Alexandra's Story

67 Pages·2011·9.85 MB·English

by  Richard Hornok

Alexandra’s Story
A Heroine of the Holocaust

Caroline J. Hornok
April 2008
©

International Guardian Angels Outreach
Alexandra Goode, President
1400 Limestone Creek Drive Keller, TX 76248-3645
817.379.4747 (Voice) 888.809.3669 (Toll Free) 817.898.1357 (Fax)
www.igao.org [email protected] [email protected]
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Contents

Preface Page 5
Outline Page 7
Timeline Page 10
Alexandra’s Story Page 12
A Heroine of the Holocaust
Part One Page 13
Her Childhood Yugoslavia
1929-1944

Part Two Page 26
In a Concentration Camp
Dachau and Rügen

Part Three Page 36
Displaced Persons Camps
Lübeck and Mönchehof,
May 1945-September 1949

Part Four Page 41
Christ and the Holocaust
Post-war

Acknowledgements Page 48

Photos Page 49

Works Cited Page 63

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Preface
As I have meandered through high school, the theme of Story has
often surfaced amongst the prescribed readings. There are several genres
of stories between the comic, tragic, epic, and lyric literature. If this seems
like a Greek salad, dig back in your brain to the prosaic pages seldom read
on literary genre or simply reflect on the movies you watched last week.
Comic is a story resembling a “U,” beginning mediocre, plunging into the
depths, and then escalating to heights greater than before—generally
ending in a marriage of sorts. Tragic seems to orbit one character. The
story slumps down and down, the end never promising to be any better
than before. Epic is most rare, merging both comic and tragic, the feminine
and the masculine. Epic transposes time and connects to the supernatural
and invisible, escalating history forward. Lyric is poetry and the like.
As I began to analyze and to validate the ordinary facts of Alexandra
Goode’s testimony, a clear story emerged amongst the rubble of dates and
names. I was not particularly looking for one; I was merely piecing
together a timeline. While Alexandra’s Story seems most comic, beginning
with an ordinary family life, then pitching down to the concentration
camps, and subsequently propelling upward to her immigration to the
States, there is a tragic element evident—this is the Holocaust we are
discussing. Her family dies; she is left alone. The story spins about
Alexandra’s conversion, when grace plunges her sunward. The tragic and
comic unite, proposing a marriage of epic proportions. So her story is Epic.
I have used Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy as a sort of segue as
we odyssey together. For the unfamiliar, Dante’s epic was written during
his exile from Florence in the fourteenth century and is considered one of
the greatest epics ever written. His poem is written in three parts: his
journey through the ten circles of Hell, his pilgrimage up the mountain of
Purgatory, and his passage through the orbits of Paradise to the very sight
of God himself. While I am not Catholic, Dante’s Comedy is my favorite
story and is quite relevant to all casts and ages.
I have written this paper for my senior research thesis for my high
school, Veritas Academy. Calculating the minutes and moments of a
lifetime, I know that my words are too few. Composing a life-story is by no
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means a slight subject, and my sheet of music is missing many lines and
bars. I have merely undertaken to explain the historical context that
seems to dictate her personal woes.
It is important to remember, as Alexandra herself often echoes, that it
was Christ who purposes and plans this Story. Alexandra was merely a
pawn in this grand sanctuary. Her spunk and strength failed as His grace
became sufficient.
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Outline

Alexandra’s Story
A Heroine of the Holocaust
Thesis: Though some question and deny the Holocaust, Alexandra
Goode’s Story—her parent’s flight to Yugoslavia and her father’s
aid to the resistance to the Soviet Union, her life in Dachau and on
the Island of Rügen, and finally her years spent in displaced
persons camps in Lübeck and Mönchehof—is completely
consistent with its historical context.

