The Last Bridge

soft-bound biography
Elvera Ziebart Reuer . storyteller
Marjorie Knittel . writer
1984 Midstates Printing, Inc. . publisher
Library of Congress 84.61037 ISBN 0.87970.164.1
167 Pages . 8 Photos  . 1 Diagram
Price . $20

Synopsis Page 1 of 3 . The protagonist Eva Friedt Ziebart is one of 93,000 Germans displaced from Russia when political upheaval overtook their peaceful lives in 1940. Under the auspices of Hilter’s invitation and Stalin’s blessing, the quiet, industrious people of Arzis, Bessarabia—now Ukraine—abandoned their well-maintained homes and productive farms to endure years of hunger, motionless hiding through frozen nights and terror-filled flights by horse-drawn wagon from enemies behind, before, and above them.

Eva Ziebart’s nine-year stretch of homelessness is not unique to the history of Germans from Russia. However, her indefatiguable will and astute perception of human nature are exceptional and make this biography a soul-moving experience. Photo story slide show»

Born in 1893, an orphan at 14, later a grieving mother of five children meeting premature death, and still later a widow solely responsible for two small daughters, two teen-age daughters, a teen-age son, and two young adult stepsons, Eva Ziebart defied all that challenged her course across a war-ravaged continent and half the globe in search of safety and freedom for her family. Eva’s tenacity often brought her nose-to-nose against the most powerful men of her era: the illogical Russian military, the cold, calculated Nazi personnel, and the Allied forces.

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