The Matryoshka Memoirs: A Story of Ukrainian Forced Labour, the Leica Camera Factory, and Nazi Resistance

by Sasha Colby

A granddaughter explores the story of her Ukrainian grandmother’s survival of Hitler’s forced labor camps Irina Nikifortchuk was 19 years old and a Ukrainian schoolteacher when she was abducted to be a forced laborer in the Leica camera factory in Nazi Germany. Eventually pulled from the camp hospital to work as a domestic in the Leica owners’ household, Irina survived the war and eventually found her way to Canada. Decades later Sasha Colby, Irina’s granddaughter, seeks out her grandmother’s story over a series of summer visits and gradually begins to interweave the as-told-to story with historical research. As she delves deeper into the history of the Leica factory and World War II forced labor, she discovers the parallel story of Elsie Kühn-Leitz, Irina’s rescuer and the factory heiress, later imprisoned and interrogated by the Gestapo on charges of “excessive humanity.” This is creative nonfiction at its best as the mystery of Irina’s life unspools skillfully and arrestingly. Despite the horrors that the story must tell, it is full of life, humor, food, and the joy of ordinary safety in Canada. The Matryoshka Memoirs takes us into a forgotten corner of history, weaving a rich and satisfying tapestry of survival and family ties and asking what we owe those who aid us.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ukraine, World War II, Photography, Canada, Biography

248 pages, Paperback

Published September 12, 2023

Reviews

[Jax · Rating 3 out of 5]

Irina Kylynych arrives at a labor camp in Wetzlar Germany by train. It’s June 1942, and she has been taken from Ukraine to work at the Leica Camera Factory. The Eastern Workers, she is told upon arrival, are expected to work for the glory of Hitler and the German people. Those who do not work will be shot. Irina is nineteen.

Before the war, Ernst Leitz II’s company had labor policies that encouraged innovation and loyalty. He doesn’t support Hitler’s regime, so is faced with a difficult decision: supply Hitler’s military with the support of foreign forced laborers or see his company expropriated. If he and his daughter Elsie Kühn-Leitz stay in control, they can at least play a role in the resistance, help some escape, and relieve the suffering of others. Elsie’s role as the overseer of the Eastern workers’ welfare is Irina’s salvation. Elsie will select her to work as a maid in her home.

This story is told from Sasha Colby’s point of view, Irina’s granddaughter. She describes her family’s life, now safe and prospering in Canada, while weaving in stories her grandmother has shared about that dark period of her life. This is creative nonfiction, as is clarified in the Author’s Note: “This story is a combination of oral history, research, and imagination. Much of the historical dialogue has been fictionalized.”

This memoir is well written and informative. Readers will have different takeaways, but much of the current period that describes daily life challenged to engage. Older Irina’s preference for cooking and soap operas might describe many grandmothers. When she is ours, we will soak up every minute of reminiscing. This might be less true for outsiders. The most compelling figure is Elsie Kühn-Leitz. She, as her father, has strong moral fiber and guts. She remains cool in the face of challenge and dogged in her attempt to help those who have been forced into a life of slavery and misery. It is a book to recommend, certainly.

Thank you to ECW Press and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

[AnnMarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not since Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking have I read such an impactful memoir.

I like when I read a book and learn something, and better still if it touches my soul.

This book did that for me!

Here is a line from the novel that stood out to me:

“Where there are no protections, there are no limits to evil.”

I would highly recommend this book, although the story is about WW II, there are many similarities to what is taking place in the world today.
Sadly, history is repeating itself right before our eyes.

[Louise Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book evokes a wide range of responses and emotions. Yes, it is tragic but it also brings to life the happiness and hope of family and survival. It also features different perspectives and people, including those who played a role in resisting the Nazis, which is very interesting, it’s impossible not to appreciate books like this, which tell such important stories and this one does so very well.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Matryoshka Memoirs by Sasha Colby is a beautiful and horrible look at one aspect of the Nazi use and abuse of undesirables and those they felt could be exploited.

There are so many stories that have never been told and will never be told, lost to both the horrors of the time and the passing of many who survived. While there are certainly some common elements to these stories, they are all also very different and unique. The well-researched creative nonfiction work, such as this one, has given many of these stories an avenue to be told, using a factual foundation and frame with some creative recreation of conversations and interrogations. The key is for the creative portions to be true to what the facts show. This isn't new, it is why so many quotes attributed to historical figures aren't verifiable, they were created to illustrate an environment and add to the narrative that is history. Colby offers an excellent example of just such work.

While there are many people, many women, who come and go in the periphery of this particular narrative the power comes from the specific, from the couple of women at the center of the wartime portions of the book. The weaving into that story the story of the granddaughter working to learn and document their stories gives this an even more deeply personal feel. As a book I enjoyed going back and forth.

I want to stray to what most affected me once I stopped and thought about it. This rich family life after the war, the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren is a reminder of how many family lines were terminated by the Holocaust. While there are many stories from the war that will never be told, there are even more stories that were never allowed to be, that never took a breath.

