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natasha warding

one summer night in 2013, german writer natasha wardin searched for her mother’s name on the russian internet as usual. she saw a message with the same name as her mother, which showed that the owner of the name was born in mariupol, a ukrainian city on the northern shore of the sea of ​​azov. in the writer's imagination, this city that is always subject to blizzards actually has a mild climate, "it has long and wide sandy beaches, grape-growing hills and endless fields of sunflowers."

imagination and reality are reversed, resulting in unreal feelings. the writer gradually learned that in his only memory, the mother who was transported from ukraine to germany for forced labor in her early twenties was originally from a declining aristocratic family. the excavation of history intensifies. in 2017, in the autobiographical work "she came from mariupol", natasha wardin recorded her process of searching for her mother's life and family history. this work and the subsequent publications "the man in the shadow" and "nastya's tears" form the "mariupol trilogy", pieced together into the author's fragmented personal history, in which mother, father, and... other tribesmen who have disappeared into the depths of history and homeland. the lives of ordinary people during the stalin period, the defrauded eastern labor groups during world war ii, the displaced people in postwar germany and the trauma they continued to face... these historical fragments of the 20th century also emerged along with the fate of real people, and they are closely related to the current situation. the world is closely connected, declaring that everything that has happened has never really ended.

in may 1942, young women were about to be sent to germany for forced labor.

before the investigation, natasha wardin had limited knowledge of her parents. she only knew that they had been laborers from the soviet union. since nazi germany launched its attack on the soviet union in june 1941, millions of residents of the german-occupied soviet union were transported to germany for forced labor to fill the labor vacancies caused by the war. they uniformly wear a blue patch with "ost" on their shoulders. their treatment is not much better than that in nazi concentration camps. they only have a small and inferior food supply. they work intensively for more than 12 hours a day, six days a week, and sometimes weekends. mistakes will be punished in various forms, including being shot. the labor certificates left behind show that the writer's parents were workers under the german atg machinery manufacturing company. they were shipped to germany in 1944. they worked for atg until the liberation of germany.

forced laborers wearing "ost" who were liberated from the concentration camp in lodz, poland in january 1945.

just like imagining my mother's early life in mariupol, "the only coat she wore, walked through the gray snow-covered streets into an unfathomable space where there was always a blizzard", while learning about his mother's labor experience, the writer began to frequently imagine how she survived hunger, disease, and cold conditions. this was not only a woman's suffering-filled resume compiled from the remaining historical data, but also the writer's interpretation of the constant suffering of imagination and questioning throws women back to the "unfathomable space" again and again - what does a real mother look like? the truth being unearthed does not answer the writer. in 1956, her 36-year-old mother committed suicide by drowning herself in a river. natasha warding was ten years old at the time. "if you had seen what i have seen" - this mother's murmur like her last words has run through the writer's life from childhood to the present, and has become an eternal question.

in addition to tracing the experience of his parents as laborers in the work, the writer also used the special status of his parents to describe the embarrassing situation of this group in post-war germany. although the liberation of germany restored their freedom, it did not mean that they could regain their legitimate citizenship and rights. they could not return to the soviet union, where they would be charged with treason. in today's germany, they are like refugees. it's no different: they don't have jobs or housing, and they are discriminated against because of their status as outsiders. their spirits and bodies seem to have been separated for a long time. the former is always looking forward to embarking on the road to their homeland, while the latter has been imprisoned here for a long time. in "people in the shadows", natasha warding recorded her father's almost paranoid attitude towards life. he refused to learn german and refused german food throughout his life. "if he could still walk to the supermarket across the street, he would give it to himself. buy something similar to russian food, like sardines, feta cheese, peppers and raw sauerkraut, sprinkle with pepper and soak it in oil." after living in germany for nearly fifty years, my father always insisted on being a russian in his own spiritual world. .

in april 1945, an eastern worker rested against his luggage. she has been rescued by the u.s. seventh army and is awaiting forcible repatriation to russia.

if "she came from mariupol" was written by the writer in memory of his mother, "the man in the shadow" is more of an accusation and pity for his father. this man from the heart of russia, who was a choir leader as a child, relied on his singing voice to support his family and once created good material conditions for his family. however, in family life, he left behind a rough side and often accused his mother of not being like german women. they also clean up the house and get angry at the unpalatable food on the table. after her mother died, natasha warding succeeded her mother and became the target of her father's harsh criticism. anything that dissatisfied her father may lead to violence. she had no freedom. "he didn't allow me to do anything that german girls could do. i couldn't go to the cinema, go dancing, buy any new clothes, and i didn't have any pocket money." they are required to do what germans do, but they are prohibited from becoming germans. the way his father treats his family is so contradictory, which reflects the mixed inferiority and pride in his heart. he isolates himself from the people around him and becomes the land. a stranger who has been unable to integrate - a "person hiding in the shadow", a national complex that he is unwilling to let go of and an experience as a laborer and a refugee. nobility and humiliation are the two forces that support his inner world. source.

