Ukraine. And on the poor Falz-Feins, as you’ll hear.
“Following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Communists confiscated Askaniya-Nova from the Falz-Fein family. Luckily for him, he was back in Germany when the revolution happened. But his aged mother, the baronessSofia-Louise, wasn’t so fortunate. She was living in her house in the nearby port of Khorly. The Bolsheviks—that’s what people used to call the Communists—they ordered her to leave Ukraine and return to her native Germany. But she was a stubborn old girl and she refused. She also refused to surrender her estates, including Askaniya-Nova, and for this act of resistance, that brave old lady was shot by Communist guardsmen.”
“How awful,” said Kalinka.
“Yes, it was. But the Communists weren’t finished. Like I said, I’m from Sevastopol, in the Crimea. So I’m not German myself, but I had learned the German language from the baron and the old lady, and when the Communists took over the reserve—this must have been 1919—they suspected me of being a German spy. I was arrested by the NKVD—the Communist secret police—who put me in prison and tortured me.”
“And I thought it was just the Germans who could treat people so horribly,” said Kalinka.
“Would that were true,” said Max. He was looking under the bed for the books now. “But what happened to me was nothing. A terrible famine in Ukraine, deliberately caused by the Communists about ten years ago, resulted in the deaths of at least fourteen million people.”
“How could they do something like that deliberately?” asked Kalinka.
“Because the leader of the Communists is a terrible man called Stalin, who decided that all of the foodproduced by the people of Ukraine should be fed to workers in factories in order to produce steel for tanks and guns. He thought steel was more important than people, see? Which ought not to be a surprise to anyone, given that’s what his name means.
Stalin:
‘man of steel.’ Anyway, I may have been tortured, but at least I’m still alive, which is more than those poor folk can say.”
“So they let you go eventually?” asked Kalinka.
“Yes. After some months, the NKVD decided I wasn’t a spy after all and I was cleared of all charges. Meanwhile, Askaniya-Nova was taken into state ownership and declared a People’s Sanctuary Park in 1921, and so I returned to live here and look after the animals. Matter of fact, I think that’s why they dropped the spying charges—so that I could come back here and be of some use to them. But I didn’t mind. I love this place. I love the animals.” Max laughed a hollow laugh. “I’d work here for nothing, which is just as well, as that’s more or less what they paid me.
“At first, we did all right. At least with the breeding program. The Communists didn’t really care about the reserve that much, but the horses were a different story; being as rare as they are, they’re also worth a lot of money, and what the Communists wanted was to breed them so we could sell them to foreign zoos all over the world for hard currency. Which we did. Berlin, Warsaw, London. Just to give you some idea of how rare they are, Kalinka, before the Germans invaded in June 1941, there were justthirty-one Przewalski’s horses living at Askaniya-Nova, which accounted for as much as half of the world’s entire population of Przewalski’s.”
Finally, Max found the books he was looking for under a chessboard and a pile of old blankets.
“Aha,” he cried. “Here they are.”
Max brought the books over to Kalinka and laid one of them on her lap, where he opened it carefully and showed her some color pictures of ancient horses that were painted on the walls of caves.
“These pictures were taken in caves at a place called Font-de-Gaume, in France,” said Max, “where there are paintings of more than forty prehistoric horses. It is plain to see why zoologists all over the world were so excited by the
“Following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Communists confiscated Askaniya-Nova from the Falz-Fein family. Luckily for him, he was back in Germany when the revolution happened. But his aged mother, the baronessSofia-Louise, wasn’t so fortunate. She was living in her house in the nearby port of Khorly. The Bolsheviks—that’s what people used to call the Communists—they ordered her to leave Ukraine and return to her native Germany. But she was a stubborn old girl and she refused. She also refused to surrender her estates, including Askaniya-Nova, and for this act of resistance, that brave old lady was shot by Communist guardsmen.”
“How awful,” said Kalinka.
“Yes, it was. But the Communists weren’t finished. Like I said, I’m from Sevastopol, in the Crimea. So I’m not German myself, but I had learned the German language from the baron and the old lady, and when the Communists took over the reserve—this must have been 1919—they suspected me of being a German spy. I was arrested by the NKVD—the Communist secret police—who put me in prison and tortured me.”
“And I thought it was just the Germans who could treat people so horribly,” said Kalinka.
“Would that were true,” said Max. He was looking under the bed for the books now. “But what happened to me was nothing. A terrible famine in Ukraine, deliberately caused by the Communists about ten years ago, resulted in the deaths of at least fourteen million people.”
“How could they do something like that deliberately?” asked Kalinka.
“Because the leader of the Communists is a terrible man called Stalin, who decided that all of the foodproduced by the people of Ukraine should be fed to workers in factories in order to produce steel for tanks and guns. He thought steel was more important than people, see? Which ought not to be a surprise to anyone, given that’s what his name means.
Stalin:
‘man of steel.’ Anyway, I may have been tortured, but at least I’m still alive, which is more than those poor folk can say.”
“So they let you go eventually?” asked Kalinka.
“Yes. After some months, the NKVD decided I wasn’t a spy after all and I was cleared of all charges. Meanwhile, Askaniya-Nova was taken into state ownership and declared a People’s Sanctuary Park in 1921, and so I returned to live here and look after the animals. Matter of fact, I think that’s why they dropped the spying charges—so that I could come back here and be of some use to them. But I didn’t mind. I love this place. I love the animals.” Max laughed a hollow laugh. “I’d work here for nothing, which is just as well, as that’s more or less what they paid me.
“At first, we did all right. At least with the breeding program. The Communists didn’t really care about the reserve that much, but the horses were a different story; being as rare as they are, they’re also worth a lot of money, and what the Communists wanted was to breed them so we could sell them to foreign zoos all over the world for hard currency. Which we did. Berlin, Warsaw, London. Just to give you some idea of how rare they are, Kalinka, before the Germans invaded in June 1941, there were justthirty-one Przewalski’s horses living at Askaniya-Nova, which accounted for as much as half of the world’s entire population of Przewalski’s.”
Finally, Max found the books he was looking for under a chessboard and a pile of old blankets.
“Aha,” he cried. “Here they are.”
Max brought the books over to Kalinka and laid one of them on her lap, where he opened it carefully and showed her some color pictures of ancient horses that were painted on the walls of caves.
“These pictures were taken in caves at a place called Font-de-Gaume, in France,” said Max, “where there are paintings of more than forty prehistoric horses. It is plain to see why zoologists all over the world were so excited by the
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