Thanks to Mike at Enns Visuals for all the hard work.  Stay tuned!!!

At a safe distance from the road, with a grassy pasture and a long curved drive acting as a soft buffer, there appears to be a quiet horse farm of little note or concern. Upon superficial inspection, it’s idyllic … a perfect property, almost certainly not harbouring any ghosts.

The Estate was called Rothensande which translates to “Red Sands”. Upon arrival, I realized my mother had been here before. She’d taken a photo of this property on a visit to Eutin in the 1960’s. I had a copy of the photo on my phone. Up until that moment, I had thought the photo was of “nothing” – just a farm property of little consequence, a scenic place along the road she passed by when she was a kid. I had totally dismissed it.

Standing in the centre of the estate, reflecting on my mother’s description of this place, I was struck by a rather ominous feeling. She had said, “there were unhappy happenings” here. I’d never known what those words meant until I was standing in the same place as she had stood to capture her photograph. Then I “knew” without a doubt that she had taken that picture as more than just a memory.

She was dealing with ghosts from her past.

You’d have to know my mother to know what I knew. Let me try to explain. She was never one to let rules or formal barriers get in the way of a good picture. I’ve seen her climb over fences, trample into people’s yards and even stand on the edge of a steep cliff (with certain death at the bottom) – just to get “the shot”. She’d been hissed at by snakes and fallen down in craggy rocks, yelling “oooohhh!” all the way back, her knees bleeding, but she got that picture of the desert rose by the cactus – and it’s beautiful.  She’d even climbed through an electric fence to get farther back, trying to get the whole view of an alpine mountain into the frame of her camera. She would do just about anything or go anywhere to accomplish want she had on her mind.

Yet, for this picture, she didn’t get close at all.

The estate is in the distance. Small-looking. She could have climbed over the fence or gone down the drive just a bit to get a better vantage point if she’d wanted to. There were any number of ways to get a better picture. She didn’t even get the name of the estate in the frame – just a few buildings in the far-off distance. Not even a small attempt to get a picture of the big house which she lived in for a short time.

What I imagine, is a woman, so haunted by the ghosts of a place, that she dared not get any closer. She took a quick snapshot and kept on her way.

My mother’s photograph from 1968.

Not so long ago, Rothensande was an orphanage, but it has lived many lives both before and after that time. Perhaps most famously, in the 1950’s, (post-orphanage era) the property was used as the set for filming the “Gut Immenhof” series of movies – you might look at these films as the German equivalent of our Anne of Green Gables films. Rothensande was, and still seems an ideal piece of heaven, built for the purpose of luxury and enjoyment. Such was not my mother’s experience when she stayed there for a short time in 1948.

The Rothensande Mansion

I can only speculate now what those “unhappy happenings” were, but I do think it had my mother pretty rattled, emotionally speaking. So, now, when I think of her going back to that place called Rothensande, I see a broken woman, still sorting through a whole package of emotions. I imagine her circling back to the orphanage, not out of curiosity or fond feelings … but just to “deal’ with it.

I happened to talk to the man who runs the estate now. He said, from time to time, he hears stories from people who used to live there … former orphans who were sent off to South Africa and Canada. He relayed their tales of abuse and punishment to me. If there were any happy stories to tell, he didn’t hear them and he didn’t share any with me.  My mother said the couple who ran the orphanage were “strict”. I also know that my grandmother, lying in her hospital bed a few months from death, went to great lengths to get my mom out of the orphanage quickly. She, a Mennonite, even converted to Catholicism in an attempt to get a local Catholic family to adopt her daughter.

The orphanage had everyone rattled.

I can’t imagine anyone in this world more helpless than a child without a parent. As I was at Rothensande on a tour (they now give tours of the estate on Wednesdays and Saturdays, for the many fans of the Gut Immenhof Films) I noticed, among the group of people,  several small children. They had parents but as the children went off to play on their own, separating from the group, they began to look like orphans to me. I kept my distance and observed their innocence as they poked at the dirt and puddles in the pathway. Without a parent or anybody who cared even just a tiny little bit, these children were like sitting ducks, vulnerable to the slightest abuse. I remember when I was a child, how I relied on the adults in my life to care for me – I believed they had my safety and well-being in mind. That’s what makes children so beautiful and precious. Their blind trust and unspoiled attitude toward life should be guarded by the people around them.

