collected milkweed pods during the Second World War. The silky, buoyant “floss” was used to stuff life vests and aviation suits.

Liverpool, England

Sometimes, during wartime, a fiction can be as dangerous as a fact.

Rumours had a way of taking on a life of their own and in Liverpool word passed from house to house until it finally reached my grandmother Ruth's. The rumour was that the German Airforce had invented a new kind of bomb that would explode just above the ground releasing a tightly wound coil that would then spring apart, fly through the air, and chop apart anything-especially people- in its path. This kind of evil device would make itself known by the swooshing sound it would make as it flew through the air.

That swooshing sound had its desired effect on my grandmothers block as residents ran at full tilt during an air raid for cover. Behind them they could hear the coil as it spun through the air slashing everything in its path before crashing in a loud thud against an alley wall. When the "all clear" sounded and their heart rates returned to normal they slowly crept down an alley to view the dastardly device.

Laughter broke out as the top secret coil bomb was revealed to be a metal dustbin lid that had been blown off its can by a shockwave and now sat harmless, but somewhat flattened, on the road. How many others heard the same rumour and had similar close calls with dustbin lids, broken eves, garbage cans and mailboxes we will never know. Hopefully they too had a brief moment of comic relief before heading back home for a few hours of sleep followed by daybreak and a new batch of rumours.

Scott Dobson

Passchendaele and Canada

My grandfather fought in WW1 in the infantry of the British Marines, I think. He was on the Somme and incredibly survived Passchendaele. When I was about 10 years old my grandfather came to speak to my grade 5 class about the war. I'm not sure why this happened. It could have been because it was near Remembrance Day and we lived close to the school so he could easily walk over. I have the feeling it was a last-minute thing, not at all planned in advance.

Anyway, he came to the portable we called our classroom and spent about an hour talking with us and answering questions. I remember feeling quite proud of him as he talked to the class and skillfully diverted the attempts by the boys, like myself, to tell us how many Germans he had killed or other grisly facts and details. At one point he told us about standing behind the trenches on a quiet day and chatting with a friend. He left the friend and walked a short distance away to see to another matter when a German shell exploded. He turned around and his friend was gone. A minute earlier and that could have been him, he said. Almost everyone he befriended throughout the war was killed.

He ended his talk by telling us there was nothing adventurous or glamorous about war. "War is a terrible, terrible thing," he said. "I hope you never have to go through something like that as long as you live." A quiet unease fell upon the class when he said that. Even a bunch of 10-year-old Canadian kids could sense the horror behind those words. After a moment the teacher thanked him and we applauded, then he picked up his cane and left.

Jeff Winch

The South Pacific and the USA

My father's war injury consisted of losing half the middle finger of his right hand when the hatch of a US Navy ship slammed down on it. He did not like to talk about his time in the service but made it clear that the worst part of World War II was being at the mercy of the man he nicknamed Captain Bligh (after the infamous leader whose behaviour caused a mutiny on the Bounty) , the commander of his ship. Among many other pointless cruelties, the twentieth-century Bligh used to make his men stand at attention in full-dress wool uniforms in the South Pacific sun until they fainted. My father said that the men who held rank in the Armed Forces during the war were people who held none as civilians at home, and they relished abuse of power.

I remember that he commented that he could not understand the fuss over gays in the military, because there were gay sailors on his ship way back when, and it worked out just fine - except for the one who wanted him to share a bottle of formaldehyde.

Frank Bukowski went to war at age 20 with a full head of hair but came home bald and, at 6 foot 1, weighing 125 pounds. He married my mom and started booming babies (while simultaneously attending university on the GI bill - the best part of the war, according to him) along with the rest of his generation. Later, his short finger proved useful when disciplining rowdy high school students. He just pointed it at them.

My mother's war was typical for US women: she performed the jobs that had no men to fill them, doing triple duty as a teacher of Math and English and as a librarian, and later a draughtswoman. She became a horsewoman, tennis-player, and pilot. When my father got home he pronounced that "no wife of mine is going to work," and that was that. He didn't want her savings, either - he told her to use it for a fur coat and fine china, which she did. My dad's attitude sprang from seeing his mother worked to death (from "consumption") when he was eight, but the result was that we were dirt-poor and lived in public-housing projects (with the coat and the china) while he went to school and worked part-time. Thus began my parents' life-long competition for bragging rights with their peers about who had been poorer and worked harder, a hallmark of their generation.