If you enjoy reading history that makes you care about the individuals involved and not only the big picture, you will find people here to love and care about. This is also a creative nonfiction book that will appeal to a lot of historical fiction readers as well.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sasha Colby’s grandmother Irina insisted on making meat on a stick and vareniki for the family gathering even if her daughter planned to make lasagna. At these gatherings at Irina’s home in Niagara Falls, Canada, Colby probed her grandmother to tell her story, dragging it out in bits and pieces. Sasha then scanned the internet to learn more, giving her new questions to ask.

Irina was a young teacher when the Nazis rounded up Ukrainians for their work camps in Germany, slave labor to replace the men and boys fighting. Categorized as subhumans, they lived in horrific conditions. Irina was sent to work packing lenses in the Leica factory. She taught herself German. One day, the factory owner’s daughter toured the factory. Noticing that Irina spoke German, she brought her into her home as a servant.
Irina suddenly had a private room, warm clothes, nourishing food.

Elsie Kuhn-Leitz was wealthy and priviledged. Her father was forced to cooperate with the Nazis, providing them important lenses and accepting forced laborers under Gestapo guard. But they were appalled by the inhumanity of the Nazis towards ‘subhumans.’ Elsie did what she could to improve the workers’ lives. But even her Nazi husband could not protect her. Elsie was arrested for excessive humanity

I was drawn to read this book because as a young woman I had a neighbor who was Ukrainian and who had volunteered to replace her father as forced labor at a Nazi farm. I always wished I had asked her more about her life.

While working for Elsie, Irina met a handsome man from the forced labor camp. After the war, in a refugee camp, they pretended to be Polish knowing that the Soviets would consider them traitors and send them to Siberia. Luckily, they escaped and settled in Canada.

Colby’s memoir documents her family, her research, and her grandmother’s oral history. Irina’s heartbreaking story and Elsie’s example of moral courage are both disturbing and life affirming. It is an affecting read.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book

[Enid Wray · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is an interesting story and an interesting structural concept - 4 stories nested inside each other like matryoshka dolls (what I would have called Russian nesting dolls when I had them as a little girl), I do have some issues with it.

Granted, my fundamental issue may just be “my” issue, but it is an issue nonetheless.

My fundamental issue with this is that this is billed as ‘creative non-fiction”... and I really really really dislike this entire concept. I prefer my non-fiction to be just that… non-fiction. If you have to get “creative” with your non-fiction, then just write it as fiction.

I will concede that the author - and publisher - are up front about this. It irks me even more when they do not disclaim that such licence has been taken.

I also wonder why the author’s journey with this story ends in 2013 (2014 if you count the Afterword in which she references the death of her grandmother) when she notes that she learned much at conferences she attended in 2016 and 2018 (in the Author’s Acknowledgements).

Having said that, there is some interesting exploration of each of the following:

The complicated nature of survival during wartime - and that it’s not always easy to tell the difference between collaborators and resisters, and that in fact sometimes in order to resist you must at least be seen to be collaborating (even when everyone knows the lie);

The personal conflict of Ernst Leitz, and the burden he bore;

The heroic efforts - a la Schindler’s List - that many went to to save those who would otherwise have been persecuted by the Nazi’s; and,

The long shadow - and reach - of war - the impact that it still has even 60 years on… “Sixty years not so long.” (“quoting” her grandmother on p166).

Altogether I’m not sure that there really is anything new here but it is a lovely personal journey.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital review copy.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley

Sasha Colby’s new book is at once a memoir of family and brief history of Elise Kuhn-Leitz. The book works and doesn’t quite fit together.

Colby’s grandmother, Irina Nikortchu, was Ukrainian and forced labor at the Lecia camera factory. Eventually, she became a maid in the Leitz household, working for Elise Leitz. The parts detailing both Irina’s history as well as the more general Colby family history are great. There is so much there- not only Irina’s only experiences but also those of newcomers to Canada as well as the changing times of the 60s-70s. The interactions between Colby, her mother, and her grandmother come alive on the page.

The book lags a little when Colby details the experiences of Elise Leitz, who was a German woman and member of the Leitz family who resisted the Nazis in a variety of ways. Leitz herself was imprisoned for her actions. It isn’t that the story isn’t interesting. It is. The story should be better known outside of Germany. Yet, because parts of it are not in Leitz’s voice and told in a novelistic way, as if one were reading a historical novel, it didn’t quite work. This style is also used when discussing Irina’s experiences but the interviewing and story telling frame there saves it. Stepping into Irina’s viewpoint there works because Colby introduces it as a Irina telling a story to her daughter and granddaughter. There is none of that in the Leitz sections so it is a bit of a jar.