As I watched the children at Rothensande, all I could hear were my mother’s words … “unhappy happenings”.   I saw the truth right in front of me. My heart broke a little bit for her.  I wanted to rush in and protect her from the pain of loneliness or abuse … or whatever happened at the orphanage, which I will never know.

I took some photos of the children as they played in the dirt. A girl, who I guessed to be about 8 years old, walked over to the water with a small stick in her hand. She had a long braid of red hair and a sun dress with one strap fallen off her shoulder. She intrigued me. I imagined she was my mother over 60 years ago.

Careful not to get caught, I photographed the little girl in the sundress, so I could remember the moment and all of the emotion that went along with it. I’m quite certain if her parents saw me stalking their daughter, it would’ve been a messy scene. But I wanted the shot … and so I took the risk.

Months later, I painted that little girl. She is looking out to her imaginary world on the water. As colourful brushstrokes danced on canvas, I thought of my mother and all the other orphans and all of their stories.

They were beautiful, innocent, vulnerable and lonely.

Rothensande was an interesting experience for me. It’s a place that opened my eyes and my heart to see my mother’s story in more than just black and white.  For that, I’m thankful.

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If you’re interested in seeing some Rothensande pictures backed by the Gut Immenhof soundtrack, take a look at the video below!

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Stories a property holds onto, buried under red sand, afloat on blue water or tucked away behind decades of floral wallpaper, layered on layers, will only ever be a kaleidoscope time capsule; fragments and flashes of colour without much order or sense; a curiosity to turn round and view from time to time.  

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A few days before visiting Rothensande, I had been searching through a series of giant books in the Eutin Archive for many hours, desperately scanning each page for two names, Monika Kröker or Maria Kröker. I was looking for any clue, no matter how slight, to unlock stories about my mother’s and grandmother’s lives from the time when they lived in Eutin and surrounding area. They were there during the influx of refugees and displaced persons (DPs) in the time after WW II. In the town of Eutin alone, the population doubled from 10,000 to 20,000 people in a matter of months in 1945. Searching in the DP-related archives was tedious work; many hours are spent for little to no reward. These documents were typed or hand-written in every size and style of paper – all in German – a language that, for the most part, I don’t understand. 
As I turned another page in the mountain of pages, there was a letter dated Sept 24, 1948 with my grandmother’s name in the subject line. I gasped out loud. This was the clue I’d been hoping to find. The letter was lengthy and roughly explained the reasoning for relocating my mother and grandmother from their current dwelling: My grandmother needed to go to a hospice on account of being very ill and my mother (having nowhere else to go to and no one to care for her) was sent to an orphanage. This letter told me the name of the orphanage I’d been hoping to track down. “Rothensande”, a very pretty name which means “Red Sands”.

Enter Maddie – an adorable eight year old, cuter than pie with a set of sturdy Mennonite genes to make my zweiback-baking mother proud. We signed her on in a heartbeat and promised to pay her in dried cherries.

I have a few pictures of my mother, Monika, from the 1940’s and in all of them, which span several years, she is wearing the same dress, as though she didn’t grow at all in that time period (which might be true – that’s what happens when one is malnourished).

Both my mother and grandmother were seamstresses and, most likely, my grandmother sewed the original version of this dress.  The nostalgia factor from having the dress hand-sewn by me (daughter and granddaughter) was obvious and therefore an absolute must. I jumped on my sewing machine immediately.

Monika,10 years old with her friend, Heinrich.

The next day Maddie was wearing the dress. It has gathered sleeves, a gathered waist and some giant pockets on the front that could potentially hold a lot of cookies. I explained to her that she may not like the plain old dress – it’s not fancy (post-war) … no sparkles … but before long she was doing twirls and smiling from ear to ear. I put her hair up in a roll at the top with two braids and she was set.

And there you have it! The making of Little Monika. It wasn’t long before we were traipsing through the pathways, trails and brooks around my home with one simple set of instructions for Maddie. Be cheerful and little bit mischievous. Oh, and steal a few cherries, if you don’t mind. 

The whole day, Maddie indulged us with being her lovely, cheerful self. She skipped and ran through the forest. She waded through a creek over slippery, mossy rocks. She sat on a log for us, her feet dangling in the brook. She stole a whole bunch of dried cherries and in doing so decided that she definitely prefers dried ones to “real” ones. Stolen treats always taste better than respectfully procured ones – that’s my experience.