Denise Bukowski

The Ukraine

When I was thirteen years old, Schindler's List was the movie everyone was abuzz about. With a precocious pre-teen mix of "I've read The Diary of Anne Frank " and "I know everything because I'm in middle school," I confidently sat at the dinner table and rolled my eyes at my father when he said that he wouldn't be seeing this movie. "This is one of the most important films made in decades", my barely decade old self stated. We'd learned about the German holocaust throughout our history curriculum and I had Jewish friends in dance class who had already seen the film two or three times. Confused by what he had against Spielberg or subtitles, I said, "Jessica's Zadie still has the tattoos from the concentration camp. I now know people who have been through the holocaust, Dad," to which he replied, "You always have, Adria."

We aren't Jewish. We aren't German. So I couldn't possibly understand what he was referring to. It was then that I heard for the first time that my grandfather, my father's father, was a survivor of the Ukrainian Famine, the Stalin era and a concentration camp where he lost all of his siblings. How was it possible that the smiling old man with the broken English that taught me to play chess and pushed me on the park swings for hours had this complex identity and tragic history that I knew nothing about? I have since hung on every word he might have shared with us and any glimpses into this personal story that he imparted were stored away and recounted to my sister and cousins who might have heard other stories over other bowls of Borscht. Often too dark to share, it was these occasional storytelling sessions that make up the mosaic that was a fascinating life, one that I still hope to uncover much more about.

Adria Iwasutiak

Ypres, Belgium

Greater Love Hath No Man

Uncle Sam and John grew up together at Winnipeg, Manitoba. They were like brothers. They joined the same regiment at the start of the First World War and were sent overseas together. In 1915, during the great Battle of Ypres in Belgium, Canadian troops were attacked, completely by surprise, with chlorine gas - the first use of this deadly weapon in warfare. The Canadian forces suffered heavy casualties. Severely wounded by machine-gun fire and his respiratory system virtually destroyed by chlorine gas, Uncle Sam was shipped home to the Veteran's Hospital near Winnipeg, a living corpse, to die.

I first met Uncle Sam at Uncle George's farm near Winnipeg when I was a youngster during the 1930's. My family lived in Alberta and, for several summers, we vacationed at the farm. Sam was brought to the farm from hospital to visit one day. Before he arrived, Uncle George cautioned us children not to be noisy around Sam. He whispered to us that Uncle Sam was dying - that he would not be with us much longer. Uncle George was a big, tough, prairie farmer, with the nickname "Irish." The years passed and Sam eventually outlived Irish.

John came home to Winnipeg when the war ended having survived many battles. He married Emma who had waited years for his return. They did not have any children - they devoted their lives to Uncle Sam. They established a home in a rural area near the Vet's Hospital and renovated a large room with equipment to serve Sam's needs. It had a large window which provided a view of a beautiful park area. Every weekend, they would bring Sam home from the hospital to "Sam's Room." He relaxed much of his time during these visits in his wheelchair in front of the large window. During the week, John and Emma visited Sam every day at the hospital, and on many warm, sunny days they took him for a car ride in the quiet countryside.

Shortly before my mother died in 1978 at 85 years of age, she and I were chatting about family and events long past. She mentioned Uncle Sam. I commented that the remarkable devotion of John and Emma to Sam for over forty years was an act of charity beyond human understanding.

She said, "Oh, I thought you knew - Sam saved John's life on the battlefield at a place called Ypres."

Keith Latta

Falaise, France

Memories of a 1938 green Ford Roadster

A short distance from where I live in Victoria, BC, there is a beautiful tree-lined street named Falaise Drive. It is named in memory of those who made the supreme sacrifice for their country during the great Battle of Falaise in WWII. This battle was fought for many days in and around the city of Falaise in Normandy during the summer of 1944, shortly after the invasion of Europe. I usually go for a long walk alone on Falaise Drive during each Remembrance Day, lost in memories of that summer of 1944.

The Burkett family lived across the street from where I grew up in Edmonton. There were eight children in the family, which included Tom, who was a few years older than myself, and twin brothers, Maury and Ronnie, who were several years older than Tom. About the time of the start of WWII, the family moved several miles away but we kept in close contact.

