Reminiscences of My Father Wladimir Janzen

by Waldemar Janzen

In this small book, the reader is introduced to an outstanding man – teacher, minister, Gulag survivor – and the author’s father. He was not outstanding in the ways celebrity is often achieved in our society, but by maintaining integrity, dignity, faithfulness, and love in a time of great oppression and brutality. Of course, there were others who similarly stood out, so that his life is also representative for many who remain unrecognized. The author presents his father’s story mainly on the basis of three sets of correspondence that his mother (and himself), first in Ukraine and much later in Canada, received from him, at long intervals, from Karaganda, Kazakhstan, Soviet Union, between 1936 and 1957.