Speaker 1: It's your cat's favorite time of years. Make your season
Speaker 1: more sir with the latest used traffic and weather. Fifty
Speaker 1: five KRZ Day Talk Station.
Speaker 2: Eight O four fifty five kr CD Talk Station, A
Speaker 2: Happy Friday Eve to you a reminder tomorrow's the Christmas
Speaker 2: Special with Rob Ryder in studio with his guitar and
Speaker 2: fun and games as we end the year. For me
Speaker 2: at least, I'll be often until the after the first
Speaker 2: of the year and looking forward to celebrating Christmas and
Speaker 2: sleeping in my favorite thing to do when I'm on vacation.
Speaker 2: Another one of my favorite things to do is talk
Speaker 2: with book authors. And what an amazing book This one
Speaker 2: is Your Roots Cast a Shadow one Family Search Across
Speaker 2: History four belonging my guest Carolyn Toverman, who has this
Speaker 2: amazing background. Born in Swing, raised in Canada, returned to
Speaker 2: her ancestral roots in Poland back in twenty thirteen to
Speaker 2: just explore love of traveling, experience different cultures and what
Speaker 2: culture and different things she experienced. Also writes about her family.
Speaker 2: For example, her her paternal grandmother was the first woman
Speaker 2: who's allowed buy groceries at a local Afghan market. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the program, Carolyn Toverman. It is a pleasure to
Speaker 2: have you on today.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. It's nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: Well, let me first stay. They just point out I
Speaker 2: am not a world of traveler by any stretch of
Speaker 2: the imagination. The countries I visited included a business trip
Speaker 2: to London, a trip to Ireland, and I've been to Canada.
Speaker 2: There you go. Not exactly an adventurous person, am I?
Speaker 2: But you know, I've always found, you know, the United
Speaker 2: States to be a fascinating place. And there's so many
Speaker 2: places I've been to the United States, and every time
Speaker 2: I go someplace I've never been here, Like, for example,
Speaker 2: I went to Yellowstone for the first time in my
Speaker 2: life just this past June. I was my mind was
Speaker 2: blown that we have such beauty here in the in
Speaker 2: the United States, But you don't experience these radical cultural
Speaker 2: distinct differences that you experience and write about in this book.
Speaker 2: Did you always have this adventurous spirit in you? Did
Speaker 2: you always want to travel?
Speaker 4: Well? I like to say that I traveled before I
Speaker 4: was even born. So my parents when they left Poland
Speaker 4: in nineteen sixty eight, when they had to leave, they
Speaker 4: couldn't come back.
Speaker 3: They lived in Baghdad.
Speaker 4: They lived in Paris, then they lived in Sweden, where
Speaker 4: I was born. And because most of my family was
Speaker 4: in Europe, every other summer we would go visit them
Speaker 4: and we would get in the car and we would
Speaker 4: take a road trip somewhere. And so, yes, I think
Speaker 4: that it was just there wasn't.
Speaker 2: A choice fair enough. Now you have to do what
Speaker 2: your parents do. It's like military families. You might end
Speaker 2: up being a military brad traveling from base to base
Speaker 2: your entire life. It does happen, so you had the
Speaker 2: benefit of that. I think my parents more like me
Speaker 2: in terms of less adventuresome. But I guess what is
Speaker 2: the motivation behind your writing about all of the amazing
Speaker 2: things that you find in your roots cast a shadow.
Speaker 4: So because of travel, because of world wars and time
Speaker 4: and politics, a lot of my family was fragmented, and
Speaker 4: I didn't know a lot of this information. The group
Speaker 4: of us that lived in Canada was my mother, my father,
Speaker 4: my sister, me and then just immediate cousins, and everyone else.
Speaker 3: Was in Europe, so I didn't know them.
Speaker 4: And when I moved and when I first started traveling,
Speaker 4: and I first started talking to my parents and asking questions.
Speaker 4: I just realized that there was such an incredible family
Speaker 4: history that was that would have been lost if I
Speaker 4: hadn't started to write about it.
Speaker 2: Okay, driven by your interest in your own family history,
Speaker 2: which is so amazingly diverse, you obviously have a story
Speaker 2: to tell you, but such I mean unbelievably different cultures
Speaker 2: just within your family, you know, when you look at
Speaker 2: the various areas, Like for example, when I introduced you,
Speaker 2: I mentioned your paternal grandmother, the first one who's labed
Speaker 2: to buy groceries in a local Afghan market. So that
Speaker 2: culture radically different than Canada or the United States or
Speaker 2: even Poland.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: And they found themselves there almost by accident, because my
Speaker 4: grandfather was an engineer. He was a road builder, and
Speaker 4: he was one of the Polish engineers that helped build
Speaker 4: the road from Kabul to Jalalabad in the nineteen forties.
Speaker 4: But they found themselves in Afghanistan just before the war.