Tom was like an older brother to me and was my mentor when we were growing up, and we were constantly together. The twins went off to war serving in the Canadian Army about 1942. Several years prior to leaving, Maury acquired a 1938 green Ford Roadster. The car was in mint condition and Maury spent a great deal of his time polishing and tuning the car - it was the joy of his life. When he left for overseas duty he locked the car in a section of the family garage and instructed that nobody was to drive the car while he was away. 

A few weeks prior to the Battle of Falaise in 1944, Tom showed me a letter he had received from Maury. Maury stated that he had "bad feelings" about the future and felt he would not be returning home. He stated that if he did not return, he wanted Tom to have the Ford Roadster - a battlefield will. Shortly after the battle started, Tom drove slowly into my yard one day in the Roadster. I rushed over to the car. Tom got slowly out of the car in silence. We simply hugged each other and wept.

Ronnie was with the same unit as Maury but was a transport driver, not a combat soldier. Shortly after Maury was killed in action, the army was desperately in need of reinforcements because of heavy losses. Ronnie was handed a gun and ordered to the front lines. He was immediately killed by "friendly fire." During the chaos of the battle, low-flying American bombers inadvertently dropped their bombs on Canadian troops.

Today, in the green, peaceful hills near the city of Falaise there is a Canadian military cemetery. Maury's grave is marked with the traditional white military headstone. On a stone wall a short distance away, among many other plaques, there is a plaque with Ronnie's name and other information - his remains were never recovered.

The Burkett family was devastated by the loss of the twins within a few days of each other. Their mother had a complete breakdown and remained a recluse the rest of her life. I never saw her again. The last time I saw the father was after his retirement during the 1960's. He was suffering from depression. He had been a prison guard at Fort Saskatchewan Jail, near Edmonton. His last tour of duty was guarding for many months a young prisoner named Robert Cook. His last duty was escorting Cook to the gallows. Cook was the last person executed in the Province of Alberta before capital punishment was abolished. He was the same age when executed as Maury and Ronnie when they were killed.

A few years ago, while walking alone along Falaise Drive on Remembrance Day, I was startled to notice a 1938 green Ford Roadster driving slowly towards me, some distance up the drive. There were no other vehicles to be seen. I stood on the curb as if in a trance, my heart pounding. But as the car drove past me, I realized that, although it was green, it was not a 1938 Ford Roadster.

Keith Latta

Poland

I remember one very cold winter morning in 1940. As a child of about eight I sat in the sled drawn by two horses and I was horrified. My family and I were put on the sled and driven to the nearest railway station. In front and behind us, a long row of sleds were moving with Polish people like us. Women and children cried and men had pale faces. My mother stopped crying now, but I didn't like the way she stared ahead of her, not paying attention to my baby brother Andrzejek who bawled in her arms. She probably was squeezing him too hard without even knowing it.

We were nearing the curve in the road, when I glanced up at our chimney. And yes, I knew then that I was not to see it again in my life, for I was leaving my birthplace and Poland forever. The awfully scary Russians, who had occupied our country, were deporting us all to Siberia, I heard grown-ups saying. And that Siberia was a freezing place where we were to starve from hunger and die from cold.

For some reason, maybe to make this tragic morning survivable, I went back to the last summer. I'm sitting in the shade of a willow tree by a stream cutting our cow pasture in half. My younger sisters, Jozia and Helcia, and I are making houses out of mud. We make a long street with a couple of houses, including our homestead and the wall that represents the forest. The forest guards our wooden buildings. On the bottom by our feet we make the Lubaczowka River.

It's late in the afternoon and when feeling hunger I turn to look at our chimney, our dear old chimney. The smoke is coming out of it and I smile at it. "Mama is making a supper," I say to my sisters. They look up at me and repeat, "supper," and they lick their lips and pat their stomachs. I'm already drooling just thinking of a thick potato-and-carrot soup with pieces of browned fried onions and salted pork swimming on the top of the kettle.

"Keep that quilt tight around you or you'll freeze," my Tata's voice brought me back to the awful reality.

The sleds stopped at the railway station where, in the rising sun, we saw a long row of train wagons standing on the tracks and looking like huge worn out coffins. The Russians on horses and guns pointing at us, told us to get down and to climb into the awful boxes. We all obeyed without saying a word.

