Lincoln County Artist Reveals Her Traumatic German Past

HICKORY, N.C. (PRWEB) August 7, 2005 -- At the Hickorys Heritage Furniture Festival on August 13, local artist and weaver, Johanna McCloskey, will be introducing her new trade paperback, Flight from the Russians - A German Teenager's World War II Ordeals.

On the cover of her book, a photo of one of her oil paintings, "Flucht, 1945," depicts the bloody flight of refugees in dirty snow from her hometown just before the siege of Breslau in January, 1945.

At age 19, "Hanna," took off by train toward a Hitler Youth camp in Liiben, where she was to serve as a secretary. Within a couple of days, word came that Russian tanks had crossed the Oder River. Soon after that midnight, she and two other female staff members of the camp took off on foot through the snow.

That began her lonely nine-month saga, which intensified after V-E Day. Not knowing whether any family members had survived, this teenager walked, walked, walked, hopped an oil truck, freight trains, coal cars, caboose, milk truck and baggage car, fleeing from Russian rapists and seeking a place to call home.

On her scary journey she was attacked by women just liberated from a concentration camp, accosted by vengeful Red Army soldiers and robbed by fellow refugees. Without a permanent ID or anyone to sponsor her, she could get only a single day's food ration card and one night's lodging, town after town, as she was only one of four million German refugees headed westward.

Those memories are verified by her pocket journal, noting stops and feelings along her route to safety.

In July 1945, she wrote: "I feel so very lonely, even though I am surrounded by so many. I am full of despair and terribly homesick like never before, that I feel I belong in a Klappsmiihle (psychiatric ward). How will I continue? I don't know how this will end with me. I wake up at night with screams. I often dream of our beautiful home, and I wish that I would never wake up. If I could, I would take opium."

In 1946, she reconnected with her father and little sister (who had fled the occupying Russians and Poles with nowhere to go) and two years later got a job at the Frankfurt/Main Airport, where she met her future husband, Charlie Cotter, from Boston.

After immigrating to the States, becoming an American citizen and raising three sons, she earned her Masters of Arts degree at Long Island University, fulfilling her lifelong dream.

Subsequently, she has specialized in oils, most notably abstractions and landscapes with an abstraction influence, but she also enjoys sketching in pen and ink, pencil, pastels, charcoal and Conte crayons.

When she first became interested in weaving, she began by making a suit for her own wardrobe. Since then, she has added blankets and wall hangings to her collection.

While still on Long Island, she won awards and had several one-man shows. One of her oils, "The Green Sun," was critically acclaimed in the Arts section of The New York Times.
Since the artist moved to Denver, North Carolina with her second husband John McCloskey in 1989 to be near her first son, Tom Cotter, her paintings have been featured in local galleries and art shows. Her work is in many private collections in the United States and Europe.

Johanna McCloskey's story, as told to Margaret G. Bigger and published by A. Borough Books, also features a pen-and-ink sketch of Hitler and rare photos of the Hitler Youth in flight. She shall be showing a few of her paintings and autographing her book at the Furniture Festival on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Hickory's Heritage Furnishings Festival is a free indoor festival celebrating the home furnishings industry. It is held annually at Catawba Furniture Mall, 377 Highway 70, Hickory. This years event dates are Saturday, July 24 from 10 am - 7 pm and Sunday, July 25, from 1 - 5 pm. For highlights of last years festival, go to www.catawbafurniture.com/festival.htm. For more information on this and other events at Catawba Furniture Mall, call 828-324-9701, or visit www.catawbafurniture.com. For lodging and dining information call the Park Inn Hotel and Gateway Conference Center at 1-800-670-7275, or visit www.parkinn.com/hickorync.

Questions? Call Margaret Bigger, Editor 704-364-1788
NOTE: Book Cover with the painting "Flucht, 1945" is attached.

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