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Family Ties versus the Good Life

by Traute Klein, AKA biogardener

What does a child need to be happy? Freedom or a loving family? The fight over Elian Gonzales' custody reminds me of the decision which my parents had to make for me. Should they have let me grow up in the freedom of Australia or in the oppression of Hitler's Germany but in their own loving custody?
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Home at last!

Tomorrow, June 28, 2000, little Elian Gonzales will be able to return home to Cuba with his family. I wrote the following article on April 22, but held off the publication until I would hear this news.



Freedom or Family

April 21, 2000, the day between Good Friday and Easter, five-year-old Elian Gonzales was reunited with his father after having been held by his father's relatives for months. He was rescued at sea by a fisherman after his mother drowned in an attempt to flee Cuba and become a refugee in the USA. It seems reasonable that this boy would have been returned as soon as possible to the only family he had, his Cuban father, but until arrangements for his return to Cuba could be made, he was taken into the home of his father's relatives in Miami who claimed to be his rightful guardians. Many former Cubans living in Florida are convinced that this little boy would be better off living in the freedom of the United States. They themselves left Cuba of their own volition. Oppression is what they remember of their lives in that country. Do they have a right to decide what is best for a little boy who has not yet had a chance to mourn the loss of his mother? Should they deprive him of the love of his father as well?

From the View of the Child

Let us view this problem through the eyes of a child. I, too, was in that position as a small child. I, too, could have escaped to freedom instead of having to live through the horrors of World War II and through the Russian invasion of my homeland. I, however, was not asked to make a decision. My parents made it for me, and I thank God every day that they chose as they did. The experiences of the war and post-war days left deep scars in my life, but deeper than that would have been the scars of rejection if my parents had decided to let me escape to freedom without them. I could not have borne the thought that my parents would have considered my freedom more important than their love for me.

My Chances for the Good Life

I have never understood what it was that attracted people to me as a baby and toddler, but my mother told me many times that of all her children, I was the one whom everyone wanted to adopt. She watched me like a hawk, fearing that I would be kidnapped some day, especially after a gypsy woman looked at the lines in the palms of my hands and asked to buy me. Food was scarce during the war, and I always looked as though I could stand to be fattened up a little. Several farm families let me spend time with them to give me better nourishment, more fresh air, and more freedom than the city could provide. I loved the country. Homesickness was never a problem. I knew I was going back to my parents soon enough. Why shouldn't I have enjoyed the love which was offered to me by these family friends? Some of those farm couples would have loved to keep me permanently. They knew that my parents had too many mouths to feed and too little food to spread around. I was the child who was always the skinniest. I needed the extra feeding. My parents were thankful for the help in keeping me healthy, but to give me up for good would never have entered their mind.

The Great Temptation

My parents always knew that the war was a lost cause for Germany. My father had been born in Russia from where his family had fled when he was 10 years old. Some of his relatives did not fare as well and perished in Siberian concentration camps. There was nothing that my family feared more than to fall into the hands of the Russian army. We lived with the certain knowledge that the Russian invasion was just a question of time. Before the end of the war, my parents had one chance to send me to safety. An Austalian childless couple was visiting us. They fell in love with me and begged my parents to let them adopt me. That was my parents' one big temptation. They knew that the Russian invasion could mean death to all of us. It could also have meant rape for their little girl. The temptation to let me go was real. My mother spoke about her agony many times. It is one of the stories she never forgot, not even when she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. My father never discussed the incident. It was too traumatic for him even to remember the agony of not being able to feed his precious first daughter and maybe not being able to protect her from brutal rape. My parents were deeply religious. They trusted that their heavenly Father had given them each one of their children to look after. They considered it wrong to hand that responsibility over to someone else, no matter how difficult the situation, no matter how great the temptation. Many times have I considered how different my life would have been had I grown up in Australia. I certainly would not be who I am today. I would have grown up without the mother who has been my best friend all my life, the one who shaped my thinking and my feeling. I would not have known the father who guided me with his big steadfast hand, who shared with me all he knew about our family's background, who taught me to understand the history of mankind from the standpoint of a common man. I would not have had any siblings with whom I would have had to share and with whom I had to learn to get along. No, I would not be the Traute I am now. I would have grown up in freedom, but I would not have known how to appreciate it, because I would never have felt the hardships of oppresssion. I might have become a selfish person who would not know how to share her last crumb of bread with a stranger. I might never have had the opportunity to do that. No, I don't think that I could live with that person. That is not who God wanted me to be. He knew what he was doing when he let me be born into the Wollenberg family. He knew what he was doing when he placed me into Hitler's Germany. He even knew what he was doing when he allowed me to live through the horrors of the Russian invasion, horrors which I have never been able to talk about or even put in writing. Horrors which make my blood boil as I am typing this. No, thank God, I was not raped. I was small and looked much younger than my 9 years of age. And my blond waistlength braids made me look even younger. That turned out to be my salvation.

And Elian?

I can visualize Elian being raised by freedom-loving relatives, being showered with presents, being made into an icon, a symbol of Cuban liberty. No, that is not a good way for a child to become a responsible citizen. I know what my father would have done if Elian had been his son. Heaven and hell could not have kept him from his son. I am proud of my father's care for his children. He never told me that he loved me. He did not have to. I knew it. He would have died rather than give me up. And I believe that Elian has a father like that.



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