My family occupied a corner on the upper berth on the right. There were two double sets of them divided by a narrow space where an iron stove stood. It looked like a huge pipe my grandfather liked to smoke. Next to the stove was a hole in the floor for us to use as an outhouse, as I found out that day. I settled down by the tiny window with Stas crowding me from one side and Marysia from the other. Stas was my older brother who had black hair and dark eyes. Marysia was my older sister with hazel eyes and straight light brown hair. Next to us sat Tata who was embracing my little sisters. He was praying I could see. His dark moustache was turned upward and its corners were curled. Our pretty Mama was breast-feeding our blue-eyed baby Andrzejek and I was glad.

The wagon was dirty and smelly. It made me think of our barn needing to be cleaned of cows and horses' poops. Now I would give anything to be in the barn than in this box packed from corner to corner with our people. I heard children crying and grownups sniffling near me and saw tears running down some faces. It's good thing that Mama's face was dry now although there was no color on it. I shuddered remembering how she behaved earlier this morning.

There is a horrible pounding at our door and the voice in Russian language orders us to open up in the name of Russia. Tata gets up and lets three men in. There is a Ukrainian man we know and two strangers - Russian soldiers with guns. The Russian with the voice tells us to get out of beds, dress and pack for the road.

"Where are you taking us?" Mama says in already wet voice.

"We have orders to evacuate you to Lwow," the soldiers answers, his gun points straight at Mama picking up Andrzejek who starts to scream. She wraps him up with the corner of her quilt.

"Why there?" Mama yells out. She covers the baby's face and I wonder if she wants to suffocate the poor thing.

He shrugs. "Get ready for the road! You have two hours to get your things together."

Now Mama screams, in awful scary and screechy scream. She is frightening me more than the pounding at our door, which awoke us. I start bawling and so do my youngest sisters who sit in the small bed next to Mama's. But the bad men don't care about our crying. The Russian with the voice steps closer to Mama and his gun is much too close to her face. His companion points his gun at Tata, who had just lit our gasoline lamp, placed on the table near the brick stove. Before going to sleep earlier tonight, it was heating our room by burning fat logs. But now it is cold and gray of ashes. Because of heating problem, this large room serves us as a living and sleeping quarters in winters. That's why the Russians and the Ukrainian person find us all here now.

"We refuse to leave our house!" Mama says in a choking voice but strong enough to tell me that she is awfully angry. "You are lying. You are exile us into Siberia and we know that!"

But the other soldier, who points the gun at Tata, says for the first time, "I advise you to get ready for the trip and to pack things you will need on the road."

"No! No!!! We are staying in our beds," Mama screams again. "Shoot us all

here. It would be better to die quickly in our home than die slowly of cold and starvation in your country."

I close my eyes tight expecting to be shot but nothing happens. The soldier at Tata's side says coming closer to him with his gun and says, "Get ready or we will take you out in your nightclothes and without your things."

Mama stops crying and uncovers Andrzejek's face and I sigh with a relief. Tata is changing in daytime clothes and he tells us to do the same. Then he, Stas, Marysia and even the Ukrainian man begin to gather our belongings. When the large trunk is full, they put some pieces into bundles. I want to take our Christmas decorations but Mama shakes her head.

"I'm thirsty, Tata. I want some water," Jozia's voice brought me back to the wagon.

Our first day and night passed away very slowly with us licking frost from the nails and iron parts in the walls. We did scrape and lick so as to ease the awful want for water. While sitting in my tiny window, which was finally opened, I breathed in cold but fresh air and I felt lucky to sit in my spot. People on the lower berths had no windows at all, tiny as they were. When I looked out, once in awhile, I saw the Russian soldiers pacing by the train. Their guns were scaring me all over again. If I only had something to drink I could fall asleep. But later on, after Mama spread our bed covers over the hard planks, I closed my eyes. But I ached from lying still on a side only and having my arms either over my head or straight at me sides. We had to somehow fit in our space that was not large enough for our family. We felt squashed no matter whether we sat or lay.

For three days the train stood on the tracks in Poland and we sat locked in. They gave us water to drink twice and a soup only once. Today we got nothing. Jozia and Helcia kept asking my parents for water and something to eat, but Tata only patted their heads and Mama gave each a hug while tears ran down her cheeks.

When it got dark inside our wagon, we settled down for the night as best as we could. Feeling crowded and uncomfortable it took me awhile to fall asleep. I didn't know how long I was resting. But something horrifying made me sit up. "The train is moving," I heard Marysia say near me. I only saw her shadow for we had no light in the wagon. "The bumping of the wagons into one another has brutally awakened us," said someone in the depth of out berth. "We are leaving Poland," Mama said in a wet voice. "Dear God they are exiling us to Russia," voices cried out.

