Note: Last week, my brother Peter posted elsewhere about a highway accident scenario he came upon (fortunately safely), eerily similar to one he miraculously emerged from unscathed several years ago, when his vehicle was totaled. Thank goodness he is OK; I can’t even contemplate a what-if. My aunt, Dad’s sister, then replied to him thus:
“On a different topic, I heard Garrison Keillor this morning, on Writer’s Almanac, mention a firing squad, and that reminded me. Years ago our beloved Opa told me that he’d once faced a firing squad, as a young man, along with some other young men. At the last minute the officer in charge told them all to run, and they did! The world would certainly be different these days if he’d died that day!”
I was astounded at this revelation about Opa Peter Janzen, never having heard anything about it before! Not only would the world have been different, our family wouldn’t exist.
I inquired further from my aunt, wondering if this is when Opa Peter was college-aged and attending the Bible school in Tschongraw, Crimea (1919-21) and the Communists took over the school or later on when he became the young leader of the refugee group that had fled from the Ukraine to Batum, Georgia, then to Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey (1922-23). Or perhaps even later, when after the refugee group successfully made it to North America and he served his work term to pay back his American sponsors, he bravely volunteered to return to Turkey under the auspices of MCC to help lead out additional refugees (January to April or so 1924).
My aunt agreed her additional recollection could be used in a guest post, as follows.
“I’ve been trying to remember the context, Mary, but can’t go any further than that. It could have been while he was still in the Crimea, or maybe later while he was helping emigrants in Batum, going back into ‘enemy territory’ several times. I just remember his marveling at God’s grace at the time, that this officer just decided, on his own, to let this particular group go.
“One other memory, unrelated, is of Opa’s marveling at seeing a young woman, wearing only a man’s suit coat, going around picking straw out of horse dung, apparently to use for food, since everyone was starving.”
If anyone recalls hearing anything more about this shocking firing squad incident, please comment.
family janzen 