forced labor documents provided by nazi germany

natasha warding wrote "the man in the shadows" after the death of her father. before his death, his father was paralyzed due to illness and was admitted to a nursing home. his russian-style lifestyle ended, and his life was forced to be handed over to the caregiver and his daughter. facing his dying father, the writer wrote, "hate and pity intertwined in my body - i hated my father in my childhood and youth, and i pity the lonely, sick old man i am now. from beginning to end, my life has been full of emotions. i couldn't break free from him. in the past, he used violence to imprison me, but now he uses his own pain and helplessness to lock me in, which is even more difficult to resist than his past forceful possession."

after adulthood, the review of the history of her parents and the examination of family relationships prompted the writer to constantly search for her place in the world. this subconscious desire to realize herself began to sprout in childhood. she longed to escape from the family and learn from the outside world. to gain comfort and approval from the world, to dress like a german girl against her father, to blindly trust those close to her. however, as a descendant of refugees and exiles, the discriminatory names from outsiders are an imprint that cannot be erased on her. the way she obtains recognition in this world comes more from charity - sometimes with good intentions, more often with malice. yes, like a german boy who can kiss her one day and call her a russian whore a few days later.

on the one hand, it is the silent life of the fathers who gradually closed themselves off under the devastation of the war, and on the other hand, it is the writer's growth experience of being ignored and controlled in this harsh internal and external environment. "people in the shadow" seems to have another meaning, not only the parents, but also the writer's past self are waiting to be illuminated.

in the third work "nastya's tears", natasha wardin's eyes stayed on a woman named nastya. nastya is from ukraine. she was born in a rural town in western ukraine during world war ii. after the war, she finished college and married the doctor she fell in love with. the two settled in the capital kiev and had a daughter after their marriage. such a seemingly smooth and ordinary life ended with the disintegration of the soviet union in 1991. "ukraine declared independence from russia and embarked on the path of free market economy that many people had longed for." what followed was inflation that turned savings into waste paper. , nastya went from not being paid to being unable to find a job, and her marriage to her husband also came to an end.

just like half a century ago, ukrainian women became oriental laborers. the fate of history repeated itself. in order to survive, nastya was forced to go to germany to make a living. while working as a domestic worker, she met her employer natasha wardin. this fragile and reserved ukrainian woman reminded the writer of her own mother, and the writer was able to witness nastya's exile-like experience in germany up close: because her residence permit expired, she faced the risk of deportation. in order to continue to stay in germany and earn money to support her family, she married a german man through a marriage proposal. it was not until this marriage in name only ended when her husband died of illness that she seemed to be relieved, "as a german widow, nastya now has a permanent residence permit. her disastrous marriage left her with a widow's pension worth seven hundred euros in new german currency, plus income from her cleaning job. every month she can send a large sum of money to ukraine."

whether it is identity background or life experiences, the figure of the writer’s mother becomes more and more obvious in nastya. the writer subconsciously regards nastya as the antidote to family trauma, “i can make up for the things i missed in my childhood; by connecting with her, i was able to reunite within myself what the outside world had long separated from me.” but she also discovered an almost instinctive rejection in nastya, responding to the writer's overtures with silence and avoidance.

at this point, this woman who has no blood relationship with the writer has truly integrated with the writer's parents. "nastya's rejection is just a kind of self-protection. i am all too familiar with this symptom. behind it is a seemingly inability to the "slavic disease" that was eradicated. war and change brought physical hunger, illness, and exile from this place. those who experienced it may find a place to live and feed again one day in the future. but in "mariupol." in "trilogy", the experiences of the writer herself, her parents, the tribesmen he had never met in the soviet union, and nastya - two generations spanning a century once again remind us that the remnants created by the great changes of the times will not disappear easily. , they are like probes flowing into the blood and wandering around, detecting the spiritual world of the experiencers and subsequent generations that has long been riddled with holes and closed, and invisibly affects the way they exist in the new world.

at the end of "nastya's tears", nastya returned to ukraine and applied for german citizenship. "she just kept a clear escape path for the future in case new disasters occurred in her hometown, such as a new famine, a new civil war or a new dictatorship.” a person must be determined to leave at any time before he dares to return to his hometown. facts have proved that nastya's doubts were not unnecessary. in 2022, the russo-ukrainian war broke out, and the battle of the azov steel plant once again brought mariupol into the spotlight. after the city was occupied, reconstruction began. where will the fate of the people be taken? no one knows.

stills from the documentary "mariupol-ii" (2022)