Some women and children on both double berths were crying. Jozia and Helcia did the same, yet I didn't feel anything but numbness of my chest. "This is the end of my, our world," I say silently. "Like Mama said that morning in her bed, we are going to die in that terrible place called Siberia."

Then someone started to sing our national hymn and others followed. I sang too as loud as I could. First we sang, JESZCZE POLSKA NIE ZGINELA, POKI MY ZYJEMY (Poland is not lost as long as we are still alive). We also went through several church songs. Slowly the crying stopped, for the singing replaced it. Our singing was loud enough to muffle the awful sound that the wheels underneath us were making.

For the rest of the night and the next day the train kept going. We all knew that it was taking us away, away from our beloved Poland. But there was nothing we could do but to let it move forward, eastward. Came noon and Tata told us that we had already cross the border and getting farther and farther into Russia. There was nothing for me to do but to sit in the window. I saw villages and small towns, fields and woods covered with snow running backward by me.

Jane Boruszewski

Canada, England and Dieppe

Rite of Passage

"Enlist in the Canadian Army" read the poster on the drug store window in Owen Sound. It was an invitation that had echoed through the mind of fifteen-year-old Charles MacArthur ever since he was a wee lad. Charles' father had been in World War 1 and was overseas right now, exactly where Charles wished he was.

The tall, dark haired, blue-eyed boy had dreamed about wearing the handsome uniform, making the long voyage across the Atlantic, and finally fighting for his country, alongside his Canadian comrades. Charles had always been a determined boy and on this day when the poster spoke to him, he decided he could wait no longer. Fate would be his ticket. He would climb any mountain, sleep in any trench, brave all the elements. Charles was prepared to die for his country. And to lie for his passage into a whole new world called war. Being almost sixteen he reasoned that by the time he got his assignment he might even be seventeen. Who would know the difference? He felt a calling, a hunger, a deep desire to go and prove himself among his Canadian brothers.

One year later, aboard the ship Determinata , Charles clutched his gut and heaved into the bucket once again. Life in the belly of the ship was not what he had expected. He had been on board for three days and felt no relief from the continuous undulation of the waves. Praying for relief, he slept in between the gaps of deplorable, wretched consciousness.

Never had Charles been so utterly grateful to see dry land, as on the day he set foot on solid British soil. Laying on his bunk that first night, seven pounds lighter than when he left, Charles wondered how long he could keep hidden, the secret of his true age. Could he manage to fool his comrades, the army, his country, for a full year more? He was privately grateful for his mature appearance and knew he would have to act the part. Charles drifted off to sleep with his mother's distant, soothing lullaby wrapped around him.

Charles adjusted to army life easily. He tolerated the food just fine; porridge, mutton, powdered eggs and canned corn beef. Being one of eight siblings, he knew how to handle himself among the gentry he met. Charles was a friendly chap, and struck up friendships with several of the younger men. Army life was swell. Charles felt happy to be where he'd always wanted to be, doing what he'd always wanted to do, live in the lap of armoury.

Two weeks after arriving in bonny England, Captain Radford abruptly summoned Charles to the Main Office of the Camp. Charles decided to play innocent and hope for the best. He stood for three hours in a tiny room, waiting, wondering, waiting, knowing, waiting some more.

After some time, he heard shuffling outside the door and then a voice that made his blood run cold. "What is it you want with me?" he heard the familiar voice say. Captain Radford swung the door open with great gusto and asked the tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed man, "Do you know this boy?" Charles' father didn't know whether to gather his son into his arms or cuff him one along the ear. "What are you doing here?" Gray MacArthur asked his son. "Came to fight, like you," responded Charles, mustering all the courage he had. "Couldn't wait eh? You're not of age yet boy." "No, sir, but I'm here and I can do the job," countered Charles. "We'll see about that," said Gray MacArthur in his commanding bass voice. With that, he put his strong, muscular arm around his son's shoulder and they exited the Main Office.

Two days later Charles boarded the ship Inevita and waved goodbye to his father and comrades. Slowly, England became a distant dot on the horizon.