That said, the book is a good and moving read. You really do feel like you are in the room or in the kitchen with Irina and eating meat on a stick.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A multi-layered memoir from historian and academic Sasha Colby in which she reveals the story of her grandmother who was deported by the Nazis from Ukraine in 1942 as a forced labourer to work in the Leica camera factory in Germany, an experience she managed to survive but about which she rarely wished to talk. Colby gradually uncovers the story, just like uncovering Matryoshka dolls. Irina Nikifortchuk was just 19 when she was taken to Germany. She managed to get a job in the camp hospital, where conditions were marginally better, and then had the good fortune to be chosen by the Leica family to work as a maid in their household. The second strand in the narrative is the story of the Leica family. Although they had to produce products for the Nazi war machine, they also managed to help many of their Jewish employees to leave the country and took others to work on the family estate, putting themselves at great risk. Irina ended up in Canada where she settled and started a family, and decades later her granddaughter decided to tell her story, piecing together the details from what Irina wanted to tell plus extensive and meticulous research. I found this a compelling and moving memoir, a tale of survival against all the odds, and a fascinating account of the Leica family and their factory, especially of Elsie Kuhn-Leitz, Irina’s rescuer and the family heiress.

[L Bianco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, read it in two sittings and am sorry it's finished. Satisfying from start to finish, moving from the West Coast of Canada to Niagara Falls in the present day, and to Germany during the late years of the Second World War. Sasha Colby's writing is smooth, and I was caught up in the stories of her grandmother, who was transported from her home in the Ukraine to work in Germany as forced labour at the Leica factory, and the daughter of the German owner of the factory who was a force for good despite her circumstances living in the Third Reich. I especially appreciated the black and white photographs.

[Roberta Westwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

Great book. Very interesting background on the goings on at the Leica factory during WWII under control of the Nazis. It was quite the eye opener. The quest to uncover the story was half of the book: the author trying for years to get her grandmother to share her experiences. Reluctant for many years, she finally opened up in her later years. From then it was scramble to pull together the pieces before her mental acuity began to fade. These are my favourite type of history books. Very well done.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very moving triptych of women’s stories. A grand-daughter trying to understand her Ukrainian grandmother’s experience surviving internment in Germany during WWII. The grandmother’s story of survival, in part because she ended up in domestic work and out of crowded and underfed forced labour in factories. And the woman who pulled her out of the factory and into her home - the heiress to the Leica camera company, a German woman who walked a fine line of resistance to the Nazi regime.

[MaryLou Driedger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A matryoshka is one of those lovely colourful nesting dolls that represent the feminine side of Ukrainian culture.
In The Matryoshka Memoirs author Sasha Colby has taken the stories of four generations of Ukrainian women in her family and nested them inside her creative non-fiction family history. The book is as artfully and beautifully written as the intricate painting and designs on a matryoshka doll.

[Paula]

I really, cannot in all fairness, rate this book as I swore off the memoir genre awhile ago and yet I read this book. As a Ukrainian Canadian I admit I was intrigued by the subject matter of this book. However, the majority of this book is fiction - pure and simple. Why twist and turn this into creative non-fiction as opposed to keeping it as fiction with some basis in fact?

[N. O'Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. A great look back into a haunting past mixed with how it shaped the future. While I enjoyed reading the "future" parts of the book, at times I found them a bit distracting from the past, which I considered to be the main part of the book. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to others.

[Kendall Krebs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written true story from a multi-generational perspective.

[Yelena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audio

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrative from present day felt like it halted and broke up the crux of the story.

[Kathleen McRae · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many of these businesses that relied on forced labor during the Nazi regime are still in business! Why??????

[Vladimir · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nazi Whitewashing in a slow and sticky tale.

[Nada Loughead · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review at https://canadiancookbooks.ca/the-matr...

[Mariyam Zafar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sasha Colby weaves a history of survival and resistance against fascism with the emotional narrative of her family history. This book puts a human face, a human past, present and future to the anonymous number of war casualties and war survivors, to generational trauma and generational resilience. It also made me think of how we glorify survival as a testimony of human strength, and rightly so, but survival is ugly, and rife with tragedies, loss, anxiety, and grief.

Sasha Colby is also interested in visual history, and the photographic documentation of wars, and families. This was a particularly interesting aspect of the book- some of the pictures included were taken in during a time of great instability. For example, the photo of Irina and Alex was taken in Germany in 1947. You would have no way of knowing how turbulent the life of the subject is just from the pictures. I do wish the book contained more pictures, as photography, photographic records and cameras are all important parts of the story- Colby refers to certain pictures that she does not include, and it leaves me very curious. Especially, with the obviously extensive research that she has done for the book, and the archives she has sifted through, it would have been very appropriate to both the subject and the themes of the book to include more photographs. The pictures included are all grainy and tiny- I understand that there might not be a lot of control over the picture quality, but I do wish the pictures were at least larger.

Sasha Colby is a brilliant writer and I absolutely love this book, it is such a tribute to the art and importance of storytelling.