Book Review and Author Interview: Triumph Over Destiny By Peladija Woodson-Diers

Sunday my review and author interview of TRIUMPH OVER DESTINY were featured in the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s “Sunday Insights and Books” section. To see it there, click HERE. The following is my full review and interview with the author. She has written this to share the story of her mother, but also to make sure this part of our history is not forgotten. I am always amazed by the tenacity and courage of those who suffered so greatly during WWII. I hope you find this book as inspiring as I did.

Peladija grew up hearing stories of her parent’s
childhoods growing up in Austria and Yugoslavia. Both of them had very
different upbringings and destiny brought these two people together during the
tragedies of WWII while they were both living in Germany. Peladija, born in
America, relates growing up in America as much different from the stories her
mother and sister tell of growing up during WWII. As an adult, Peladija
realized her mother’s stories needed to be told to more than just to their family.
Not because her mother’s story is unique to others who suffered during WWII,
but because it is part of our history. The atrocities of war are felt far and
wide and innocent victims are forever changed, no matter the age. How the war
affected her family is tragic, horrifying and unimaginable. But, without the
war, Peladija’s parents would have never met. Choices and destinies have
created her family history and this story is one to be shared. Peladija is the
author of TRIUMPH OVER DESTINY, but in it she is telling the stories from her
mother’s perspective.

Peladija recorded her mother’s stories over the span
of a few years and then compiled them into this book chronicling her mother’s
life. In the book she tells of growing up in Austria, being ripped from her
family at the young age of 15 to provide forced labor in Germany, her marriage
to a German soldier, raising their two daughters, suffering tragedies
unimaginable (including her husband’s death) while living in Germany, marrying a
POW from Yugoslavia after the war was over, and eventually coming to America
sponsored by a family in Oelwein, Iowa.

Many books have been written telling the horrors
Hitler’s regime inflicted on the people of Europe. Knowing, as you are reading,
that these things truly happened to innocent victims, someone like you and me,
and realizing how out of control the cruelty became will give you a new
perspective on WWII. 

The story begins in
Austria and takes us to Germany when Karoline, Peladija’s mother is forcefully
taken from her family by soldiers. They had no idea where she was being taken,
if they would see her again, and what would happen to her. Karoline was
actually one of the “lucky” ones if you could even say that, because she was
placed in a restaurant in Germany. She was able to live in a small apartment with
another young woman, was fed and cared for, even though the work was long and
hard and she was treated as an outsider and disgraced. During her time working
in the restaurant, she was eventually treated with respect and given more
freedoms which led her to meet her future husband, Hinrich, a German soldier.
Their romance was quick and survived Hinrich’s long deployments during the war.
Eventually they were married and Karoline was free from working as a forced
laborer. 

Karoline and Hinrich’s Wedding – photo courtesy of author

Living on his parents’ farm, raising their two daughters, and being
well cared for, helped her to forget some of the tragedies of war, but the
numerous restrictions on travel, danger along the roads, and fear of bombs
dropping on them at any moment kept their lives in constant fear.

Peladija’s mother had a vivid memory and was able to
recall in great detail the stories of their lives during WWII. The stories are
emotional, tragic and horrific. I don’t want to mention them here to take away
the telling of Karoline’s story. I wondered how Peladija was able to write them
knowing they happened to her mother, father, and sisters. Peladija stated all
of them were difficult to hear and every time she worked on the book, there
were tears coming down her face and she was constantly wiping tears off of her
computer. It was a highly emotional journey for her with some stories being
more difficult to write than others, but in her heart, she knew these stories
needed to be told. Oftentimes, her children were in the room while she recorded
these stories. She believes these stories and her mother’s values made her and
her sisters some of the strongest-willed women she has ever met. She even jokes
that it makes life pretty difficult for their husbands. But, she said, if you
would have known my mom, you would have seen her as a mild mannered, reserved,
and quiet woman. You never would have guessed the atrocities she suffered in
her life because she was a woman who was blessed and always found something to
be thankful for. She said prayers with her children every night, thanking God
for the basics of health and family, because, as she told them, if you didn’t
have that, you had nothing.

I find every time I read a book set during WWII, I
learn something new about the history and affects the war had on innocent
people. In this book, I learned how the POWs were left to practically fend for
themselves in Germany once the war ended. Many of them were starving and
homeless and which, unfortunately, caused many of them to turn to violence to
get revenge against the Germans. Germans became victims of the tortured POWs
and Peladija’s family suffered greatly at their hands even after they had been
kind to so many of them. Even when the war was over, it was just as dangerous
for people in Germany, just a different kind of danger. They weren’t watching
the sky for bombs, but instead looking out for intruders to harm them or steal
prized possessions, as Peladija stated. The war may have been over but
atrocities happened for years after.

Peladija ends the book once her parents arrive in
Oelwein, Iowa. The reader is left with many unanswered questions about their
assimilation into American culture and their life here. When I asked Peladija
some of my burning questions, she hesitated and then replied, I’m planning a
sequel.  “Our life in America is really a
separate story,” she stated. “Even though we were in America, life wasn’t easy.
I’ve had many people ask and want to know more about our family’s story and I
plan to write a sequel soon.”