I. Alexandra and her parents’ pre-war life in Yugoslavia, 1917-1944

A. The Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Diaspora

1. Early revolutions and pre-revolutionary signs

2. Dissatisfaction of the classes

3. February and October Revolutions

4. Culpability of the classes

5. The Diaspora

B. White émigrés in Yugoslavia

1. King Alexander I

2. Kingdom of Yugoslavia

3. The Maderashs’ life in Yugoslavia

4. Russian influence on Yugoslavia

C. Soviet resistance of White Russians

1. Monarchists

2. The National Alliance of Russian Solidarists

D. Yugoslavia in World War II

1. Tripartite Pact and the Putsch

2. German invasion and Yugoslavia’s fall, April 1941

3. Alexandra’s life in the orphanage

4. Yugoslavian resistance groups

a.Mihailovic

b.Tito

5. Alexandra’s deportation, April 1944
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6. Vlasov’s Army

a.Russian Liberation Committee at Dabendorf

b.Russian Liberation Army (ROA)

c. Dabendorf

d.Committee for the Liberation for the Peoples of Russia
(KONR)

e.Prague victory and defeat

f. George Maderash’s involvement

II. Concentration Camps,

A. Dachau, April-August 1944

1.Nazi ideology and the concentration camp system

2.Hitler’s worldview

3.Hitler’s rise to power

4.History of Dachau

a. Development of concentration camps

b. Development of genocide

5.Alexandra at Dachau in 1944

6.Types of camps

a. Concentration camps

b. Death camps

c. Labor camps

B. Island of Rügen, August 1944-May 1945

1. History of Rügen and living conditions

2. V1 and V2 Missiles on Peenemünde

3. Medical experimentation

4. Salvation

5. Escape, May 1945

III. Displaced Person Camps, May 1945-September 1949

A. Lübeck

1. Liberation of concentration camps

2. The death toll

3. The fate of Russian POWS and emigrants

4. Boy and Girl Scouts
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5. Reunion with her god brother

B. Mönchehof

C. Immigration to the United States, September 1949

IV. Christ and the Holocaust, post-war

A. Holocaust denial

B. German culpability

1. Immediate response to the Holocaust

a. Ignorant

b. Brainwashed

c. Dishonest

2. Corporate sin

3. Corporate redemption

4. German responses to the Holocaust

a. Victimization by Allies and tourists and silence about Nazism

b. Complaints of oppression

c. Historical responsibility and exploration of Nazi past

C. Elie Wiesel contrasted to Alexandra

D. Corrie ten Boom compared to Alexandra

E. Alexandra’s orphan ministry

V. Conclusion

A. Reconciliation of a good and sovereign God

B. Alexandra as a heroine and her story as an epic tale
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Alexandra’s Story Timeline
Note: Italicized dates are fairly certain, but approximate.

February 1917 – Bolshevik Revolution; Maderashs flee to Yugoslavia
1919 – Egor born
1923 – Hitler attempts to run for office
1924 – Hitler writes his Mien Kampf
September 13, 1929 – Alexandra born
1930 – National Alliance of Russian Solidarists (NTS) founded
1932– Katherine Maderash dies
March 22, 1933 –Dachau is founded
October, 1934 – King Alexander murdered at Marseilles
September, 1938 – Alexandra goes to school
1939 – Dachau installs a crematory
September 1, 1939 – Germany invades Poland, World War II begins
October 1939 – Dornberger first tests rockets north of Peenemunde
January 1940 – Gas Chambers first used
April 6, 1941 – Yugoslavia invaded; Alexandra goes to Orphanage
Summer 1942 – Dachau installs four, large oven crematory and gas
chambers
July 1942 – Vlasov captured by the Germans
December 1942 – Russian Liberation Committee founded at Dabendorf
Spring 1943 – Slave labor utilized to help the Nazi war effort
June 1943 – Unofficial Russian Liberation Army founded
1941-1943 – George Maderash works for the NTS
August 17, 1943 – Peenemunde bombed
September 1943 – Production of missiles is moved to Dora,
March 1944 – Soldier visits Alexandra in the orphanage
April 1944 – Alexandra goes to Dachau
August 1944 – Alexandra goes to Island of Rugen
September 1944 – KONR established at Prague
February 7-12, 1945 – Yalta Conference
February 1945 –Von Braun and others flee Peenemunde on the 27th; last
rocket shot on the 19th
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