Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story, Part Three -- Darkness Sets In

Ralph lived with his mother, Ida, and his brother Karl in Rahumäe, a suburb of Tallinn. The Soviets had made it illegal for citizens to own radios and listen to foreign broadcasts, but Ralph and Karl, like many Estonians, secretly kept a radio so they could hear news from outside the country. The newspapers could no longer be trusted. They carried what the Communist authorities wanted people to read.

At first, the Soviet presence was mostly visible through military bases and soldiers. Before long, arrests and disappearances became part of daily life. As a policeman, Karl sometimes witnessed them firsthand.

 

Darkness at noon,

One day he was riding his horse along a narrow street in Tallinn when he noticed a man, woman and young boy walking along the sidewalk. A large black car followed slowly behind them. A window was open, and someone inside was calling to the man. The family kept walking.

 

The car pulled ahead and stopped at the curb. Two men got out. One carried a pistol.

Karl urged his horse toward them, but by the time he arrived, the woman had been struck with the butt of the pistol and knocked to the ground. The man was forced into the car at gunpoint and driven away. The men were secret police.

 

Incidents like this were taking place throughout Estonia.

 

Ralph and Mutti were best friends, but they were also rivals for Eitzi. Both were in love with her. That spring, Mutti and Eitzi announced that they were getting married. Ralph was happy for them, although he wondered whether he would ever find someone like Eitzi. The wedding was planned for the end of June.

 

Then came June 14

After the Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia in 1940, the NKVD prepared lists of so-called “anti-Soviet,” “socially dangerous,” and “kulak” elements and their families—politicians, officers, civil servants, farmers, intellectuals, and others.In the night and early hours of 13–14 June 1941, squads woke people, read a decree, gave them little time to pack (often an hour or less), confiscated property, and trucked them to rail stations. Tens of thousands were loaded into freight/cattle cars. Men were often separated from women and children. The operation ran across the country at once. (See "Sea of Tears" Memorial.)

Ralph said that during the night, the NKVD went from house to house throughout Estonia, arresting and deporting thousands of people. By morning, families across Tallinn were discovering that husbands, fathers, wives, mothers and children had been taken away. The streets were filled with wailing for lost loved ones. Mutti was among them. There would be no wedding.

 

Eitzi's family had relatives in Sweden and arranged for her to leave Estonia. Within a short time she was gone as well. Ralph had lost his two closest friends. He never saw either of them again.

 

As Soviet control tightened, Ralph heard more stories about people being taken away by the NKVD. His mother worried about both of her sons. Karl tried to reassure her that Ralph was probably safe because of his damaged leg.

 

Karl knew that his own position was different. As a policeman, he believed he might eventually be arrested. He began sleeping in different places rather than returning home every night.

 

Ralph made an important distinction when he told me about this period. He did not remember ordinary Russian soldiers as the people Estonians feared most. Soldiers could be seen at stores, parks and dance halls. It was the NKVD they feared. The secret police were the ones who came looking for people.

 

Eventually they began arresting Estonian police officers. The first arrests took place at police barracks and headquarters in Tallinn. Karl was not there when the arrests began.

When he learned what was happening, he went into hiding. He did not tell Ralph or his mother where he was.

 

Ralph never knew exactly why the police were being arrested. He assumed one reason was that they were armed and therefore represented a possible source of resistance.

A few days later, shortly after supper, Ralph and Ida were sitting at the table talking about Karl when two vehicles stopped outside their house. There was a knock at the door.

 

Before anyone could answer, about half a dozen NKVD men in civilian clothes and greatcoats entered the house with pistols drawn. Ralph and his mother were forced against the wall. Ralph felt the barrel of a pistol pressed into his ribs. From his mother's expression, he could tell that a gun was being held against her as well.

 

Then Ralph heard something else. The radio was playing upstairs. He knew they could be arrested if the NKVD discovered it. The men searched the house. Two went outside with flashlights while others searched the rooms. Two remained with Ralph and Ida.

Their leader questioned Ralph about Karl.

 

“You know where he is, don't you?”

