“How can we live without our lives? How
will we know it's us without our past?” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
What does it take to remember something?
What does it take to forget? Pain is a good motivator of memory. If that is the
case, Siegfried Osterwaldt remembers his time as an artillery sergeant for the
German army well. Fighting in Northern Africa,
Allied soldiers captured Siegfried on
November 2nd, 1942. For some reason it had never occurred to him that
he could be captured, or possibly killed.
Lying in a hole in the ground, artillery
showering everywhere, Siegfried admitted that before this, “I never thought I
could be wounded, or even die”.
“The soldier told me to raise my hands. It
never occurred to me that I would be a prisoner. I then thought, will they feed
me? Will they shoot me? Or will they… I don’t know. I just didn’t know”.
Perhaps it was, in his own words, his
“German stubbornness” that made Siegfried never contemplate the consequences of
War. Or maybe it was his belief in his deft military skill. Regardless, he was
captured, helpless, and hopeless. He, an only child, was a long way from his
German home. Little did he know he was moving towards a new home, starting on a
Prisoner of War journey that would forever change his life, and would forever
change mine.
Siegfried spent six months as a POW in
Egypt, enduring stints in Panama, Capetown, New York, and Montreal. It was in
Montreal that everything started to change. The first change was the food.
Riding on a Canadian Pacific Rail car, the POW’s were served full meals,
(including dessert). The next change was the grandeur of Canada. Riding from
Montreal to Wainwright, AB, Siegfried noted with wonder the sheer size and
scope of this new land: “This country somehow, I don’t know how to say it, it’s
size [is so large]. You can move around”. Once in Wainwright, he was let out of
the camp (unsupervised) for two to four hours at a time to explore and enjoy
the surrounding areas. Having been trained as a land surveyor, Siegfried
created a detailed topographical map of the area. Regarding his experience at
Wainwright as a POW, Siegfried simply stated, “I was treated nicely”,
especially “compared to the Germans caught in Russia”.
Siegfried’s heart battled with his head
after he returned home from the war. He knew Europe as the centre of the last
two world wars. When was the next one going to be, he wondered? Yet Germany was
home to his people, his family, and his culture. Despite the significance of
his German heritage and culture, Siegfried decided he must leave to escape the
consequences of the next War that would plague Europe. As he contemplated
moving, his thoughts came to Canada and his time in Wainwright. Ironically, he
felt more freedom confined as a POW than he did in his native country after
war’s end. Above all else, Siegfried’s motives for moving convey a desire to
avoid prejudice: “I had the impression that [Canada] was a country that didn’t
hate the Germans”.
So in 1953, eight years after the War,
Siegfried and Eva Osterwaldt arrived in Montreal with most of their possessions
(a rarity for the time), little knowledge of English, and absolutely no money.
The rest of Siegfried’s story is
history—Canadian history. He found a job at a lumberyard, found favor with his
superiors, and advanced in his workplace until he was hired as a land surveyor
with the Federal Government (this was his area of specialization in
University). Full of his German stubbornness and excellent work ethic, Siegfried
says, “The main thing is, we both stayed healthy. We had a good start. We
didn’t just sit back and relax. I have no regrets. Nothing fell into our lap
for doing nothing, and that’s good”.
The Osterwaldt’s are now in their 90’s.
Despite their slower pace, and Siegfried’s limited mobility, they are
relatively independent; they still live in the Bonnie Doon home they purchased
in the 1950’s (the Bonnie Doon area was mostly farmland then, Siegfried told
me). Their proudest possession, of course, seems to be their 1980’s Volkswagen
sedan in their garage, meticulously kept and cared for. Eva, Siegfried’s wife,
still keeps a large garden in their backyard. When I visited her last, she had
fed her and Siegfried for the past two weeks solely on the contents of garden.
Why do I tell this story? First, I think
it’s obvious that this isn’t your average POW story. Pain and torture—both the
physical and emotional kinds—naturally garnish a litany of POW tales. Although
these types of stories are instructive and necessary, minimizing stories like
Siegfried’s leaves readers with an uneven and biased grasp of the duality (both
good and evil) of the human condition in times of war.
Secondly, and most importantly I tell this
story to remind young Canadians (including myself) of the life-changing events
we simply know by the name of war. Others, much older, wiser, and perhaps a
little less naive, know the risks and sacrifices of global war all too well. As
I interviewed Siegfried, one of his phrases resonated with me as he grappled
with his memory, searching for an answer to a question in his tired and
over-worked mind: “Things are just forgotten, you know? It’s too long ago”.
This is what I want you to remember. As the effects of all-out global world
wars recede—shrapnel to stories, sentries to sentences, and weapons to mere
words—we would do well to remember stories like Siegfried’s. Siegfried’s
memories are slowly being forgotten because of his age. Unlike Siegfried, young
people today are not prone to Alzheimer’s—we are prone to a disease even more
debilitating: apathy.
What does it take to remember something?
What does it take to forget?
