Хроника жизни Кристины Виннепс: от узницы японского концлагеря до сорорити-матери в Беркли

Some people's lives should never pass unnoticed. As a writer, blessed with the friendship of such remarkable souls, I have often seen such tributes as a way of repaying a generous fate. Some have been drunks, vagabonds and internationally acclaimed artists ... others laureate professors or humble public servants. Each left the world a better place. One such was Christine Winneps. The last glimpse she had of her husband came in early 1942 when the Japanese concentration camp guards led him away single file to a barbed-wire enclosure where he would die. Although she lost nearly half her weight in 3½ years of captivity, she would survive the war. I befriended this extraordinary woman 25 years later when I worked as a “house boy” in the sorority she oversaw as house mother. The year was 1969. The location was the University of California at Berkeley. Mine was a paid job, a step up from the “hashers” who served at meal times in exchange for only food. I emptied the occasional trash basket and screwed in the occasional light bulb. For overseeing the girls’ general welfare, Christine received a small stipend and a comfortable apartment in which she and I often relived the world history she lived through and I knew only in books. Born shortly before the outbreak of World War I, in her late teens, she watched with trepidation the Nazi Party’s rise to power. When Hitler through democratic processes became chancellor in 1933, one of his first acts was to freeze foreign assets held in Germany. This included substantial holdings of the Winneps family. The money was not seized outright but could not be withdrawn and had to be spent within the Third Reich. Christine, by then in her early 20s, often vacationed in Germany to spend down her family's assets. Attractive, blonde, well-educated and with wealth to burn, she was welcomed warmly by the Nazi elite. Twice she was introduced to the dictator. Once she attended the colossal spectacle of a Nuremberg rally as the personal guest of foreign minister von Ribbentrop. Despite such lavish attention, she was under no illusions about the Nazis or the German people. Hitler, she observed wryly, was so charismatic that, had he so chosen, any woman in Germany could have been his for the asking. As for the Germans themselves, she described them as ascending a ladder, licking the boots of those above and kicking at the hands gripping the rungs below. In her mid-20s, she met and married a young architect, himself the son of a wealthy Dutch family. The couple soon migrated to Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) to develop a vacation resort for well-heeled Europeans. Their business expanded and remained successful until the island nation was overrun by the Japanese. During her own internment, she knew nothing of her husband's grim fate. Their properties had been seized and turned into a brothel to serve Japanese high-ranking military and diplomatic dignitaries. During her imprisonment, the future sorority house mother distinguished herself as an organizer of resistance. Sketchy as it was, information about troop movements, armaments and fortifications were smuggled out of the camp and passed on to resistance fighters. For her heroism, she was awarded two gold medals from Queen Wilhelmina of Holland. When the war finally ended, now widowed, she resumed management of the resort. Christine struggled to gain a new footing but, just when her personal fortunes seemed to turn around, Holland surrendered its grip and the Dutch East Indies was no more. On Dec. 27, 1949, the Netherlands yielded its last vestige of power and Sukarno became the first president of the United States of Indonesia. Shortly thereafter, my Dutch friend found herself once again homeless. In the 20 years between her eviction and when chance brought us together in California, much had happened. Immigration to the United States, citizenship and finally ending up in the humble post of sorority house mother. In her small apartment, Christine had gathered about her relics of an eventful past. Two small, framed oil paintings of her resort hung on a wall. The two gold coins she displayed proudly on her dresser — all that was left except her memories and those she generously shared with a punk kid from Whittier, Calif. Despite having been bounced around life I suspect more than most, she expressed no bitterness. It was fair to say she felt no fondness for either the Germans or the Japanese but anger had been left behind decades earlier. I remember her doughty appearance to this day and how she helped with my German lessons. The topic of colonialism never came up. Then I graduated and went my own way. And, as young people do, I never retraced my steps to visit this remarkable woman. It was perhaps a dozen years ago that I decided to write a longer story about Christine Winneps and contacted the Dutch embassy for more details about her life. There was no reply to my request and I wondered why. In a small way, this column is a tribute to a woman of valor and her story that needed to be told. McGehee, a lifelong activist, settled here in 1973 and lives in Palouse with his wife, Katherine. His work life has varied from bartender to university instructor to wrecking yard owner.