THE JOURNAL OF VALDIS FOMENKO
An account of daily life in a liberated Nazi concentration camp
Written by a 15-year-old Latvian boy named Valdis Fomenko immediately upon his liberation from a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, this diary offers a glimpse of a little known period in World War II history.
Valdis' entire family is first sent to Dachau aboard the infamous Nazi cattle trains. They escape death in the gas chamber, only to be separated and sent to the slave labor camp Herzog-Sagemulle.
When the camp is finally liberated by American soldiers and their Russian allies Valdis sets out to document his family's story.
He describes the puzzling disappearance of the Latvian Jews,
the furious fighting between the Germans and Russians,
the horrors they observed upon their arrival at Dachau.
He documents the corruption and endless hunger that is life in a displaced persons camp, but he also shares the small joys of friendship, youthful pranks, and a first love.
And he fiercely holds on to the hope of someday returning to his beloved Latvia.
Valdis Fomenko is a very determined, proud, brave, and endearingly comical young man.
With his journal he gives us a lost part of history,
a forgotten sidenote in the saga of World War II.
This book centers on a WWII diary written in 1945.
It was translated from Latvian to English in 2009 by the author’s niece, Lyndian Dowling.
This memoir was reviewed in the Latvian newspaper,
The Latviesu Biletens in November 2009,
and soon thereafter was requested by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. for its library archives.
It also resides in the collection at
The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia in Riga, Latvia
and many high school, college, and junior high school libraries.
This memoir was reviewed in the Latvian newspaper,
The Latviesu Biletens in November 2009,
and soon thereafter was requested by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. for its library archives.
It also resides in the collection at
The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia in Riga, Latvia
and many high school, college, and junior high school libraries.
__________________________
From Lyndian Dowling
October 14, 2013
Greetings and heartfelt appreciation to our followers and supporters.
When I first embarked upon this journey of translating and eventually publishing the writings of my dear uncle Valdis Fomenko it was because I knew that this journal was something very special and unique. I knew that there couldn't have been many teenaged survivors of a concentration camp who decided at the moment of liberation that their mission was to document their family's story and then keep a daily diary of the saga of displacement and subsequent relocation.
The translation of this journal was long and painstaking, as I did not want to edit a single word or change his perception of an event. Upon completion of the book I decided to submit the manuscript to twenty-five agents to see if there was any interest to publishers. One agent in Massachusetts asked for two weeks to review the book in exclusivity, and when finished he said he had at least three publishing houses interested in representing it - provided I rewrite the entire diary to read like the Introduction portion, which I had written in Valdis' voice to give the reader background and a lead-in to the actual journal.
This was something I simply could not do. I couldn't and wouldn't ever change a single word of his documentation of these events.
So, this is when the journey really began. Believing in something so much that I literally put it in the hands of God and set it free to go where it may go.
Today, THE JOURNAL OF VALDIS FOMENKO has found its way into the library collections of two major museums:
THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM in Washington, D.C.
and
THE MUSEUM OF THE OCCUPATION OF LATVIA in Riga, Latvia.
These institutions sought it out and requested copies for their archives - I never contacted them. It also has become curriculum reading in numerous Junior High Schools, High Schools, and college and university reading lists across the country.
Just Google it! This book is on a journey of it's own, and it continues to find its way into the hands and hearts and minds of people interested in this time in history, its horrible events, and the unbelievable fortitude of its survivors.
The support and encouragement for this book are overwhelming and so very meaningful to all of us involved in its creation, especially Valdis Fomenko. He was incredibly vibrant and productive until the day of his passing on June 2, 2016. He was very proud of his many achievements and successes throughout his life, but this book made possible by his diary was the most surprising to him. The book became an unexpected success, something he never imagined his journal could someday be, and it also insured that his family's experience would never be forgotten.
Please know how very much your acknowledgement of this work means to us, and how your continued interest and support is truly the catalyst that carries this book to the wonderful places it has gone.
God Bless You All,
and Thank You.
~Lyndian Dowling
______________________
Review from the Latvian Bilitens newspaper:
(article by Astra Moora, November 2009)
"New Memoir Book"
"In these times, would a boy keep a diary? In some instances, that diary could become a testament of time. Valdis Fomenko, about fifteen to sixteen years old at the time, wrote about his family’s fate through many daily journals, which lay safe but forgotten for many years in a closet. A little over ten years ago he rediscovered it and showed it to his sister Gaida’s daughter, Lyndian Dowling, who then translated the text and made it into a book.
The Fomenko family from Rabbit Island in Riga were taken to Germany, first to Neuminster, and from there to the concentration camp in Dachau. They believed that their final hour had come. But inexplicable good fortune befell the family, and once more it was proven that good deeds are rewarded. They were saved by a German who had lived in their home on Rabbit Island during the war.
