Beauty and Ashes Description, Character List & Place Names

 

Beauty and Ashes explores the psychological

survival of refugees. The psychological thread

of unfulfilled dreams and the loss of a sense

of belonging transfers from one character to

another, from those who resist and physically

fight against evil, from those who perpetuate

evil, and from those who wish to survive evil.

 

Eleni, a determined and resourceful woman,

flees from her Mennonite village in the

Ukraine with her family, just ahead of the

Russian Army. 

 

The novel recreates the oppressive culture and

the declining fortunes of the German nation in

World War II and provides the backdrop as

Eleni leads her family through an unforgiving

and brutal time. 

​

“Can I mature beyond defining my SELF by someone else’s response to me? 

I am stretching towards the hope of an identity

I do not have to guard and protect … a self

both strong enough and flexible enough to remain

planted amongst the storms, floods, battles ... and ... droughts too?"

​

Follow Eleni's journey in BEAUTY AND ASHES.

​

LIST OF CHARACTERS in order of appearance:      

                                         
Reiner--young man of Polish descent                                                        

Gerhard Wiens--refugee from the Ukraine
​Eleni (Mutti)--A strong, resourceful woman and this is her story           Abraham--her son                                                                                      

Susannah--her daughter                                                                              

Heinchen--her youngest son                                                                 
Heinrich (Papa)--Eleni`s husband                                                                                                                               
Peter Wiebe (Vater)--Eleni's man                                                           
Bruno--worker at the Zator refugee camp                                            
Casper--the Zator refugee camp cat                                                          
Prediger Wiens--minister at the Zator refugee camp

Mika--Gerhard's Wife
Elias--Gerhard's eldest nephew
Dietrich--Gerhard's younger nephew

Klara Doerksen--girl at the Zator refugee camp
Berhard & Katharina--Eleni's ancestors
Margita--worker in the Zator refugee camp

Irmgard--refugee, Eleni's friend & Klara's inspiration    
Manfred Kerrem--Schutzstaffel (SS) Obersharführer    

   

​BEAUTY AND ASHES  PLACE NAMES
Historical fiction set in World War II, occupied Poland, 1941 - 1945
PLACES in order of mention:
-Zator, Oshpitzin district on the Skawa River in Upper Silesia (Oberschlesien), Poland, and site of a refugee camp
-Chortitza, Russian Ukraine, across from Kherson, now part of Zaporizhia, Ukraine. Eleni's family village.
-Danzig, Poland
-Wolfsberg (Wlodarz, Poland); Wüstewaltersdorf (present day Walim, Poland) and Fürstenstein is a castle in Wlabrzych, Lower Silesia

-Berislav, Ukraine, on the Dnieper River, south of Chortitza
-Auschwitz (Oswiecim, Poland) is a World War II  German concentration camp
-Omsk, Siberia is the birthplace of Eleni's father
-Konstantinovka, Eastern Ukraine--railroad station

-Puchovka, near Woronezh--town bombed by German Stuckas. It is located approximately 800 km for Chortitza.
-Ebenfeld & Waldheim, Colony Molochna, now part of Zaporizhia
-Hamburg, Germany--home of the infamous German 101 Battalion which was stationed in Prague, Czechoslovakia during World War II
-Dubrovna, Mogliev (now part of Belarus) on the Dnieper River; Riga (present day Latvia) and Kremenchug a town in the Ukraine.

-Wolfschanze (Wolf's Lair) was Adolf Hitler`s headquarters in the forest near Rastenburg in East Prussia (now the town of Ketrzyn, Poland) 
-Arbeitslager Wolfsberg Komplex Reise--a monstrous underground complex in the Owl Mountains at Fürstenstein.
-Lodz, Poland (75 miles southwest of Warsaw, Poland)
-Kutno, central Poland and site of a refugee camp

-Kielce, a town in south central Poland
-Pabiance a town in central Poland
​-Krustryn, the crossing over the Oder River
-Tribben, near Berlin, as well as Christinendorf 

-Elsterverda--Manfred's birthplace and home in southwestern Brandenburg, Germany
-Elbe River is west of Berlin, Germany
-Bremerhaven is a port city in northwest Germany on the North Sea coast
-Dresden Germany, site of catastrophic allied bombing raids and firestorms which resulted in a death toll from fire and suffocation was somewhere between 25,000 - 100,000 civilians.

-Helmstadt, Sharfenbrück, Schäferhof, Chelb--post war refugee camps run by the Americans
-Gulag--Solovetski Islands in Northern Russia, the Gulags were forced labour camps and prisoner of war camps