 

“No, I don't know,” Ralph said. “And I don't want to know.”

 

“I don't believe you.”

 

The questioning continued, but eventually the officer ordered his men to leave.

Before going, he turned to Ida.

 

“When you hear from your son, tell him his country, Mother Russia, needs him. If he turns himself in, everything will be fine.” Then he added, “Otherwise, when we find him, he'll be shot like the rest.”

Story Links

Uprooted, Part Two.

Uprooted, Part One and Intro

Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story, Part Two -- The Day It All Broke Open

Another of the early stories Ralph told me took place during the Soviet occupation of Estonia. On September 28, 1939, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed an agreement that divided much of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The following month, Estonia was forced to accept Soviet military bases on its territory. In June 1940, Soviet forces occupied the country.

At first, Ralph said, daily life continued much as before. There were incidents and signs of what was coming, but then things broke open in July, on the day of a soccer match between Estonia and Latvia, one of the biggest sporting events of the year.

 

Tallinn Stadium was filled to capacity. Ralph was there with his two best friends, Eitsi and Mutti. Eitsi was twenty years old, with long dark hair. Ralph remembered Mutti as tall, handsome and somewhat vain.

 

With less than two minutes remaining, Estonia led 1–0. Displaying the Estonian flag had been prohibited, but someone had secretly distributed small flags throughout the stadium. As the clock ran down, a Soviet army band began assembling at one end of the field. Latvia was attacking in the final seconds. The crowd began counting down.

Five! Four! Three! Two! One! The gun went off.

 

Suddenly thousands of Estonian flags appeared throughout the stadium—blue, black and white. At the same time, the Soviet army band hurried onto the field and began setting up. Ralph remembered the conductor as a short, heavyset man who waved his baton as the musicians scrambled into position.

 

Then the Estonians began singing their national anthem.

 

The Soviet band began playing “The Internationale,” but the crowd drowned them out. The red-faced conductor motioned for his musicians to play louder. The crowd responded by singing louder. Ralph remembered the scene as both funny and sad. Eventually, he said, the band could hardly be heard.

 

Estonia's president Konstantin Päts had been placed under Soviet control, and the demonstration did not end at the stadium. People poured into the streets and began marching toward the presidential residence.

 

At the front of the procession, marchers carried Kristjan Palusalu on their shoulders. Palusalu was a national hero who had won gold medals in both Greco-Roman and freestyle heavyweight wrestling at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Ralph was near the front of the march.

 

The demonstrators did not know that Soviet troops were waiting ahead with machine guns. A fence separated the marchers from the presidential grounds. When the crowd reached it, some people moved toward the fence and tried to get across. Then the shooting began.

 

Ralph had never heard automatic weapons fired before. People scattered. He took cover behind a tree and became separated from Eitsi and Mutti.

 

The crowds retreated into the streets of Tallinn, but the demonstration continued. The city's main streets filled with people shouting, singing and protesting. The Soviets ordered the Estonian police to disperse them.

 

Ralph's brother Carl, a mounted police officer in his mid-twenties, was among those sent into the streets. According to Ralph, the Estonian police made little effort to break up the demonstration. Instead, people surrounded the mounted officers. Some grabbed the horses by the legs and tried to lift them while shouting: “Long live the Estonian police! Long live the Estonian police!”

 

The fire department was called next. Fire trucks moved slowly through the streets with orders to hose down the demonstrators. The firemen wouldn’t turn on the hoses.

Finally, Soviet tanks were sent into the streets. People moved aside as the tanks approached, allowing them to pass, then closed ranks again behind them.

 

“They were only sent to frighten us,” Ralph told me. The tanks did not fire.

UPROOTED: Intro & Part One

Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story

This is a story about a man with a singular quest: Freedom. It's one of the primary reasons people leave their homelands, often at great personal sacrifice.

