Thursday, January 15, 2009
Heart Of an Orphan
Recently, my mom told me about Misha, a Russian orphan currently being placed in an adoptive family. (Perhaps you've heard his story as well. His family's blog, helpmisha.blogspot.com, is chronicling Misha's journey, as well as requesting donations to help cover his adoption fees.)Several months ago, I had the opportunity to interview Alexandria Goode, the founder of International Guardian Angel Outreach (the agency facilitating Misha's adoption.) Alexandria is an amazing woman, and when I saw Misha's story spreading around, I thought it appropriate to share her story as well:
"We had to make adobe bricks and build houses. We had to dig trenches... The guards would stand over you and if you stopped you were shot." At thirteen years old, Alexandria Goode was shipped to the infamous Dachau concentration camp. Her crime? She was a Russian orphan, considered a pest by society.
With her formative years spent surrounded by one of the rawest examples of depravity in human history—Alexandria now realizes there was a reason for her survival. She remains firmly convinced that her past was a divinely chosen preparation for her future.
Alexandria’s origin is a mystery, even to herself. Although she lived in Yugoslavia as a young girl, she was ethnically Russian. Her family had been among the elite of Russia’s monarchy, but was forced to flee after the Bolshevik Revolution. Yet after the death of her mother and the disappearance of her father (presumably, he died in World War II), Alexandria found herself living in a Yugoslavian orphanage.
Tragically, the orphanage that housed Alexandria was overrun during the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia. Although the orphan children who lived there were of different ethnic backgrounds—some Russian and some German—the Nazis viewed them indiscriminately. As orphans, their lives were inconvenient. The youngest children were sent to immediate execution, along with the orphanage caretakers. The older children were sent to a labor camp. Alexandria was among them.
Greeted with razors for their heads and DDT powder for lice, at first the orphans did not understand where they had been transported. Only children, they were unable to comprehend the gravity of their situation. Remembering her feelings at the time, Alexandria said, “As a child you really didn't [know what was happening.] You just knew that any day you could be killed.” Later, she discovered the name of her location—Dachau.
(A sign outside of the concentration camp at Dachau. It's words, "Work Makes Free" were cruelly ironic to the thousands of prisoners killed within the camp.)Fortunately for Alexandria, she was eventually moved from Dachau to another labor camp on the German resort island of Rügen. Yet the “resort” title was only a mockery to the occupants of the labor camp. It was there that Alexandria was subjected to Nazi “scientific” experimentation, accurately described only as torture.
As a Nazi “guinea pig” for experimentation, Alexandria was tied to a chair, where her tonsils were removed without anesthesia. Various substances were injected into her body via shots. To this day, she has no idea what those substances were. Due to the experimentation, boils emerged all over Alexandria’s skin. Yet amidst her almost unthinkable conditions, manual labor was required at gunpoint.
Understandably, Alexandria and her friends began to lose hope. The prospect of building train tracks and bricks day after day was too much to bear. Countless prisoners from Alexandria’s own barracks were found dead after committing suicide in their bunks. Utterly alone and parentless, Alexandria credits God with saving her from that same fate. “Oddly enough,” she says, “that’s where I found Jesus.” In spite of only a limited remembrance of her Russian Orthodox upbringing, Alexandria was convinced that God was her only hope.
Lying awake in the darkness atop her straw-strewn bunk, she begged God for the strength to survive. It was her bargain. Either should we commit suicide, or God would give her help, somehow.
Following her plea, a peace Alexandria still cannot fully describe overcame her agony: “I was filled, literally filled with the joy…I went to assure the girls who were with me that we were going to be okay, and they really thought I had lost my mind. But I was so sure! I was just filled with an assurance. It was unquestionable.” Hope to survive was reborn.
As the days continued on, Alexandria began to realize the War was at its end. Camp guards became less in number. Artillery echoed in the distance. Rumors spoke of Allied forces closing in. One night, along with ten other girls, Alexandria dared to crawl outside the camp--directly under the nose of a guard and his German Shepherd. To escape Rügen Island, the girls knew their only transportation to the mainland was by train.
But their dangers were not over when they found and boarded a train. Hiding in a cargo car, they could see charred battlefields whizzing past. They had left Rügen Island, but entered battle-territory. The camp escapees wondered where they could possibly be heading, and were even more bewildered when the train slowed to a stop in the middle of a forest.
Why were they stopping? Neither Alexandria or the other girls knew. Finally, one girl dared to peek her head outside the train car. To her horror, countless German soldiers were leaping from the cars behind them. The girls had been traveling in a train filled with Nazi soldiers.
As the girl stared out the door, one soldier caught sight of her. Instead of shooting or alerting others of their presence, he beckoned the girls into the forest. Alexandria didn’t know what to do. Should they stay in the car or obey the German soldier? The girls decided it would be better to run for the forest than remain.
They were not a minute too soon.
Immediately after the group fled, their train exploded. The Germans had bombed their own train, as the Russians would soon be attacking. The Allies were closing in. The war was finally coming to a close.
After several more incredible instances of God's provision (including shipping herself in the mail to evade Russian communists wishing to deport her) Alexandria arrived in America.
(Pictured: Mr. and Mrs. Goode.)Perhaps this perspective is unsurprising from one who has survived so much. After witnessing so many deaths, how could her view of life not be drastically altered? To her, life after sixty is still life. Each day is a chance to wholeheartedly glorify God: “We’re here for only for a short time. Right now is what we need to use…to serve Him.”
In spite of society’s expectations for her to relax and move on, Alexandria does not wish to forget her childhood. She is convinced that nothing happens without a purpose. From the early death of her parents, to life in Dachau, each circumstance molded her into the woman she is today. Alexandria believes that growing up parentless, lonely, and vulnerable has gifted her with the exact component needed for life now: the heart of an orphan.
While on a mission trip to Russia several years ago, she decided to visit a local orphanage: “I saw a little boy with a brace and they said, ‘He'll never walk.’” Alexandria pleaded with his caretakers that she might be able to help him somehow. It became her project to connect the child with medical care and an adoptive family that would aid in overcoming his disability. It was only the beginning.
Although already in her sixties at the time, Alexandria established her own adoption agency, the International Guardian Angel Outreach. Since then, she has coordinated the adoption of countless children, including seven of her own grandchildren. While it usually involves trekking personally to Russia and other Eastern European countries, Alexandria unreservedly embraces her work.
Her motivation is simple. Not only does she know an orphan’s loneliness intimately, but having watched childhood friends perish, she also understands the fleeting nature of time. Life can end quickly. So long as she has strength to serve, Alexandria has committed herself to these forgotten children. For in their eyes, she does not only see herself. She sees hope.
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