Even though our filming with Maddie is mostly done, we haven’t seen the last of that dress. I have reason to believe a certain very excited 8 year old girl will be dressing up as Little Monika for Halloween this year.

Adorable.

In a few short months we’ll be flying over the Atlantic Ocean and landing in Hamburg, Germany with a whole lot of filming gear in tow. From there, the train will take us further north to stop in a town called Eutin. Surrounded by rose bushes and linden trees, there’s an old white and blue painted station to greet us when we hop off the train.

It’s in this town, we’ll take our time to set up the story that I have been piecing together for well over a year now. It comes complete with a town centre, a church tower with bells that ding on the hour and a castle on the lake. Oh, and they brew beer there, too. Sounds like paradise, right?

This past year and a bit, I’ve been sifting through old papers, digging up files, reading letters and interviewing family and friends who knew my mother. I have traveled to Germany, California, Winnipeg, and Montreal. It’s been quite a whirlwind of jet-setting and train rides! Still, I have a lot of unanswered questions about the story of my mother’s childhood – specifically, the 3 years that she and her mother spent there as refugees after WWII ended. I have discovered that it’s much more than the amusing tales that my mother used to tell my sister and I. It’s not just about skipping school and playing by the lake water. It’s more a story about loneliness, tragedy, and loss. Interestingly, that’s not the impression I got from my mother – this is what I have realized from my research.

This project has been and continues to be a gateway to get to know my mother the way that I believe she wanted me to. Knowing her as a child, informs me of who she was as a woman.

Knowing someone’s story is the portal to understanding. 

Sometimes, to get to know a story you have to live it, feel it and smell it – basically walk in their footsteps. That’s the heart of the Cherries in the Sun project.

The full length documentary will take some time to create …  but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this little tease.

“Cherries were my favourite fruit, especially the dried ones. Outside, in front of the window, there was a table covered with cherries to bake in the sun. They were not to be touched, but I had a way of sneaking them, one by one, whenever mother was busy sewing and not looking to catch the thief.” Monika Kröker Janzen (from her memoir)

Looking back at my own childhood, if I wanted to picture a scene in my mind which could capture the sum of many memories all at once, it would be that of the two sour cherry trees at the front of our yard.

In the summer, when the trees were practically dripping with ripe red fruit, it was the job of my sister and I to pick the cherries, pack them in quarts and sell them at the roadside for 50 cents a quart. Hardly a get-rich-quick scheme.

There was nothing about this experience that brought me even the remotest sense of joy. The 50 cents in exchange for the job of cherry-picker brought very little satisfaction and I always dreaded picking cherries with my sister in the summer. To me, it was a chore to get done before moving onto bigger and better projects such as a long solitary bike ride to lake Ontario.

Surprisingly to me,  my sister didn’t seem to mind picking cherries. I think she even liked to eat them. My mother absolutely LOVED cherries. As for me, well, I HATED cherries.  Even when we would spend hours on ladders or perched in the branches picking away, snacking on a sour cherry was not an option for me. I would work at a painstakingly slow pace, plucking the berries, stem still attached, placing them mindlessly into my basket whilst dreaming of another place that I wished to be.

Anywhere but there.

My sister and I posing by our sign! Well … I am posing and my sister is doing all of the work. I made the sign, after all.

Sorting and pitting freshly-picked cherries!

My sister, high up on the ladder, happily picking cherries.

There are at least 2 sides to every story. While I hated cherries and cherry picking and cherry trees in general, my mother loved them wholeheartedly. For her, cherries were a distinct reminder of some of the happiest days of her life.

On a typical late summer afternoon in my childhood, my mother could be found in the front garden, hoe in hand, turning the soil around the rosebushes to keep the weeds at bay. She really had a gift with those roses. Most of the rosebushes in our garden in Thorold were cultivated from cuttings she ‘borrowed’ from other plants in neighbouring yards.  She was always weeding, moving plants and watering with the sprinkler. Often I would see her working away, then pause with both hands on her hips and drift off somewhere else, deep in her thoughts. I never knew where she would go in those far-away moments.

It seems to me now as though my mother lived in two worlds at the same time. Germany and Canada. Before the war and after the war. The time with her Mutti and her time as an orphan.

I would snap her back into the present moment with a question. “Mommy, what are you eating?”

She would reply, “Oh, just a cherry pit”.

