Download or read book Odessa 1919 written by Ronald FRENCH and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true, survival story of Paul, his wife Sophia and two daughters, Tamara and Isa, and of the wider family. Home is beautiful Odessa on the Black Sea. Paul is a wealthy farm estate owner and holds the Mercedes agency for South Russia. The invasion of Russia by Germany in 1914, followed by the Russian Revolution in 1917 means he loses everything.In late 1918 Lenin announces the Red Terror - the order to exterminate the wealthy, the intellectual and all those with authority. The CheKa secret police summarily executes Paul's older brother as a capitalist and informer. Paul and family must flee for their lives. They escape Odessa and through much of 1919 scurry from village to village, with the evil CheKa following in their tracks. Paul and family must pass themselves off as peasant farmers. He knows his wife and children are at terrible risk if they fail. All need to adapt. Theirs is a dangerous game of theatre. While in hiding the two young daughters peep through window shutters and witness how the villagers murder all ten members of a Bolshevik requisitioning party. This is in response to the thieving of the farmers' livestock and grain, and the demand to provide young men for the Red Army. Paul fights alongside those villagers in the resulting battle against the Bolshevik forces sent to exact revenge. Both Paul alone and the family together face death many times. It is a desperate escape story that is, sadly still being repeated today. Some refugees succeed many fail. Those who do succeed must live with the pain of those they have lost or left behind.As the family runs and hides, there are nostalgic flashbacks by the girls of the happy, peaceful life they once knew. The story has been passed down to the present generation by the mothers who, as little girls experienced the fear, the bravery of strangers risking their lives to help, the cruel greed of those seeking rewards, the loss of close family and of miraculous escapes. The cruelty and courage, despair and determination, selfishness and self-sacrifice, slyness and subterfuge, wickedness and wisdom, challenges and excitement that the family experiences makes fiction unnecessary. The author is son of the younger daughter, Isa. 2019 is the 100 year anniversary of the family's flight. Includes thirty-one maps and illustrations.