In 1940, without firing a shot, the Soviet Union absorbed the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. Along with territorial acquisition, this move was a major coup in projecting Soviet naval presence westward. Besides taking in the tiny navies and merchant marine fleets of the three states, the Soviet Red Banner Baltic Fleet acquired a number of important naval bases on the Baltic Sea. Chief among them was Tallinn, capital of Estonia and a major port city.  --Victor J Kamenir, Warfare History Network, 2008

INTRODUCTION

I met Ralph in the early 1990s on the beach at Park Point in Duluth, Minnesota. I was lying on a blanket reading while my children played in the sand near the water. At some point I glanced behind me and noticed an elderly man making his way across the beach.

He walked with considerable difficulty. One leg was badly withered; the other was strong and muscular from years of compensating for it. He was somewhat stooped and wore shorts and a button-down shirt. When he reached the water, he removed his shirt and slowly made his way into Lake Superior.

He stayed in the cold water for nearly twenty minutes. When he came out, he gathered his belongings and began the slow walk back toward his car. As he passed me, he stopped.

“You like to read,” he said. He had a strong Eastern European accent.

I told him I did, and we began talking. He told me he had loved libraries while growing up. When I mentioned that I was a writer, Ralph said people had told him many times that someone should write the story of his life.

He had grown up in Estonia, outside Tallinn on the Baltic Sea, and was now in his seventies. Before leaving, he offered me a glimpse of the story he wanted to tell.

“Would you like to hear how learning new languages saved my life?” he asked. “Come to my apartment and I will tell you more.” 

Chapter 1

Ralph Kand was born on August 7, 1919, during Estonia's War of Independence. He grew up with his parents and brother on the outskirts of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. When Ralph was three, he fell from a fence post and broke his hip. The injury left his left leg permanently damaged. It remained thin and crooked, and Ralph walked with a limp for the rest of his life. He would never run again.

The disability did not keep him from doing the things he wanted to do. When he learned to type, he practiced until he became the second-fastest typist in Estonia.

As a teenager, Ralph wanted to ski. Nearly everyone in Estonia skied, but his damaged leg made it difficult. He devised a way to strap his left leg and foot securely to a ski and taught himself. Eventually he became a fast skier.

Ralph also read a great deal. He spent many hours in the library and particularly liked Thomas Mann. The Magic Mountain made a lasting impression on him. Ralph remembered Hans Castorp looking at the night sky and wondering about the size and meaning of the universe. More than sixty years later, Ralph was still talking about the book.

Within a week of meeting Ralph on the beach, I went to his apartment in Duluth to hear the story he had mentioned. That visit began a friendship that lasted for years.

Ralph had moved to Duluth because his wife needed nursing-home care. He wanted to live near Lake Superior because the lake reminded him of the Baltic Sea and Estonia.

Here is the first story he told me.

In 1939 the Red Army occupied Estonia after Estonia had been forced to sign the Bases Treaty. Ralph was 20 years old and working at a brewery in Tallinn called The Rooster. The brewery had been built by the French years earlier and stood on a hillside overlooking the sea. Ralph worked in the office, typing the paperwork for incoming orders.

After the Soviets arrived, authorities ordered windows facing the harbor to be whitewashed. Ralph assumed they didn't want Estonians watching Soviet naval activity. The brewery windows were painted as well. The next day Ralph scratched a small hole in the whitewash with his thumbnail so he could see the Russian ships in the harbor. He wasn't the only one. People all over Tallinn did the same thing.

Living under Soviet rule meant living with the possibility of arrest. Ralph's friends told him he probably had little to worry about because of his crippled leg. They were wrong.

One day two vehicles pulled up behind the brewery. Men wearing greatcoats entered through the rear door. They were members of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. One of the men carried a list containing six names. The NKVD officers asked where each man worked. One by one, the men were located and brought into a small dining area. Ralph was among the first because his workstation was nearby.

As another man was being escorted down the hallway, he saw the others being held and tried to run. He was shot in the hallway. Ralph stayed where he was.

Meanwhile, two NKVD officers went to the far end of the brewery to find the last man on their list. While they were gone, a Russian soldier entered to pick up an order. No one was at the counter, so he began shouting for someone to help him. Finally, one of the NKVD men told Ralph to go take care of the order.