Gardening with a cherry pit lodged in her cheek. It was the only tangible evidence of a handful of cherries that she had eaten a few hours previous. A physical reminder of something that she just couldn’t let go of.

When my mother was still alive she was continually telling us girls stories of her own childhood. Her narratives ran the gamut of emotion from thrilling adventure to horror to fond reminiscence and heart-breaking tragedy.  There must have been a reason why she was always telling us these stories. Perhaps she felt compelled to tell them, not only for her own benefit, but also for the benefit of her two young girls … so that one day, upon reflection, we would have a way to know who she was and where she came from.

This is the beauty of my own personal stories as well. They help me to never forget my roots. They keep me honest and humble. They give me confidence and provide a sense of connection to people and places that I hold dear to my heart. For me, the stories of my mother and the stories of my own life continue to shape the person that I am today. Like the cherry pit in my mother’s cheek are the narratives running in the back of my mind. These stories that I hold onto remind me of who I am, where I came from and where I am going.

I have come to believe that we remember stories for a reason. That reason which makes you remember the story, is precisely why the story itself needs to be told!

Like my mother before me, I too now have my own collection of stories. Some I choose to tell others and some I tell only to myself because they are too difficult to share. Some of these stories remind me of how strong and powerful I am. Some also remind me of what my principles are or even that I am a good and loving person.

What about the stories that I don’t like to tell? The ones in which I am not the hero? Quite honestly, if I could have a book-burning, those stories would be thrown into the fire without a second thought!

I now recognize that these stories I’ve worked hard to keep hidden, especially the tragic ones, should never be erased or burned. There is a reason why I can’t let some stories be forgotten. And that is precisely why I need to keep telling them, each time exploring the emotion once again, trying to work it out.

If I believe that I am the sum total of my past, my present and my future, then erasing stories from my life or simply not telling them is denying the existence of those parts of myself. A willful self-amputation.

I wonder if my mother felt the same way about her own stories. I can only guess. Perhaps she sensed that if she stopped telling them, she would only exist as a small part of herself and not her whole person.

My mother Monica and her brother Edmund – cherry picking on the family farm in Grimsby. Circa 1960.

And so this is the reason for this project I’ve called Cherries in the Sun. It’s about story-telling … memories and reflections which are being recalled for a reason (whether uplifting or tragic, exciting or horrifying) in the hopes that in the telling, they will provide increased clarity and connection to my whole person. Some are my own stories and some are my mother’s.

I’m confident that my mother would’ve wanted her story to be told. I also believe that she felt that telling her story from the very beginning was the only way to help others begin to understand who she was. I see now that she hoped if one could just hear her whole story, from beginning to end, that judgement and misunderstanding could be suspended and that forgiveness and empathy would take it’s place.

Twenty years ago, when I was 18 and she was in her last days, my mother scribbled a hasty memoir. As I read her writing today, I am struck with the thought that the stories she chose to jot down are ones that have a soothing quality to them. Stories of cherries drying in the sun on a summer afternoon.  Perhaps, as her stories are for me, they were a way for her to connect with her own mother, the only family that she ever knew. Her mother (my biological grandmother) had also died of breast cancer, orphaning her only child (my mother) at the age of 11.

Sadly my mother never had a chance to quite fully tell her story the way that the school teacher in her would’ve wanted it to be told.  She left behind little clues though, and, like crumbs along a pathway, I have begun picking up the pieces. I hope to stand in her place as intercessor, telling her story on her behalf.

I want to carry the past forward with me and get lost in it. I want to savour the flavours, relive the hardships and have my heart break for her, perhaps even for the first time. I want to feel the emotion, as deep and raw as it should be and, where joy is found, to have my heart warmed.

Like my mother in her prized rose garden, I’m carrying the cherry pit in my own cheek for a little while.

“My mother would take out her scissors and cut out a row of paper dolls, or she’d take her pencil crayons and draw some pictures that would tell a story to remind me of the good old days, such as cherries in the sun.” Monika Kröker Janzen (from her memoir)

If you’re still with me, thanks for sticking around to the end of this lengthy post! This happens to be my very first blog entry for Cherries in the Sun. Goals are good to have, and my goal for this project is to add a new entry every week. Stay tuned for a new one pretty soon. I invite you to join me in this journey … and also, I welcome your comments or stories at any time.

Thanks for listening so far… and I hope we can meet here again soon.