Pardon My Hearse: A Colorful Portrait of Where the Funeral and Entertainment Industries Met in Hollywood by Allan Abbott, Greg Abbott
Authors: Allan Abbott, Greg Abbott
Ads: Link
towered over everything. We snuck up the stairs to the top floor, even though it was still under construction, and from an observation deck we filmed the whole coastline.
14
Lessons on Freedom from Kathy’s Family
On the numerous occasions we had dinner at Kathy’s parents’ house, the only language spoken was Russian. Most of the time, I had no idea what they were talking about. After dinner, we would sometimes watch TV. When we changed channels, a war movie would sometimes come on the screen and Kathy’s mother, Vera, would immediately get up and go to another room, mumbling something in Russian. Paul eventually explained that Vera reacted that way because of their terrifying experiences fleeing Yugoslavia during the war. Vera had lost her mother and four-month-old baby during the war, and she didn’t want any reminders.
Paul was 17 when he joined the White Russian Army, fighting against the Bolshevik Red Army in the Russian Civil War that followed the 1917 revolution. After one battle, he found himself the sole surviving soldier in a town surrounded by the Bolsheviks. His only escape was to swim out to a freighter anchored in the port. He was permitted on board after he told the ship’s crew that if captured he would have been executed immediately.
He was subsequently asked to get off the ship at the first port they reached, located on the island of Malta, which has been described by historians as one of the most bombed locations during World War II. He then made his way to Zagreb, Yugoslavia, where he attended a university. Four years later, he received an engineering degree and met Vera, his future wife. After they were married, Kathy was born in Skopje, Yugoslavia. They became quite well-off. Every morning, a driver would pick Paul up and take him to the government engineering office, where he would oversee all the other civil engineers.
In 1944, the Red Army invaded Yugoslavia, driving out the occupying Germans. Paul and Vera were told they had twenty minutes to evacuate because White Russian expatriates and their families would be imprisoned or killed. They grabbed two suitcases and filled them with some of their possessions and valuables that could be traded for food,like jewelry and gold coins. When they got to the Skopje train station, the only passage available was a train heading in the direction of Germany, because all the other trains were already filled with people fleeing the country.
Kathy at age 3, in Europe during World War II in 1944.
At the end of the railroad line, the family came upon a group of German army trucks being loaded with troops fleeing back to Germany. Paul could speak several languages, so he approached a German officer and asked if he and his family could get asylum in Germany. He was told that it was totally against regulations to transport civilians in these troop trucks, but Paul pleaded that he had a wife, two daughters, and Vera’s mother, who were all trying to escape imprisonment or death. Kathy was 4 and her baby sister, Tatiana, was only four months old. The officer compassionately agreed and proceeded to put Paul, Kathy, and her grandmother in the first truck, while Vera and the baby were loaded into the second one.
The troop truck’s headlights were taped over with just small slits to let light out to make them more difficult for the enemy to observe. On a winding road in the mountains of Yugoslavia they came to a sharp curve that the driver couldn’t see and his truck plunged off the steep grade, rolling over. A large gun crushed Kathy’s grandmother and broke Paul’s leg. The survivors were subsequently loaded into other trucks and they continued on to Germany, without anyone even attending to the dead.
Paul ended up in a hospital in Berlin, while Kathy, her baby sister, and Vera were interned in a displaced persons (DP) camp in Munich. They were transferred to additional locations, under very tenuous circumstances, because it was not known who was going to
14
Lessons on Freedom from Kathy’s Family
On the numerous occasions we had dinner at Kathy’s parents’ house, the only language spoken was Russian. Most of the time, I had no idea what they were talking about. After dinner, we would sometimes watch TV. When we changed channels, a war movie would sometimes come on the screen and Kathy’s mother, Vera, would immediately get up and go to another room, mumbling something in Russian. Paul eventually explained that Vera reacted that way because of their terrifying experiences fleeing Yugoslavia during the war. Vera had lost her mother and four-month-old baby during the war, and she didn’t want any reminders.
Paul was 17 when he joined the White Russian Army, fighting against the Bolshevik Red Army in the Russian Civil War that followed the 1917 revolution. After one battle, he found himself the sole surviving soldier in a town surrounded by the Bolsheviks. His only escape was to swim out to a freighter anchored in the port. He was permitted on board after he told the ship’s crew that if captured he would have been executed immediately.
He was subsequently asked to get off the ship at the first port they reached, located on the island of Malta, which has been described by historians as one of the most bombed locations during World War II. He then made his way to Zagreb, Yugoslavia, where he attended a university. Four years later, he received an engineering degree and met Vera, his future wife. After they were married, Kathy was born in Skopje, Yugoslavia. They became quite well-off. Every morning, a driver would pick Paul up and take him to the government engineering office, where he would oversee all the other civil engineers.
In 1944, the Red Army invaded Yugoslavia, driving out the occupying Germans. Paul and Vera were told they had twenty minutes to evacuate because White Russian expatriates and their families would be imprisoned or killed. They grabbed two suitcases and filled them with some of their possessions and valuables that could be traded for food,like jewelry and gold coins. When they got to the Skopje train station, the only passage available was a train heading in the direction of Germany, because all the other trains were already filled with people fleeing the country.
Kathy at age 3, in Europe during World War II in 1944.
At the end of the railroad line, the family came upon a group of German army trucks being loaded with troops fleeing back to Germany. Paul could speak several languages, so he approached a German officer and asked if he and his family could get asylum in Germany. He was told that it was totally against regulations to transport civilians in these troop trucks, but Paul pleaded that he had a wife, two daughters, and Vera’s mother, who were all trying to escape imprisonment or death. Kathy was 4 and her baby sister, Tatiana, was only four months old. The officer compassionately agreed and proceeded to put Paul, Kathy, and her grandmother in the first truck, while Vera and the baby were loaded into the second one.
The troop truck’s headlights were taped over with just small slits to let light out to make them more difficult for the enemy to observe. On a winding road in the mountains of Yugoslavia they came to a sharp curve that the driver couldn’t see and his truck plunged off the steep grade, rolling over. A large gun crushed Kathy’s grandmother and broke Paul’s leg. The survivors were subsequently loaded into other trucks and they continued on to Germany, without anyone even attending to the dead.
Paul ended up in a hospital in Berlin, while Kathy, her baby sister, and Vera were interned in a displaced persons (DP) camp in Munich. They were transferred to additional locations, under very tenuous circumstances, because it was not known who was going to
Similar Books
