Journalistic Profile

They waited for the explosion, but it never came. The five German soldiers were outnumbered and encircled by the Russians. Looking past his four comrades who were lying low in the bushes, Jacob Dyck saw the hand grenade and realized the Russians forgot to pull the trigger. Stunned by their own forgetfulness, the Russians made no further attacks and the German soldiers made their way unharmed through the Russian front.

I’m sitting with Jake at the kitchen table, six stories from the ground, overlooking the grey haired figures walking below. Flakes of light snow drift to the ground in the bright blue sky. He stares out the window and laughs as he reminisces. “We must have scared them off because they left their machine gun. There were no gun shots at all.” In the midst of a war, this is what amused the soldiers. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry as he tells me this because I am reminded again of how God had a plan that went far beyond World War II for the strong, handsome, red haired youth who now sits before me as my fragile, but still handsome, silver-haired grandpa.

It has been 64 years since Jake fought in the war, but not a day that goes by where he is not reminded of it. I grew up hearing stories from my grandparents about how they escaped from Russia and how the war affected them, but Jake is the one who experienced the war from the front lines. It’s hard for him to talk about it. His fingers are linked together in his lap as he sits at the table. He looks at the ring on his left hand and his back arches away from the wall.
“The Germans made me feel obligated to join them because they helped me get my parents out of Russia.” He explains how my relatives were second class Russian citizens—Germans who had come to Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great. “In a way, I wanted to fight. I wanted to get out of Russia, and this was my chance. The hardest part was fighting against my brother who was drafted into the Russian air force.” Jake was only 16 when he joined the army.

“I was afraid,” he speaks of when he first had to attack. “After two weeks of being in the war though, you get used to it.” At such a young age, it’s no wonder that Jake did not mind being in Prisoner of War camps, where he didn’t have to fight anymore. Of course, it was still a matter of life or death, especially in the Russian camps. “I would have been executed immediately if they found out I was a traitor.”

Fighting on the front lines, Jake experienced what most people will never see in their lives. His eyes start to glisten in the sunlight. “Oh, it affects you,” his voice escapes him. “I’m sure it affects everyone. Today, the soldiers have it too good.”

I will never fully grasp how the war affected my Opa. Years of fighting, suffering in Prisoner of War camps, and escaping death at every chance have left him quiet and a hard worker, which is what most people see. But I also see love and compassion.

Near the end of the war, a soldier fighting alongside Jake was hit. From his upper right chest to his lower left stomach, guts and intestines poured onto the pine-needled forest floor. With his bare hands, Jake lifted the man’s intestines and shoved them back inside, pine-needles and all. “We put him on canvas and dragged him to the medical centre. I thought I would never see him again. I thought I would die. But I couldn’t stay with him. I had to keep fighting.”
It was two years later when Jake was at a train station in Munich. “I was heading in one direction and he in the other. He remembered me, but I didn’t believe it could be him, until he lifted up his shirt and showed me the scar. I never saw him after that day.”

Opa is my hero and I want his story to live on through the generations. Despite the difficulties he has experienced in his life, he still has so much love to give. As I leave him with memories of the war swirling around in his head, he places his arms firmly around me. “I love you, sweet pea.”