A recent translation and new publishing of an older book will give local residents and English speakers a glimpse into the early life of a Valemount resident who lived through the Second World War.
Christa Maxeiner moved to Valemount from Tete Jaune after losing her Canadian home to a mud slide on Leona Creek in 2012. But years before that she lost her family home in West Prussia, today Poland. She wrote a non-fiction story published years ago in German, telling how she as an either-year-old girl and her mother and grandmother left the family farm to flee from the advancing Red Army in 1945.
“The courage of my mother saved us,” says Maxeiner. The story tells of how she and her family and some two million other ethnic Germans endured extreme hardship as a result of Hitler’s megalomania.
Friends and family have recently encouraged and helped Maxeiner have the book translated to English and published again, and she will be reading from the book at Maria’s Community Book Fair this Friday. The book called “Hanging by a Thread” will be available at the Fair which runs Thursday to Saturday, Nov. 5th to 7th at the Valemount Community Church on 5th Avenue.
