Two Marias

I couldn't believe my eyes. An email popped up in my inbox promoting a story about a 17 year-old girl named Maria from Ukraine who went to school and found herself staring down the barrel of an enemy soldier's gun.

It sounded remarkably similar to the starting point for my book The Golden Daughter, due to be published by Anansi Press on August 5. My mother's name was Maria. She was 17. She went to school in Ukraine, the soldiers burst in, and mama and the other students were marched out, bundled into cattle cars, and sent to Germany as work slaves.

I looked again at the story the Canada-Ukraine Foundation had dropped in my inbox. Same name, same country, similar circumstances... but separated by 80 years.

My mother was a victim of the careless brutality of the Nazis, in 1943. The Nazis wanted workers for their farms and factories, so they stole them from the streets and schools of the countries they were occupying.

The Maria I was reading about in my email was hounded by Russian soldiers in the bruised and battered Ukraine of today. She lived in an area temporarily occupied by Russian forces. Children like Maria are being systematically stripped of their identities, forced into military training, and psychologically manipulated to forget they are Ukrainian.

My mother Maria was not brainwashed. She was simply treated as sub-human, fed on slops and forced to work long hours, first as a housemaid and later on the production line of a factory being constantly bombed by the allies.

My mother survived. And so did the Maria of today. The Save Ukraine rescue network coordinated her evacuation from occupation. So far the group has rescued 12 children from Russian captivity. But thousands are still waiting. Approximately 19,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russia since 2022.

I think of the two Marias. Separated by 80 years, but united through man's inhumanity. I ask myself how far we have progressed as a society in 80 years. I don't like the answer.

My book, The Golden Daughter, is available for pre-order from all good booksellers. You can find links on my website. The book will be published on August 5th, and we'll launch it at Pier 21 in Halifax, NS, in September.

Silhouette photo credit: Save Ukraine, photo of Maria Brik: author