As Gray MacArthur waved back, he felt an assuredness in his heart that he was doing the right thing. So many troops had been gathering on the beaches. He knew from his veteran experience that a pivotal, significant attack was about to happen. As he waved the hand that had swatted Charles' behind and shown him how to build a barn, Gray MacArthur thanked God his son was a liar. It was such a gift to see him face to face even for a couple of days. Then he thanked God even more for Captain Radford who bent Charles' life's path forever.

Upon Charles' arrival back in Canada, the news on shore was that the Canadians had invaded Dieppe. Things had not gone well. Thousands of Canadian soldiers died in the attack. Charles had missed living his military dream. This time, Fate destined Charles MacArthur would live.

Michele Maycock

Ottawa, Canada

Competitions

My father delighted in telling everyone that he had married my mother in spite of the fact that she was a poor cook

"Mum makes heavenly chicken soup with knaidlach !" I protested. And her fluffy dumplings were a family favourite.

"Yes, she does," Dad admitted. "My mother's recipe, of course."

"And her gribenes ?"

My father always swore that Mum's chicken fat fried with onions was well worth every one of the half dozen Tums he had to chew after eating it. "They're excellent," he said. "Also my mother's recipe."

"What about her tomato relish? She didn't get that recipe from Grandma."

"No, she didn't," Dad agreed. I hoped he wouldn't remind me how we used quarts of it in a vain attempt to disguise the taste of the meat she served with it. Her hamburgers were so thick and hard we had to spear them in the middle with a fork and gnaw at the edges where they were a little less impenetrable. My brother Ray swore years later that he smuggled them outside and used them as hockey pucks during neighbourhood games of shinny, but this is probably apocryphal.

Mum not only had to cope with poor cuts of meat, she also had to deal with wartime rationing. She made salad dressing with flour and water, and egg yolks when she could get them, tasting and testing while she added varying amounts of tarragon, sage, mustard and chives from her garden. We had no car, so she bartered our gas rations for milk and eggs. She stretched a pound of butter by adding powdered milk and whipping it with a wire whisk, while a shock of her red hair bounced rhythmically over one eye. Her meat loaf was half breadcrumbs and when our meat rations ran out, she served us fish, usually haddock, and chicken and liver, which weren't rationed. There was no chocolate. Mum tried several ersatz concoctions in her various attempts to make it, but it was very bitter.

Mum's cooking may not have won any prizes, but she told everyone, "If there's one thing on which I pride myself, it's my homemade pickles." Shortly after they were married, Dad had given Mum a copy of his mother's special recipe for homemade dill pickles, and although Dad conceded that Mum's pickles were the best in town, he refused to go so far as to allow that they were as good as his mother's. My father had unassailable standards: he judged pickles by their taste, texture, and the force and duration of the heartburn he suffered after eating them. He assured Mum year after year, "Your pickles are wonderful, my dear, but they are not, unfortunately, equal to my mother's."

"She probably left a couple of ingredients out of the recipe she gave me on purpose," my mother muttered under her breath and she began to tinker with it, altering the amount of this and adding a bit more of that. Every year my father tasted them and made the same pronouncement: "Excellent, my dear. Really first rate. The best I've ever tasted, bar none. Except, of course, for my mother's. But that's understandable. She always grew her own cucumbers." It was then that Mum vowed to devote a special corner of her victory garden to growing the cucumbers and dill she needed to make her pickles.

My mother's flower garden had always been the envy of all our neighbours, but that first spring after war was declared, on the first good planting day at the end of May, she pulled her straw gardening hat down over her unruly red curls, shouldered her spade and hoe and marched into the back yard as though to battle. All day long she attacked the hard winter-bound earth, pausing occasionally to push her gold wire-rimmed glasses higher on her sun-burnt nose and sip cups of tea which she poured from a china pot set out on a table on the lawn. She dug up her lovely white lilies and phlox and her prize pink peonies and planted a victory garden--not a token plot like our neighbours', but the entire back yard--with soldier-straight rows of sugar beets, carrots, Swiss chard, peas and lacy leaf lettuce and plump tomatoes tied to tall poles, squash, yellow runner beans, fragrant chive and shallots bigger than my thumb. I had been given the seeds by my school, and the assistant principal himself came to our house and gave me a certificate of merit 'in recognition of taste, skill, and industry as an amateur gardener'. But the full credit should have gone to my mother, who spent hours weeding and watering and cajoling the fragile seedlings into abundance in the inhospitable sandy soil.