The soldier was there to pick up a load of vodka. Ralph went outside with him to help carry the cases to his truck. Once they were outside, Ralph spoke to the soldier in Russian. He explained that the man inside wearing the greatcoat was NKVD and that Ralph was under arrest. Then Ralph proposed a plan. As they loaded the truck, they would stack the cases in a way that left a space where Ralph could hide. When they brought out the last case, Ralph would climb into the truck behind the vodka. The soldier was to drive through the gate without stopping.

The Russian soldier agreed. When the last case was loaded, Ralph climbed into the hiding place. The soldier got behind the wheel and drove for the gate.

The NKVD officer realized what was happening and ran outside. He fired several shots after the truck, but it was already too far away and Ralph escaped.

More than fifty years later, sitting in his apartment in Duluth, he told me why that story mattered. “If I hadn't learned Russian, I wouldn't be here today.”

TO BE CONTINUED

The Stroke: What Happened to Me and Some Lessons for You

It has been two-and-a-half years since my stroke and I thought it might be a good time to share my story, in part because maybe one day you're have an experience in which you don't know what's going on until a light goes on and you think, "Aha! I'm having a stroke." 

The day began like any other for me. I make my "to do" list with boxes next to each item. hen at item is completed I draw an X in the box. If partially completed I may draw a line diagonally in the box. If it is something important that must be completed that day I may also place a large asterisk alongside the task. And tasks that fail to get completed are copied the next morning to my new "to do" list for that following day.

Frist attempt to brush my teeth. Missed.

On the day of my stroke, my primary task was to be postering in Superior with Michael Shannon, a retired history teacher and friend from the Duluth Dylan Fest group. Before we could put up the Dylan Fest posters I had to meet Zane Bail for coffee at Perk Place to pick up the posters. And on the way I would stop at Walgreens for scotch tape. 

I'd driven the route a hundred times, from my house down Maple Grove to Haines Road, across highway 53 to Arrowhead where I'd make a right turn for the straight shot to Kenwood Shopping Center. As I made the turn on to Arrowhead, I noticed something funny. In my mind I had placed both hands on the steering wheel to make the turn, but my right hand was not where I had placed in on the wheel as I turned. This struck me as peculiar. 

So I was now driving East on Arrowhead, wondering my hand went. It was midmorning so there was no traffc. I turned to look toward the passenger seat and saw that my arm was floating around in the air, just doing its own thing. I drove like this all the way to Kenwood with my disobedient floating arm. I would watch where I was going and then look at this untethered limb, back and forth like that. I replaying this in my mind, at one point it looked like my arm was split open from wrist to elbow, but without blood.

Walgreens is on the left just before the shopping center so I made a turn there and maneuvered into a parking slot. Unfortuntely, I was unable to communicate to my hand to remove the car key, so I scrunched over to remove it wth my left hand. I then walked into the store and stood there. Walgreens was on my list but I had forgotten why.

A woman, perhaps the manager, walked up to me and asked, "May I help you find something?"

I didn't know what to say, or even how to say. Instead, I turned and left the store and returned to my car. Now I had a new dilemma. Was I capable of driving kitty-corner across the street? Using my left hand I managed to place the key in the ignition and get the car started. It was now 10:30 and Zane should be showing up any minute.

Success. I parked the car and got out, hoping Zane would find me. Two minutes later and she was there. My first words, if I remember correctly, were, "I'm having a stroke." 

She repled, "Are you sure?"

Our mutual friend Phil, a poet and anchor in our Dylan Fest team, had had a stroke two years earlier and something he shared with me about his experience snapped my mind awake. Based on my reading book a about stokes I knew that the faster one can get to the hospital, the better the outcome. Zane said, "Get in the car" and we were on the way to the ER.

In Phil's case, he was up on Hawk's Ridge with two friends who noticed a change come over him so that he was walking in circles and talking nonsense. It the out-of-character strangeness that triggered their concern. In my case, it was my own strange behavior that alerted me.

