It's a story that almost defies logic. An old manuscript, along with dozens of original paintings, is found beneath a house and is almost destined for the landfill. Upon further investigation, these rare items turn out to be of immeasurable historical value. As unlikely as all this seems, that is exactly what happened in the year 2000 when Mimi Shaw, an educator in both Jefferson and Leon Counties, received a call from an acquaintance about a box of materials that was found underneath a house just outside of Greenville. Shaw was told these materials may have had a connection to the Holocaust, in which millions of Jewish people were systematically murdered by Hitler's regime during World War II. Shaw's father had been a radio operator during the war and had been one of the soldiers who liberated the infamous Buchenwald concentration camp. Since then, Shaw's father was able to write his own memoir “Dig and Dig Deep,” by Richard A. Arnold, to document the story of his survival with six other members of the Acorn Division as they liberated that camp. Shaw, along with friend and artist, Cornelius Barnhart, immediately went to Greenville to investigate and were astonished at what they found. Stored in dirt were over 100 oil paintings. In addition to the artwork, there was a manuscript that had barely survived the elements. This manuscript would turn out to be possibly the most significant find of all. The manuscript was carefully translated and is now a book, “Two Regimes … A Mother's Memoir of Wartime Survival.” The book, written by Teodora Verbitskaya, with paintings by Nadia Werbitzky, published in 2012, tells the true story of survival of Teodora and her two daughters, Nadia and Lucy, from the Ukraine, who survived not only the Holocaust, but the Holodomor as well. The Holodomor is taken from the Ukrainian words “holod,” meaning hunger, and “moryty,” meaning to inflict death, so the basic translation means “death inflicted by starvation.” The Holodomor describes the time of Stalin's state-sponsored starvation of the Ukrainian people in 1932 and 1933. Teodora's Christian family witnessed first-hand, the brutality of both Stalin and Hitler as literally thousands of their neighbors were first starved, then forced to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis in Soviet Ukraine, in the early 1940s. Teodora and her daughters were sent to Germany to work in slave labor camps until liberation by U.S. troops in 1945. Teodora later emigrated to Canada. Her memoir “is the story of three young women's love, faith, courage, strength, determination, intelligence and sheer will to live in the face of the worst adversity. This true survival experience is an inspiration to everyone, but particularly for girls and women, who must often pick up the pieces during or after war to start life anew. [It] was written to validate the lives of those Ukrainians, Jews, Greeks and others whose lives were lost and whose voices were silenced forever.” Since the time of the Holodomor, the Soviet government tried to silence any accounts of that time in history. Very little is known about Teodora's life, other than what is shared in her memoir and what was shared by her daughter, Nadia. Teodora died in 1994, at the age of 94. Teodora's daughter, Nadia, became a well-known and accomplished artist after studying art at the Art Academy of Dusseldorf, in Germany, after the war. After graduating, she moved to Toronto, where she met her future husband, an American diplomat. Nadia went on to receive accolades for her artwork in Germany, the U.S. and the Middle East through exhibitions, beginning in the early 1960s. Many of Nadia's paintings were produced from her memories of the trials she and her family faced in the Ukraine and are used in Teodora's book. Somehow, Nadia made her way to Greenville where she lived in the house where her paintings and her mother's manuscript were found. Shaw and fellow collector Kelly Bowen acquired Nadia's works and have been working to restore the artist's paintings; an effort that continues to this day. Shaw and Bowen have generously loaned Nadia's work to numerous exhibitions across Florida, Georgia and in Virginia. There is an exhibition planned for The Gallery on the 22nd Floor of the Capitol, in Tallahassee, from Friday, April 1, to Sunday, July 31. There has been an educational film, four years in the making, about Teodora and Nadia and their life under Stalin and Hitler's regimes. The 33-minute long film, directed by Douglas Darlington, of Winding Road Films, is available at no cost to all educational institutions (the film is not available otherwise). Teachers can register for the film by going to www.TwoRegimes.com/Film. A demo of the film can be seen at www.TwoRegimes.com/school-film. Work continues to be done on the restoration of Nadia's artwork. If anyone would like to contribute to help preserve these historically and artistically important paintings and drawings, would like to order Teodora's book, or would like more information, please visit www.TwoRegimes.com.
Greenville paintings shine light on a horrific past
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