Niina: Memories of World War Ii by a Child Refugee Fleeing from Estonia to Germany and Austria Eventually Ending up in Australia

By Rita Reet Danko

This is a true story of a familys history, starting with serfdom in Estonia to Russia under Czar Nikolai II through revolution, occupation by foreign powers, a fathers love, and flight from war. This is a firsthand account of what it was like being in the middle of WWII in Austria. Laugh and cry along with her as Rita writes her story of escape from deprivation, oppression, tyranny, and an almost-certain death in the snowy Alps to arrive in a land of freedom and opportunity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Jun 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504308526

Rita Reet Danko

How did a small child make the journey from Estonia during WWII with bombs, guns, fire and destruction all around her, hunger a constant companion ending up after the war in far away Australia on ship Anna Saleen in 1950.

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Copyright © 2017 Rita Reet Danko.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-0851-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0852-6 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 05/26/2017

Contents

Foreword

Saga of the Long Black Coats

Anna Salemaa

Tallinn, Estonia

My Father

On Board Ship from Tallinn to Danzig

Vienna, Austria

Occupation of Vienna

My Best Friend

Snow, Snow and more Snow

Dachau

Munich, Germany

Deshingen- Ingolstatd

Good Bye Europe

Australia & Bonegilla

Epilogue

Dedicated

To my Mother whose heroism is the inspiration for this book.

Foreword

It took me twenty years of procrastination before I could write this book. A year before my Mother passed away she asked me to write her life story, I gave her a tape recorder with a tape in it and said, here, talk. She did not like this, she wanted to talk but not to a lifeless tape, she wanted to talk to me. This was a bit of a problem as she lived in Sydney and I in Melbourne. I worked full time and still had children at home and a husband to take care of.

My Mother was eighty four years old and had an incurable disease. I knew I would need to hurry, time was running out so I visited her on many weekends flying from Melbourne to Sydney to hear her story. A story going way back to the time Estonia was enslaved by German Barons then independence for 20 years until Estonian Government was asked for bases by Stalin, the Soviet Dictator. Occupation followed by Russia, then Germany then Russia again and Second World War.

We had a war time history together, my Mother and I as we fled from Estonia in 1944, running from bombs raining down on Vienna from American bombers flying over us during the day and the British came to bomb at night. Hiding from Soviet soldiers when they occupied Austria and then ending up in Germany using people smugglers, only then they were called guides and they saved many lives including ours. We arrived in Australia in 1950 as war refugees and my own children were asking me for my story so I thought I could very well incorporate both, leaving a record of our ancestry and arrival in Australia for generations to come.

Ours is a turbulent story and I hope I can do it justice. My Mother’s back ground story is mostly anecdotal as I was able to ascertain only some facts on various visits to Tallinn and Saaremaa in Estonia. Her story of Czar Nikolai 2nd of Russia and before is purely her, my Grandmother’s personal stories and some historical data added by me.

My Mother passed away on 25th August 1995 and it took me twenty years before I could put her words onto paper. In the mean time I wrote four books on another topic, possibly in subconscious preparation for this book. At the time of writing there were media reports of refugees fleeing from war torn countries in 2015, just like we did many decades before. I actually saw them sleeping on hard concrete floors in Budapest railway station like my Mother and I slept in 1944 in Germany and that made me decide that now is the time or never.

I was in Hungary on a visit when the refugees were refused entry to Hungary and those that did make it over the border were not allowed for some time onto trains to travel further. Actually seeing their plight made me remember my promise to my Mother. Most people have no idea what it is like to sleep in a railway station where there are few toilets or running water, no nappies or milk for babies. No money even if there is anything to buy and the inhabitants are hostile. Even the space on concrete floor is limited as more and more people try to cram under cover for the night and there is always hunger. Not everyone in Budapest was hostile to the refugees, I saw many Hungarians bring food, drink and toys for the children. It was a very hot summer and the exhaustion, especially on the women’s faces told many a story, also made me remember my own Mother’s face on occasions as we fled from Estonia so many years ago.

My Mother is the bravest woman in the world. To venture across half the world with a small child in tow while the whole world was erupting at war, takes guts, strength of character, inventiveness, ingenuity, resourcefulness and also some luck. My Mother had all of it. She also had a soldier for a father who believed in discipline and endurance, He made her a very strong and brave woman whose story I hope I am able to do justice to.

He called her Niinushka when he was pleased with her, Niina, when he was not. The name on her legal documents is Maria but sometimes she also called herself Margot after her own mother whom she never knew.

She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia but her family history goes back further to the time Estonia was occupied by Germany and Estonians were Serfs on their own