Mum had diligently researched the quality of various cucumber seeds and fertilizers before planting. As the seedlings grew, she stood in the pouring rain, covering the fragile vines with the heavy sheets she used to make our wartime blackout curtains.

Things came to a head one morning in June, not long before my twelfth birthday, when I awoke to the sounds of horrible shrieks coming from our back yard. I jumped out of bed, ran to the window and stared down at the victory garden below. My mother, dressed in her flowered cretonne dressing gown, was running up and down the rows of cucumber vines swatting viciously with a broom. "Out! Get out of my garden!" she screamed, scattering gray squirrels in all directions. She looked up at me. Her glasses were hanging from one ear and she'd lost one of her slippers. "They've eaten my entire crop of cucumbers," she wailed, and burst into tears. My father, in bare feet and pyjamas, led her into the house, sat her down at the dining room table and told me to make her a cup of tea. "How could this happen?" she asked him over and over. "I planted nasturtiums around each seedling and pushed moth balls into the surrounding soil, just as your mother advised."

My father did his best to console her. "You'll buy your cucumbers at the Byward Market just as you've always done and your pickles will be just as good as ever," he told her.

"They'll be better," she vowed grimly, wiping her eyes with the tissue she kept tucked in her sleeve. "I'm going to make the best pickles you ever ate, if it kills me."

A week later, my Aunt Lillian called from Calgary with the shocking news that my grandmother had died. My father went out west to visit his family every summer, but this time, instead of putting on his usual gray suit and broad-brimmed Stetson, he boarded the train for my grandmother's funeral wearing his best black suit, a black bowler pulled low over his horn-rimmed glasses and a black umbrella furled under his arm.

We got a lot of attention as a result of Grandma's death. Neighbours called with baskets of food--knishes, kasha, strudel, banana bread and lemon cookies. Even Mrs. Kantor, our elderly next-door neighbour, brought over a jar of her own homemade dill pickles. My mother thanked her politely, but when she brought the pickles into the kitchen she was frowning. Mrs. Kantor had at least thirty years more experience at pickle preserving than she did. Later that night, after everyone had gone home, Mum took a bite of one of Mrs. Kantor's pickles. "Too salty," she pronounced, pursing her lips with satisfaction.

When Dad returned from the funeral, he sat down in his easy chair with a sigh and sipped a scotch and water while he absent-mindedly sampled Mrs. Kantor's pickles from a plate Mum had placed on the table beside him.

I opened Dad's club bag and searched inside. "There are no pickles from Grandma this year," I said sadly. My grandmother always sent a few jars of half-sour dills home with Dad after every visit.

"There won't be any more pickles from Grandma, ever," my mother said, snapping the empty club bag shut for emphasis. It was clear that my mother now expected the title of champion pickle-preserver to fall to her by divine right.

Pickle preserving day at our house always dawned bright and clear on a Saturday in mid-summer. My mother would never divulge exactly how she knew which day was the right one for pickling, but my father compared it to the same instinct which brought the swallows back to Capistrano year after year.

"It's time," my mother announced impatiently that morning. She carried several large empty shopping bags. "Hurry up! If we don't get going, all the best cucumbers will be gone." She marched us all down to the corner of Rideau and Chapel, where we boarded an electric streetcar for the fifteen-minute ride to the Byward Market. There, Mum visited every vegetable

stall at least twice, pinching and poking. "Humph!" she snorted to my father. "They call these cucumbers! Mine would have been twice as big as these puny specimens!"

"But you don't really need big ones for dill pickles, do you?" he assured her. "I think these will do admirably." She reluctantly agreed and proceeded to haggle for the best possible price. We children knew from past experience that, depending on the size of the crowd and the staying power of the farmer's wife, this transaction could take some time. We wandered through the stalls, eyes feasting on the acres of flowers and fruit and fish and fowl laid out on display. There were dripping pails of gladioli, baby's breath, cornflowers and larkspur, carmine carnations and tiny iris and sunflowers as big as my face, aromatic herbs and hanging tubs of fuchsia and asparagus ferns, and rows of glassy-eyed fish laid out on mossy beds between mounds of raspberries and blackberries. The butchers tipped their straw hats over their eyes and folded their arms across their bloodstained aprons, while above their heads, trussed chicken and beef carcasses turned lazily in the fly-specked heat.

Mum chose bunches of pungent garlic, celery, aromatic pickling spices and salt, onions and peppers, mustard seed, white vinegar and granulated sugar. At last, laden with packages, we boarded the streetcar for home.

