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Papa Trilogy


Part 2:  Three Miracles – Initiation 

 

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was and was not a young ordinary soldier, far away from home at the frontlines of war against the enemy in the vast lands of Russia. The 17-year-old boy is confused, this is not how war has been described to him, as glorious and heroic…. He is asked to shoot and kill other young men lying like him in muddy cold trenches. After some time of seeing much blood and senseless death of those across the enemy line and of his own comrades, he writes letters home to his parents. How it all is a lie, how they should not believe a word what their country’s leader is telling them. It’s all a lie! Eventually, his letters are intercepted and he is taken to a military prison in occupied Poland. Away from the front, still far from home. But saved from killing. Here he is awaiting execution with other traitors and deserters. The mock trial and execution are set to happen next day, but that night the prison is bombed out, completely. Everyone is killed, but the young man is still alive, still breathing. Heavily wounded he crawls and drags himself slowly to the next tiny village with a train station. He arrives half naked draped in rags and blood. A military nurse sees him, takes mercy on him, and puts him on a train back to Germany, without telling anyone where he has come from. She knows but choses to save this young man’s life. Now he is again just another soldier, this time with many other wounded from the front going to a military hospital in the south. 

 

Slowly recovering his health in the hospital, the teenager listens to many other stories of war. He keeps his mouth shut, and secretly starts to cut open again his wounds in order to not be sent back to the front. Over and over. One day, news reaches that the Americans – from a very far away country across the ocean – are to be arriving soon in town. He takes off his clothes, drapes a blanket over his thin body, and slowly walks out toward the Liberators, hands raised in the air… trembling… They let him go, and now he is free to wander the country side with nothing but his own bare feet and legs, begging for food and shelter for a long while to come… Now the young man has become an adult. What will he do with his life?


Today, 29 years ago, my father dies at age 67. He is my ancestor teaching me deep things. Beautiful, gentle, curious, intelligent, inventive, sensuous, kind and graceful… he could build and fix anything.   

 

Heinz Epperlein – born July 24, 1925 – died May 14, 1993 

https://karinalandriver.blogspot.com/2021/07/today-is-my-fathers-birthday.html 

Comments

  1. ayshaMay 28, 2022 at 7:56 PM

    Thank you for sharing this... we need these stories, you know that people like me have no idea. I pray that someday I can feel enough to understand enough to be able to protect against war.

    ReplyDelete

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