My daughter’s badass namesake — and her ties to Ukraine
I was sitting in my living room last night after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, and I find myself thinking about my 2-year-old daughter’s namesake, and how her story led right through the last invasion of Ukraine 80 years ago.
We call our daughter Frankie — but her name is Frances after my baba (grandmother) on my dad’s side. She was born in a Polish village called Snovidovich (which no longer exists) sometime around 1913 — shortly before the First World War.
Edit (2/26/22): my brother learned that Snovidovich does in fact still exist as a small village in north-central Ukraine today.
When the Second World War began and Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Frances was in her late 20s. As a young Jewish woman living in Soviet-occupied Poland, she already had plenty to fear from the Soviets and the pogroms (anti-Jewish riots) that were common in the region. But even in Soviet territory, she had a pretty good idea of what was happening to Jewish people in Nazi-held Poland.
In 1941, when Germany launched its invasion of the USSR, Frances fled east — trying to stay ahead of the advancing German front. From Poland, she travelled by train, wagon, and foot across the entirety of Ukraine — doing whatever she could to stay ahead of the advancing German army. She was the only one of her six siblings to stay ahead of the rapidly advancing front lines.
She made her way through Russia and into Soviet Kazakstan — where she got up to some crazy exploits to survive. She worked on (and stole potatoes from) a Soviet farm (labour camp, really). She became the only woman to work in a men’s only brick factory by challenging the foreman that she could make more bricks in a day than the men. She was a badass who — after the war — took her 2-year-old son (my dad) to try to run the British blockade of Palestine, and eventually made her way to Winnipeg via Pier 21 in Halifax. But those are all tales for another time.
Last night at dinner, we were laughing about the huge mess Frankie made in the living room in just 24 hours. But last night in Ukraine, parents like us are wondering if their supply of diapers and food will last another 24 hours.
The last time Ukraine was invaded and occupied — between June 1941 and September 1944–5.2 million Ukrainians were murdered, died of war-related disease or died of famine. That amounted to 1 in 8 people in Ukraine.
We have no idea how the Russian invasion of Ukraine will end — or what the consequences will be. But we know for certain that the victims of every war are families — just like ours. We know that there’s no virtue in driving people from their homes and starving them.
My baba — Frankie’s great grandmother — survived a war that swept through Ukraine 80 years ago. The only wars that are truly won are the ones that are prevented — and our collective failure to prevent war in Ukraine means that more 20-year-old women named Frances will have to live through what my baba did.
