GAIL DRAKE: Red October did not scar Max Krieger’s soul

“Rulers persecuted me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of Your word.”

— Psalm 119:161

I was planning a West Coast trip to visit my college friend Beth, this time with my groom and toddler daughter, when my friend called with a change of plans.

“Max Krieger asked if you would house-sit and feed their chickens while they’re at a conference,” she said. “Of course,” I replied.

“Wait — feed chickens? In Los Angeles?” asked my husband with incredulity.

“It’s Uncle Max,” I said. “He’s from Poland with an amazing story, a prince of a man. Wait until you meet him.”

A few weeks later, we enjoyed breakfast on the patio of Uncle Max’s intimate walled garden of fruit trees, plants and five well-behaved Bantam hens near sunny Glendale. We spent our days touring from San Diego to Hearst Castle. A few days later, Uncle Max and his wife returned and we heard “the rest of his story.”

Max Krieger’s family were Germans living on their family farm of several generations in eastern Poland in the 1930s. On Sept. 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland from the west. Two weeks later, per the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed by Adolf Hitler weeks before, the Soviet Bolsheviks invaded Poland from the east. With no formal declaration of war. Entering the border cities, the Russian army declared they were liberating their ethnic “blood brothers,” the Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews. Military commanders announced that the new government was promoting equality among the classes and encouraged ethnic groups to personally avenge for social injustices of the past. Chaos and violence followed.

The Red Army vastly outnumbered the Poles, who were already retreating from the Nazis. More than 300,000 Polish prisoners of war were captured. The Soviet forces targeted Polish military leaders, police, and priests, arresting and executing them. The most brutal atrocity was the wholesale massacre of 22,000 Polish military officers, civilian leaders and intelligentsia at Katyn, who were dumped in mass burial pits.

It was a Red October in Poland. By Oct. 6, 1939, the last resistance at Kock had fallen, and the Soviets claimed all the eastern regions, a territory of 77,000 square miles with 13.5 million Polish citizens. They quickly imposed socialist/communist ideology. All privately held lands were “nationalized” (seized) as well as private bank accounts, businesses and personal belongings. The Soviet police arrested more than a million citizens for torture and imprisonment or deportation to Siberia. Religious expression was banned, and only the elderly could attend approved churches, as religion was considered the opiate of the people. All dissent of the government was censored and stamped out. This is Lenin socialism/Marxism.

At age 10, Max and his sister Irma had been forced to join the Hitler Nazi Youth. When the Soviet army invaded, he and his father, mother, brother, sister, aunt and cousin loaded wagons, tethered their animals and rolled toward Germany. Russian soldiers captured the family crossing the river in Torun, separated the father and sister, and sent the rest to labor camps. Max’s mother was transported to a Russian labor camp and was not seen for four years. His father was killed and his sister escaped, rescued by a Polish family. Max and his brother Helmut were released, and they walked back through Poland to their old family farm, which was now occupied by others. He was forced to work on the farm and sleep in the barn with the cows. Eventually, a family friend took him in to work that farm and sleep indoors.

Through a series of events that can only be described as divine intervention, his entire family all found each other, crossed Germany at different times, and immigrated to California when he was 19 years old. As he had not attended school since elementary grades, he enrolled in adult education, trained as a printer, and profited in real estate projects. Max and Helmut married beautiful sisters and enjoyed a lifetime of happiness raising their families in Los Angeles.

I wish Max were here to educate this generation on the realities of socialism he endured. Because of his Christian faith, Max Krieger never held bitterness but instead radiated joy and dignity. He was a learned Bible teacher, community leader and beloved friend. The red wave of brutal Soviet oppression to his family did not scar him but rather molded him into a gracious soul.