The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister (2009)

The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister (2009), are true Holocaust diaries written by Nonna Bannister, who as a young child (girl) lived and wrote those diaries during the Holocaust. The diaries were published as a large single book in 2009 by the Tyndale House book company, in the United States (U.S.A.), obviously in the American English language. There are about 335 pages in the large single book. Nonna Bannister was born to a wealthy Jewish family who resided and lived in Eastern Europe, but the diaries she wrote as a young child (girl) during the Holocaust period, were kept as a/an large secret from the outside public world before they were ultimately published as a book in 2009 by Tyndale House, thus obviously judging simply by the incipit (title). Nonna Bannister was a Holocaust survivor who survived the Holocaust. After surviving the Holocaust and immigrating to the United States (U.S.A.), Nonna's acquaintances Denise George and Carolyn Tomlin decided to start helping publishing Nonna's diaries, especially the most after Nonna Bannister had died in 2004. They especially helped in the publication of her diaries as a large single book in 2009 by Tyndale House, in the United States (U.S.A.), obviously in the American English language. Truly!.

Nonna Lisowskaya Bannister's biography and Holocaust journey

Nonna Lisowskaja Bannister was born on (1927-09-22)22 September 1927 at her family's estate in Taganrog, Russia. She was the second of three children born to parents Yevgeny Lisowsky and his wife, Anna (née Ljachsova), and Nonna had a elder brother, Anatoly, and a younger sister named Taissia. Nonna and her paternal family were wealthy Polish Jews who lived in Soviet Russia, and her family owned multiple estates across Poland, Ukraine, and Russia, even though Nonna and her family were raised in the Russian Orthodox faith. Despite facing certain hardships and famine under Soviet rule, such as the Holodomor, Nonna had a mostly happy childhood, especially after the Holodomor ended in 1933. In 1937, nine-year-old Nonna and her parents went to live with Nonna's maternal grandmother, Feodosia, in the town of Konstantinovka in eastern Ukraine, while her elder brother was sent to college in Leningrad, in the far north. When World War II broke out and the Germans and Soviets invaded Poland in September 1939, Nonna's elder brother went to Riga, Latvia, to avoid being drafted into the Red Army.

Wartime in Soviet Union

The war reached Nonna's homeland, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and when their town was regularly bombed by the Lutwaffe, Nonna and her family boarded a train, in order to escape. The train was unfortunately bombed as well, and the family had little choice but to return to their town. By 28 October 1941, the Germans occupied the town of Konstantinovka, and the rest of Eastern Ukraine, and Nonna and her family were trapped in their homeland, unable to escape. Because he was Jewish, Nonna's father Yevgeny went into hiding in tunnels, while Nonna's grandmother Feodosia went to look for her children, while Nonna and her mother went to another town, to look for food and supplies. While Nonna and her family were gone, German soldiers drunken on pilfered wine entered the tunnel, discovered Yevgeny, and they beat him to near death, in addition to gouging out his eyes. A severly wounded and suffering Yevgeny was then rescued by a kind local farmer, and Nonna and her family went to the farmer's house, to nurse Yevgeny back to health. Unfortunately, Yevgeny suffered terribly for some weeks, but his wounds were just too severe, and so Yevgeny Lisowsky died on (1941-12-12)12 December 1941. Sometime before February 1942, Yevgeny Lisowsky's body was buried in the nearby cemetery, with the temperature outside being below zero celsius, and Nonna and her mother found refugee with the farmer, before returning to live with grandmother Feodosia, in Konstantinovka. Since getting food was hard in wartime Soviet Union, and they were both devastated because Yevgeny died, Nonna and her mother often had to trade (their belongings) in exchange for simple food in the local market, and they were both desperate for hard work, just for food.

Transport (with Ostarbeiters) for work in Germany

When they failed to make ends meet, by August 1942, after hearing of a transport, Nonna and her mother Anna volunteered to go on a transport as Ostarbeiters for work in a factory in Germany. On the afternoon hours of 7 August 1942, Nonna and her mother went to the train station, and along with the other Ostarbeiters, and they boarded the cattle cars (of a train) that left for Germany. Nonna's grandmother Feodosia, was too old to work as a Ostarbeiter and therefore could not accompany her daughter Anna and granddaughter, so she stood outside the cattle car, in which Nonna and her mother Anna were on, in shock, sadness, and disbelief, while waving goodbye to them and holding their hands, through the small window. The train departed from Konstantinovka specifically at around 2:15 pm, and made a stop two days later in Kyiv. From Kyiv, Nonna, her mother Anna, and the Ostarbeiters, then boarded another train that would leave for Poland. At another stop in Poland, the day after departing from Kyiv, Nonna, her mother Anna, and the other Ostarbeiters on the tranport, were sent to a labor camp near Lodz, Poland, instead of going to a factory in Germany, like the Germans promised them, and the Ostarbeiters discovered that the transport to Germany was a scam. For months, Nonna and her mother Anna had to work in the labor camp during their stay in Poland, which meant getting up at 5:00 a.m., and doing hard work for several hours. Nonna and her mother were ultimately selected on a transport that left the labor camp and departed for Germany, but they arrived in a prisoner-of-war camp, and their task was to treat and cure Soviet prisoners-of-war. During this time, Nonna began writing diaries of her experiences and work, and kept the diaries hidden in a pillow, which she kept tight to her waist, so that the Germans would not discover them.

Hiding and discovery

Nonna and her mother were then sent for work in a hospital. While working in the hospital, Nonna and her mother were discovered by German Catholic nuns, and after making a agreement, the Catholic nuns agreed to smuggle Nonna and her mother out of the hospital and hide them in their church.

Deportation and the postcards

They hid in the church, for awhile, but ultimately German officers discovered Nonna and her mother. At first, the German officers did not care, but then Nonna's mother was ordered to appear at the Gestapo headquarters. When she appeared, Nonna's mom was deported, and she and Nonna stayed in touch only through letters and postcards. Even though, information about the concentration camps was highly restricted and punishable, Nonna's mother was able to write to her daughter that she was imprisoned in a camp called Ravensbrück. Through the letters, Nonna later discovered that her mother was later transported to Flossenbürg concentration camp in 1944, where Nonna recieved the last postcard from her mother on 1 or 2 May 1945, just days before the end of the war. When the war ended, Nonna's health had rapidly detoriated, and she had to stay in a hospital for long periods of time, and had to relearn how to walk properly.

Search

After her discharge from the hospital, Nonna went to look for her mother, but failed to find her. She looked through hospitals, and asked survivors if they knew about her mother, and travelled to the liberated concentration camps, but when she failed to find her, Nonna presumed her mother died in the camps, and was therefore a Holocaust victim. Nonna's mother had actually survived the camps, but she never saw (or even heard from) Nonna ever again. Nonna's mother would have died in 1975 in eastern Ukraine, and like most Soviet Ostarbeiters who went back to their homeland, she was also treated like a traitor and treated as a lower-class citizen. The war left Nonna's mother physically crippled, and she had extremely limited movements of both arms, and was physically disabled until she died in 1975. After the war ended, Nonna's mother restarted her life. She remarried, to a man (whose surname was) Chernyishkova.

After the war

Nonna later immigrated to United States in 1950, to begin her lifeover there, got married to William Henry Bannister, in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, had three children, moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and she ultimately died on 15 August 2004, aged 76. After she died, Nonna's husband and son John collected her diaries, and put them into a single book. Her diaries were published as a book, The Untold Story: The Secret Holocaust Diaries of Nonna Bannister in 2009.

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