Zane agreed to drive me to the Emergency Room and leave my car at Kenwood. One of us -- possibly Zane -- thought it would be good to call Susie to meet us at the hospital. At this point I wasn't sure how to use my phone, so she pulled out hers. I located Susie's phone number and proceeded to read off the numbers, but something strange was happening. With my eyes I could see her the numbers but with my mouth I was saying different number from what I was reading. Instead of 2-1-8 I said 5-1-0 etc. Zane had a pen out and was writing the numbers on her forearm. 

I looked at what she had written and it was all wrong. "That's not right," I said, and then I read the Susie's phone number again. This time I gave Zane a completely different number sequence. It was as if my brain had become a random number generator, because in my third attempt Zane wrote yet a third iteration of incorrect numbers. 

We came to a stoplight -- or stop sign -- and she said, "Give me your phone." 

At the ER entrance I was placed in a wheelchair and wheeled in. The metal felt exceptionally cold on my right hand.

Very quickly I was taken to a room for a CAT Scan and then to another room where a television set was wheeled in. A doctor from Washington DC was on the screen. He had looked at all the details of my health history and explained that in light of other meds I was taken for another chronic issue, they would have to forego the usual prescribed treatment, a shot that is given as early as possible for stroke victims. In other words, there was nothing they could do.

I was checked in to a room on the 11th or 14th floor with a view of the lake. 

* * * 

What is a stroke? A stroke is a medical emergency that happens when the blood supply to part of the brain is blocked or when a blood vessel in the brain bursts. Without blood and oxygen, brain cells start to die within minutes. According to the CDC, a stroke can cause lasting brain damage, long-term disability, or death.

For valuable informaton on this topic visit Understanding Stroke Warning Signs by The Stroke Foundation.

* * * 

The stroke affected the right side of my face and my right arm from the elbow to the fingertips. It didn't affect my ability to play harmonica, nor my ability to dance. 

Almost Wordless Wednesday: The Influence of Escher

These photos were taken at an M C Escher exhibition that I visited when I was in Florence. There were many surprises, one of the biggest being how many album covers and businesses used his design concepts.

The entire exhibition was phenomenal, and I will share more about it

another time. For some reason I thought I'd already shared that experience

but as it turns out, I now found it in the 2,000 incomplete blog posts 

I've started over the past 19 years.

Related Link: 18 Blog Posts About My Adventures in Italy

One of my Favorite Stories: The Bet by Anton Chekov

What is it about Anton Chekov's story The Bet that gives it such force? From my first reading to the present it never fails to impress me. At the beginning we're given the impression that this story is about which form of punishment is more humane, the death penalty or life imprisonment. It ends by asking what makes a life worth living in the first place. How Chekov accomplishes this in a few thousand words is a powerful achievement.

The Bet

It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening. There had been many clever men there, and there had been interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of capital punishment. The majority of the guests, among whom were many journalists and intellectual men, disapproved of the death penalty. They considered that form of punishment out of date, immoral, and unsuitable for Christian States. In the opinion of some of them the death penalty ought to be replaced everywhere by imprisonment for life. "I don't agree with you," said their host the banker. "I have not tried either the death penalty or imprisonment for life, but if one may judge a priori, the death penalty is more moral and more humane than imprisonment for life. Capital punishment kills a man at once, but lifelong imprisonment kills him slowly. Which executioner is the more humane, he who kills you in a few minutes or he who drags the life out of you in the course of many years?"

"Both are equally immoral," observed one of the guests, "for they both have the same object - to take away life. The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to."

Among the guests was a young lawyer, a young man of five-and-twenty. When he was asked his opinion, he said:

"The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral, but if I had to choose between the death penalty and imprisonment for life, I would certainly choose the second. To live anyhow is better than not at all."

A lively discussion arose. The banker, who was younger and more nervous in those days, was suddenly carried away by excitement; he struck the table with his fist and shouted at the young man:

"It's not true! I'll bet you two million you wouldn't stay in solitary confinement for five years."

"If you mean that in earnest," said the young man, "I'll take the bet, but I would stay not five but fifteen years."

"Fifteen? Done!" cried the banker. "Gentlemen, I stake two million!"

"Agreed! You stake your millions and I stake my freedom!" said the young man.

TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY: CLICK HERE