The Fomenko family was then taken to a labor camp near Schongau. With the war ending, and being moved to a displaced persons camp, Valdis began writing from September 29, 1945 until the end of the year in great detail about everyday happenings - about life together with many other nationalities in close quarters, and whether you liked it or not being accepting of it. About the crooked camp administrators, the never-ending hunger from the meager portions doled-out, fights with other boys, and simple pleasures too - trips to the movie theater, checker tournaments, playing the accordion, and traveling to nearby cities. Also in the camp blooms his first love. With deep sadness, Valdis often remembers his happy childhood in his beloved Latvia. In the first years of their exile almost everyone believed that certainly they would be able to return. Valdis also writes that he is diligently studying the English language every day and still hoping that Latvia will once more have its independence. After some time the family is relocated to a camp in Altenstadt, where the living conditions were more tolerable, and Valdis began learning in school. Understandably, the exiled people celebrated November 18th, Latvian Independence Day, practicing to perform a show in celebration. The next move for the Fomenko family was Kempten, and the last entry in the diary is May 1st, 1946 - still always waiting, not knowing about the future, hoping, that maybe still there could be a miracle.
His diary is decorated with drawings, pictures of Riga, and postcards from places in Germany, but his most precious possessions are the dried autumn leaves picked years before in Riga which he has pressed between the pages …
At the back of this English translation book are more photographs of the family. Valdis emigrated to Canada, his brother Arturs along with his wife Jadviga, daughter Dzidra, and German-born son Juris, and also his sisters Vera and Gaida - emigrated to Southern California. Vera had married an American soldier in Germany. Helena Hoffman remembers how Arturs often played his accordion at the Hermanson building on dance evenings.
Valdis Fomenko writes in his daybook, that in Latvia he was a boy scout, and his mother had bought him a scout’s Rover hat which he would never be able to wear. Later he had other hats - being just eighteen years old he put on his head the heavy gold miner’s helmet, and after that the Canadian 8th Provost Military Police hat, Canadian 4th Intelligence Corps hat, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hat, and the Canadian Coast Guard Search and Rescue hat.
Life in Canada was good, and so it was also for his brother and both sisters in Los Angeles, but still the sense of loss for their homeland never left them."
(article by Astra Moora, November 2009)
"New Memoir Book"
"In these times, would a boy keep a diary? In some instances, that diary could become a testament of time. Valdis Fomenko, about fifteen to sixteen years old at the time, wrote about his family’s fate through many daily journals, which lay safe but forgotten for many years in a closet. A little over ten years ago he rediscovered it and showed it to his sister Gaida’s daughter, Lyndian Dowling, who then translated the text and made it into a book.
The Fomenko family from Rabbit Island in Riga were taken to Germany, first to Neuminster, and from there to the concentration camp in Dachau. They believed that their final hour had come. But inexplicable good fortune befell the family, and once more it was proven that good deeds are rewarded. They were saved by a German who had lived in their home on Rabbit Island during the war.
The Fomenko family was then taken to a labor camp near Schongau. With the war ending, and being moved to a displaced persons camp, Valdis began writing from September 29, 1945 until the end of the year in great detail about everyday happenings - about life together with many other nationalities in close quarters, and whether you liked it or not being accepting of it. About the crooked camp administrators, the never-ending hunger from the meager portions doled-out, fights with other boys, and simple pleasures too - trips to the movie theater, checker tournaments, playing the accordion, and traveling to nearby cities. Also in the camp blooms his first love. With deep sadness, Valdis often remembers his happy childhood in his beloved Latvia. In the first years of their exile almost everyone believed that certainly they would be able to return. Valdis also writes that he is diligently studying the English language every day and still hoping that Latvia will once more have its independence. After some time the family is relocated to a camp in Altenstadt, where the living conditions were more tolerable, and Valdis began learning in school. Understandably, the exiled people celebrated November 18th, Latvian Independence Day, practicing to perform a show in celebration. The next move for the Fomenko family was Kempten, and the last entry in the diary is May 1st, 1946 - still always waiting, not knowing about the future, hoping, that maybe still there could be a miracle.
His diary is decorated with drawings, pictures of Riga, and postcards from places in Germany, but his most precious possessions are the dried autumn leaves picked years before in Riga which he has pressed between the pages …
At the back of this English translation book are more photographs of the family. Valdis emigrated to Canada, his brother Arturs along with his wife Jadviga, daughter Dzidra, and German-born son Juris, and also his sisters Vera and Gaida - emigrated to Southern California. Vera had married an American soldier in Germany. Helena Hoffman remembers how Arturs often played his accordion at the Hermanson building on dance evenings.
Valdis Fomenko writes in his daybook, that in Latvia he was a boy scout, and his mother had bought him a scout’s Rover hat which he would never be able to wear. Later he had other hats - being just eighteen years old he put on his head the heavy gold miner’s helmet, and after that the Canadian 8th Provost Military Police hat, Canadian 4th Intelligence Corps hat, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hat, and the Canadian Coast Guard Search and Rescue hat.
Life in Canada was good, and so it was also for his brother and both sisters in Los Angeles, but still the sense of loss for their homeland never left them."
__________________________________________
"I
am honored to be a Fomenko even so much more now that I have had a
glimpse back into the life of my family. My Dad is Juris. My life as a
Fomenko will NEVER be the same and my children will know just how great
the legacy of a Fomenko is. Thank you so much ... for making it possible
for all of us to read what Uncle Valdi wrote so many years ago ... Es
tevi milu ..."
- Brian Fomenko
"This book is awesome. I have read it twice. Easy reading, and I didn't want to put it down."
-Google Reviews
THE JOURNAL OF VALDIS FOMENKO
is available in hardcover for $35.95
via email at:
via email at:
thejournalofvaldisfomenko@gmail.com
