Bøger i They Have Conquered serien

"The boys had dumped a pail of whey on the kitchen floor. Each boy had one of Helen's ankles, pulling her across the wooden floor on her bare bottom. When they reached the far end of the kitchen and swirled around for another trip, their mother's crimson face brought them to an abrupt halt. They looked at her for a moment, still holding their sister's legs in the air. In unison, they dropped Helen's legs and quickly wiped their hands on their trousers as if nothing had been going on. Maria stood quivering, surveying the kitchen. The whey had splashed up onto the papered walls above the broad, wooden baseboards. It was on the chairs, table legs, and wood-fired cookstove. Helen's hair and dress were soaked, her bottom cherry red from the friction. Helen's bottom soon wasn't the lone occupant of that end of the color spectrum. Severe consequences were vigorously dealt out." "Johann and Susanna sat holding hands on the train between Kars and Tiflis (Tbilisi). Before leaving, they had both purchased new civilian wardrobes. With the political landscape uncertain, it was best not to appear affiliated with any ideology. It was a certainty that, if you left an impression that you favored one side or the other, you'd run into someone who rabidly held an opposing view. Politics in the 1918 Caucasus region had more than two sides-way more. There were Tsarists, Bolsheviks, and Anarchists. Every one of those groups was subdivided further into religious, ethnic, and tribal variations. Each sect would rather kill you than persuade you to their side."'As they walked toward the compound, Frank Stoltzfus pumped Gerhardt for his family's story, wanting to know how they ended up in Constantinople. After making it as far as Batumi in the telling, Frank stopped Gerhardt with a hand on his arm. He asked, "You mean to tell me that since your family was driven out of the Caucasus, you've basically been refugees for four years, looking for a safe place for your family?"Gerhardt shrugged. "I hadn't thought of it that way. I always thought we were just searching for a home to raise our children in peace."Frank replied, "That's the definition of a refugee."'¿¿¿¿¿"Always so sure of his path forward, Gerhardt now found himself second guessing his every step. He knew that he had to forge ahead on this path of unsure footing. Otherwise, he would surrender what little control he had over his family's fate. They would be doomed to become more faceless victims of the blackness enveloping Russia."Based on actual people and events, THEY HAVE CONQUERED is a fictional account of an extended Mennonite family living in turn-of-the-century Southern Russia. Set in what is now modern-day eastern Ukraine, the family's journeys take them to Siberia, Kazakhstan, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Latvia, Poland, Germany, and North America. Within the short period of 1894 to early 1922, the lead character, Gerhardt, and his brothers are conscripted into World War One and the Revolution. While Gerhardt was off to WWI, his wife, Maria, had to deal with her two rambunctious boys, their younger sister, and an infant girl In what is modern day Dagestan. During the Revolution, Gerhardt and Maria move into Crimea while the rest of his family do their best to survive in east central Ukraine. With the fall of the White Army in the west, the situation becomes untenable. With Crimea cut off from the mainland, they are forced to become refugees -- again.

Based on actual people and events, THEY HAVE CONQUERED is a fictional account of an extended Mennonite family living in turn-of-the-century Ukraine. In Part Two, Gerhardt and Maria enter Ellis island before going to work on their immigration sponsor's farm in Kansas. Moving on with their lives, they try homesteading in northern Idaho and then in northeastern Montana. As they add to their family, their travels take them to southern Idaho, California, and Oregon. Back in Soviet occupied Ukraine, Gerhardt's sister Helena and Maria's sister, Aganeta, endure Holodomor. Then comes World War Two and the German occupation. The sisters left behind endure widowhood and their own separate Hells in Siberian exile and post-war Displaced Persons camps. "As the group was funneled toward the cars, Helena and Cornelius were separated from the rest of her group. Told she was being loaded into a car reserved for those marked for special consideration, she looked around, frantically straining to catch a glimpse of her stepdaughters' families. Forced toward separate railcars, Helena thought she saw the hand of her oldest stepdaughter waving a forlorn goodbye above the lines of undesirables being expelled from Ukraine. Helena and Cornelius were the last deportees forced into their assigned car. She slipped on the top step of the snow-slickened portable steps and raked her shin on the door's lower steel rail. With blood running down her shin, Cornelius helped her limp to the only empty spot left in the car. Complete silence inside the car drowned out the loading process din as every reluctant passenger watched the door rattle shut on its well-worn casters. The clank of the heavy, cast iron, hooked doorlatch echoed in the somber car. Loudly proclaiming the finality of their fate, the iron locking clamp fell into place. Helena realized that the last two centuries of her ethnicity in Ukraine was now just an asterisk in the history books." "Struggling to get her foot free, Aganeta lost her shoe and was forced to kneel and reach into the mud to retrieve it. The laces on her high-top shoe had completely surrendered to the elements, rotted beyond repair. With her daughters' help, she hobbled to the back of the wagon and climbed inside. Not allowed to block traffic, her son-in-law urged the team back into motion. Aganeta didn't want to be a burden on the group and didn't want the horses pulling more of a load than absolutely necessary. Digging through her bags, she found her Sunday dress which had bodice lacing. Stroking the dress fondly, she paused for a few moments to mourn the loss of her last remaining piece of fine apparel. Aganeta shook herself back into reality and stoically removed the lacing. Cutting the lacing in two, she replaced the laces on both of her shoes. In the process, she realized the stitching attaching the shoes' soles to the uppers had also begun to give way. The incident's trauma had been too much for Aganeta's last pair of stockings. She removed and set them aside for future possible repairs.Climbing back down into the mud, she trudged on. Bits of muddy grit infiltrated the shoes and ground sores into her wet feet. Aganeta hobbled on, grimly enduring the pain. With every step, she fought back tears of agony." "Suddenly, Arthur's captain shouted, "Watch out you stupid-" His voice was drowned out by a huge bang then feedback in the comm system. The bomber lurched to the port side, and the wing of another B-17 passed by his turret on the starboard side. A piece of broken propeller blade spun in front of him and bounced off his guns, shaking the turret. Pieces of his disintegrating bomber crashed against the plexiglass bubble."