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The Traumas of War
An individual's life experiences often influence their
character, personality, and behavior. Traumas in a person's
life, at any age, can often have a much deeper impact. This is
even more significant, when the trauma relates to war time
experiences.
In BEAR ANY BURDEN, my Cold War Espionage Thriller set in
Poland at the height of the Cold War in the 1980's, I have
tried to show how the traumas of World War II affected the
personality and behavior of the three main characters.
Sir Alex Campbell had grown up knowing of his grandparent's
emigration to Scotland from Poland to get away from the
Pogroms, persecution, and poverty. He'd been aware of
anti-Semitism and even had casual experiences of this during
his school days. In April 1945 at the age of nineteen as an
officer in the British Intelligence Corps Army, he was at the
liberation of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp and saw for
himself the horrors of the brutal Nazi death camps. A few weeks
later while interrogating a captured German officer, he was
attacked and wounded and then watched the officer, a Nazi
fanatic, commit suicide before his eyes.
These traumatic events stayed with him over four decades,
regularly causing him to wake up in the middle of the night in
a cold sweat, as he relived those experiences.
As Sir Alex Campbell matured, he became a cool, calm,
unemotional businessman who kept his inner feelings and fears
to himself, an ideal personality to carry out "little jobs" for
the British Secret Intelligence Services
Anna Kaluza was born in a Russian labor camp in 1940. The
daughter of an aristocratic landowning family, she never knew
her father, who joined his regiment as the Germans were
invading Poland at the start of the Second World War and was
never seen again. Although her mother loved her and made
considerable sacrifices for her and her brother, Jan, she was
not capable of showing warmth and affection to Anna, and
continually reminded her of her aristocratic background and her
expected behavior.
Anna grew up with a deep affection for her brother, three years
her senior, who was her hero and role model. When she blossomed
into a beautiful young woman, she found she was not attracted
to her brother's friends, but sought the company of much older
men, who filled the role unbeknownst to her of a father figure.
Falling into a relationship with a man who was nearly twice her
age, did not blossom into a full-blown affair but led her to
her future husband, a handsome, womanizing airline captain,
fourteen years her senior.
Despite warnings from her close friends, she threw herself into
a wild love affair, which eventually led to marriage, which
unfortunately, her husband could not sustain. Three years
later, they divorced.
Naturally, she was wary of getting involved in similar
relationships, but realized she could use her beauty and
charms, to her personal benefit when need arose.
Anna was a beautiful, strong woman with an aristocratic bearing
inherited from her mother, who found herself ideally suited to
the challenges and excitement of the British Secret
Service.
Eric Keller was a teenager when the Nazis marched into his
hometown of Tarnow in September 1939. Over the next three
years, he lived through the ever-increasing brutal occupation -
murder, mass killings, persecution, starvation, death and
living in perpetual fear. When he escaped from Tarnow and
joined the Resistance in the surrounding forest, he became
adept at silently killing Germans with weapons, knives, or even
his bear hands.
Having lost all of his family in the Holocaust, he moved to
Warsaw at the end of the Second World War, and started a new
life, studying at the University of Warsaw, hiding his Jewish
background, and eventually marrying the daughter of prominent
Catholic family. It was only after his two children were
murdered by the Polish Government for their involvement in the
Solidarity Movement, that he decided to to defect to the West
with his wife. Having lost his wife during their escape, it was
only then that he was able to reveal his true background and,
for the first time in forty years, talk about his wartime
experiences.
These three characters were thrown together as part of a
British Secret Service plan to help Professor Eric Keller
defect from Poland. They were, however, inexorably tied
together through their wartime traumas, which shaped and
dramatically influenced their characters and
personalities.
by Ellis M. Goodman - 28th October 2008
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Ellis M. Goodman is a Chicago based businessman who came to the
U.S. in 1982 from London England. He is the author of CORONA:
THE INSIDE STORY OF AMERICA'S #1 IMPORTED BEER, and has
recently completed his Cold War Espionage Thriller Novel - BEAR
ANY BURDEN. To learn more about Ellis M. Goodman and BEAR ANY
BURDEN, visit http://www.bearanyburden.com
.
Article Source:
http://www.creativewriter.me.uk
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