The GIPKE family, Germans from Ukraine, lived in the little village of Kozhushki, in the district of Choynits, in the Mosyrsk region (today Gomel), White Russia).
There they ran a farm. In 1929 it was expropriated by the Communists and, in order to escape the expected deportation, the family left everything behind and set out to the village of Grunwald (Ukrainian name Lisova Koloniya) in the district of Basarsk, Zhitomir region. The majority of its inhabitants were Germans. The two elder sisters got married with Germans, who lived there.
Olga's husband, Adolf WOLTMAN (born around 1912), was arrested on section 58 in October 1938 and died in the KURSK region when felling a tree.
During Hitler's occupation nobody was deported from the village. In 1943 Soviet partisans began to fire at German villages, and in November of the same year the Gipke family, as well as many other inhabitants of the village, escaped on foot to the West, until they finally reached Germany.
In Germany they received documents, proving their identity as "ethnic Germans". Selma lived apart from her parents in the town of DESSAU.
In summer 1946 the house she lived in was stormed by Soviet soldiers - they intended to arrest the owner (he was a nobleman), however, he was not at home. Then they asked Selma for some documents, arrested her and took her to the transition camp in Frankfurt (on Oder). Within two weeks she and some other German camp inmates were forced to get on a goods wagon (the train consisted of 50-60 wagons altogether, exclusively loaded with Germans) and, accompanied by convoy troops, were taken "to their homeland".
The head of the convoy was major MORGUNOV.
Middle of August 1946 a part of the crowd was unloaded at DUBOVAYA station, not far from VOLZHSK, in the AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC OF MARIYSK. Another part of the convoy continued its way to STALINGRAD.
Selma and approximately 30 more German families came to the KARACHURIN forest area, 7 km away from the train station.
In this forest area there had already been living about 20 families of exiled Krim-Tatars for many years. They received the Germans in a very friendly manner and tried to help them as far as they could. There was not a single thief among the Tatars (it turned out later that there were 3 thieves among the Germans). Apart from the deported people there were also a lot of native inhabitants. They all worked in the woods. The forest area belonged to the WOLSHSK timber industry. The whole area was supposed to a complete deforestation, in order to realize plans for the construction of a reservoir for the hydroelectric station in Cheboksarsk.
Until 1956 the exiles in DUBROVAYA were under military command. Every now and then MORGUNOV, who had become some sort of head in Yoshkar-Ole, came for a "visit of inspection".
Among the German families which had been deported to this forest area from Frankfurt were:
End of the forties Leopold Christianovich TEISCH (born around 1900), who had been arrested on section 58 about 1938 and spent 11 years ina camp, returned to his family. He had been released from a camp near the Balkhash Lake (obviously the STEPLag).
After the release from exile the TEISCH family settled in KOSMODEMYANSK. The GERLOV and BEK families later lived in Dzhambul, the FEISERs in Krasnoyarsk.
All members of Selma's family stayed to live in Germany, except the husband of her sister Antonia: Herman Reinholdovich GONTSCH (born around 1915) dug out trenches and was taken POW (prisoner of war) in a Soviet camp, together with German soldiers. The prisoners were taken to Donbass. There, in the camp for POWs H. GONTSCH was arrested on section 58 and lost his life near YAYA station (SIBLag, region of KEMEROVO).
Jan. 17, 1993, recorded by V.S. Birger, Krasnoyarsk, "Memorial" Society