The constructed Mennonite: history, memory, and the Second World War
Biography, War and military biography, Canadian biography, Canadian non-fiction
Human-narrated audio
Summary
A unique account of a life shaped by Stalinism, Nazism, migration, famine, and war. John Werner was a survivor. Born in the Soviet Union just after the Bolshevik Revolution, he was named Hans and grew up in a German-speaking Mennonite… community in Siberia. As a young man in Stalinist Russia, he became Ivan and fought as a Red Army soldier in the Second World War. Captured by Germans, he was resettled in occupied Poland where he became Johann, was naturalized and drafted into Hitler’s German army where he served until captured and placed in an American POW camp. Eventually he was released and immigrated to Canada, where he became John. 2013.