While my mother prepared the kitchen for action, my father took us out to lunch. This was a rare treat. Because he travelled so much on business, he had his fill of eating in restaurants and preferred a good home-cooked meal which, considering his opinion of my mother's culinary capabilities, was a remarkably loyal sentiment. To tell the truth, Dad was probably reluctant to part with the sixty-eight cents plus a nickel tip it cost to take himself and three healthy children out to eat. However, every once in a while, he broke down and took us to Weiner's delicatessen on Rideau Street, which was owned and operated by Mr. Weiner with the help of his wife and their three fat daughters.

Mr. Weiner made a point of greeting us and taking our order personally, as a courtesy to my father. It was always the same--a hot dog, French fries and an Orange Crush for each of us, whereupon Mr. Weiner said, "Naturally, Doctor, with such a large order, it will be my pleasure to bring you coleslaw and dill pickles, gratis."

My father thanked him, and one of the fat daughters brought a tray of clattering cutlery, dripping glasses of water and a bowl of coleslaw, and arranged them carefully on the Formica table. Mr. Weiner himself carried in the plate of dill pickles and put it on the table in front of my father. Mrs. Weiner and her daughters watched and waited.

"My wife's first batch of the summer, Doctor," Mr. Weiner said. "They really should set a few more weeks, but we would be honoured to have your opinion."

My father beamed at this acknowledgment of his expertise, tucked his napkin under his chin, cut a slice of pickle and lifted the fork to his mouth. He bit into the pickle and rolled the pieces around in his mouth. "Superb," he decreed. "A true work of artistry. Of course, you have never tasted my wife's pickles. They are quite remarkable. And my mother's! Well!..."

We arrived home from Weiner's to find our tiny kitchen mobilized for action. All other household activity ceased. Clothes went unwashed, floors unswept. We were banished from the kitchen, my father to the upstairs front verandah with The Citizen and his pack of British Consuls, the younger children outside, with dire threats as to what would happen if they returned prematurely. In the kitchen, pots boiled like vats in a brewery. Jars bubbled in cauldrons of water, then were fished out with brass tongs (which my father brought home from his research laboratory for the occasion) and laid upside down to drain on dishtowels like giant baby bottles. In the sink, hot water scalded mounds of baby cucumbers which Marie, our maid, scrubbed viciously with a brush. The glass doors of the cabinets blurred with steam.

My mother carefully placed celery, dill, spices and garlic into each jar along with the cucumbers and poured the boiling brine over them, packing the contents tightly. Finally, the last wax seal with its string wick was put in place and the jars were carried carefully down to the cold storage room in the cellar. Marie and my mother scrubbed the kitchen down to its customary state of surgical spotlessness, until a faint aroma of vinegar and dill was all that remained. It was only then that Mum felt she could, in all good conscience, take to her bed in a state of total collapse.

The work was over, but the worry had just begun. "I am not a superstitious person," she told my father. "But I've heard that pickles can be ruined by the proximity of a menstruating woman."

"That's just an old wives' tale," my father assured her.

"Nevertheless," she told Marie and me, "you are both forbidden to go near the cold storage room during certain times of the month. After all that work, I'm not taking any chances."

At last, after weeks of waiting, the pickles were ready to be tasted. My mother brought up the half-sours, which were my father's favourite, and put them into my grandmother's cut glass pickle dish and brought them to the supper table. We all stopped talking and eating and watched as my father put down his newspaper and took the first bite. He took full advantage of the situation, tasting and testing and smacking his lips until my mother couldn't stand it any longer and demanded, "Well?"

My father slowly swallowed the last bits and wiped his lips delicately on his napkin. At last he said, "You've outdone yourself, my dear." Mum beamed, waiting. They're very good," he added. Mum raised an eyebrow. "In point of fact," he amended, "they're superb."

My mother was delighted. "I know you think that no one could ever make pickles that could compare to your mother's," she told him, "but honestly, now that hers are out of the running, aren't these the best pickles you've ever tasted?"

He took off his glasses, polished them with his pocket handkerchief, then put them back on, curling the ear pieces carefully around each ear. "As I said, these pickles are superb. Truly superb." He took a deep breath. "However, much as it pains me to admit it, my dear, I'm afraid they're not quite as good as Mrs. Kantor's."

Tilya Gallay Helfield

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