Hot Soup and the Cold War

I first met Verena in a Sunday school classroom. She was writing the lyrics to "Awesome God" in big, clear letters on a sheet of lined paper, then turned and welcomed the incoming gaggle of awkward children into her arms as if they were her own. I was drawn to her clear passion for music and the strange way she talked. Something in my shy, nervous heart felt safety and kinship with her right away.

When I asked her to sponsor my baptism later in elementary school, she cried and told me I'd given her "the warm fuzzies." She took her subsequent role as my godmother far more seriously than anyone had expected her to — scanning for me every week from her spot on the choral risers, showing up at every milestone and life event, telling me about her story and wanting to be part of mine. I learned she had come to America as a refugee fleeing the Communist Bloc during the Cold War, and that her odd accent belonging to no region in particular was the result of having to learn a new language every time they moved to a new country. She had a dream to write the story of her family's exodus from Poland and publish it as a book. 

She remained part of my life, bringing her musical affinity and her steady resilience, even after I moved away from my agricultural hometown. When I graduated college, I found her standing in the back of the crowd — on a hardwood gym floor, breathing with an oxygen concentrator, having held herself upright there for two hours — just to see me walk across the stage.

A couple years later, she called me during my lunch break at work. It had been a long time since we'd seen each other in person, and our only communication had been in the form of letters with life updates sent a few times a year. She wanted to tell me that she'd finished writing the book. It was sitting on her nightstand: sheets of copy paper strung together into a teal plastic binder. But after losing her husband, her lung capacity, and her short-term memory to COVID-19, she was no longer able to continue the project... and I had just finished an unexpected master's degree in publishing. 

So she took this most incredible, precious gift of her family's story and entrusted it to me.

This has been one of the most amazing projects I've ever had the privilege to be part of. I've had to dive into research on the political and economic nuances of the Cold War, sort through Verena's archives of black-and-white photos, connect with her siblings and the friends in Switzerland who took her family in (who are almost 100 years old now!), and gather information on the geography of her hometown Lubsko. She's taught me about the cultural divides between European countries, the role of status in a family's chances at survival during occupation, and the clash of racism and xenophobia in 1960s America. And over soup and hand-stitched placemats, she's shown me what it is to persevere: this woman who has endured more than I can imagine and still walks with profound, unshakeable faith.

During times like these, it's more important than ever to turn our gaze to our history: the triumphs and progress, the ugliness and shame, the ever-present motion of time that calls us, always, to do better. In the midst of what feels like constant regression and hostility, someone who came here for a chance at happiness woke up one morning in the hazy cloud of amnesia, with the melody of a Polish folk song ringing in her ears... and found that she could still remember every word.