Speaker 4: My father was already alive at the time, and so
Speaker 4: they had no choice but to stay. They could not
Speaker 4: go back to Europe. And my dad and my uncle
Speaker 4: both grew up speaking Persian, so they had this ex
Speaker 4: language and they just had this amazing experience living there
Speaker 4: for the first seven or so years of their lives.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: And I also note, and again from the notes, your
Speaker 2: Jewish grandfather a rising star in the Communist Party. Now,
Speaker 2: is that one of the reasons he had to flee
Speaker 2: Poland at the beginning of World War two because he
Speaker 2: was a Communist?
Speaker 3: No, because because he was a Jew the Jewish part. Yes,
Speaker 3: there's that, Yeah.
Speaker 4: So he they were they I think it's what helped
Speaker 4: him survive the war, was that he was a Communist
Speaker 4: because he had people that he could reach. But my
Speaker 4: grandparents actually fled to Uzbekistan. So they survived the war
Speaker 4: in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and then came back, but by way
Speaker 4: of Moscow because that's where my grandfather had contacts.
Speaker 2: Wow, so they were there to see all of the
Speaker 2: you know post y'allta division of the various countries between
Speaker 2: the West and the East. Did you know them, I mean,
Speaker 2: were they are alive in your life? You had conversations
Speaker 2: with them?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, so my maternal grandparents I knew them. My grandmother
Speaker 4: died about ten years ago, so I knew both of
Speaker 4: them very well.
Speaker 3: But they refused to talk about it. That was what
Speaker 3: they did.
Speaker 4: My grandfather wrote a book called It's a Chronicle of Events.
Speaker 4: It's not officially published anywhere. It was friends and family.
Speaker 4: He was an engineer, so it was mostly names, very
Speaker 4: difficult to read. It's written in Polish, but he did
Speaker 4: a chronicle of how they fled and what happened, and
Speaker 4: so a lot of this book.
Speaker 3: I relied on that information for a lot of this book.
Speaker 2: How about that? Well, I also understand you are multi
Speaker 2: lingual from someone I struggled in taking German. I had
Speaker 2: to take German as a prerequisite to get a college degree,
Speaker 2: you know, and so five hour German. After I had
Speaker 2: a couple of years in high school, I remember like
Speaker 2: three words, you know. I never could get the gender,
Speaker 2: the dardi das you know, male female, neuter thing and anyway,
Speaker 2: my brain, I guess, just isn't cut out for it.
Speaker 2: But you how many language can you speak?
Speaker 3: So I speak three? My mother I spoke about seven
Speaker 3: or eight or eight.
Speaker 2: That's mind blowing to me.
Speaker 3: But I've always spoken them.
Speaker 4: I grew up I spoke Polish before I learned English,
Speaker 4: and then I went to a French school. So they
Speaker 4: were they have always been a part of my life.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's wild now, Okay, In terms of who you
Speaker 2: wrote the book for, I understand the motivation behind it. Clearly,
Speaker 2: your background has this wonderful opportunity to learn so much
Speaker 2: about your family while you know I obviously providing these
Speaker 2: wonderful stories. Are are you writing it for people to
Speaker 2: suggest that they too should look into their background for
Speaker 2: their families, or it was just a personal exercise you
Speaker 2: wanted it turned into a published work, or are you
Speaker 2: trying to tell people to maybe get out of their
Speaker 2: own backyard and get out into the world.
Speaker 4: So originally, actually part of my pitch was that this
Speaker 4: was for the armchair traveler, the person who knew that
Speaker 4: there was more to their story, but they needed to
Speaker 4: find it and they didn't know how. So this was
Speaker 4: a little bit of a push for that. And ultimately
Speaker 4: I think it's about starting conversations with people and realizing
Speaker 4: that even though you know we may come from two
Speaker 4: very different worlds, or even for people who haven't traveled
Speaker 4: a lot, you know when you say you've always wanted
Speaker 4: to or you started to learn German, I've always wanted
Speaker 4: to learn German, and my grandparents actually lived in Germany.
Speaker 4: And I have family in Germany, and so that's a connection,
Speaker 4: that's something we can talk about. And it was really
Speaker 4: to start these conversations between people just to show us
Speaker 4: that we have a lot more in common sometimes than
Speaker 4: we think we do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, we live in a very divided world. And since
Speaker 2: my radio program is mostly dedicated speaking and talking about
Speaker 2: matters political, I often recommend and I was a litigation
Speaker 2: attorney for sixteen years for I've been on radio, but
Speaker 2: to start your conversations always try to spring from a
Speaker 2: point of mutual interest. If you can find a point
Speaker 2: of agreement, you at least start off on a pleasant foot,
Speaker 2: even though that conversation may take a turn someplace, try
Speaker 2: to find something a mutual agreement. So this is a
Speaker 2: wonderful opportunity to do that. And I'm sure you get
Speaker 2: this question all the time. But considering the global travel
Speaker 2: and all of the places that you were and have
Speaker 2: been in writing this book, what is the most interesting
Speaker 2: thing or weirdest thing or funnest fact that you found
Speaker 2: out about your family or family history during your discovery.
Speaker 3: So a lot of.
Speaker 4: It was what you mentioned that my grandmother was the
Speaker 4: first woman allowed to trade with the men in the
Speaker 4: square in Afghanistan. I think that was mind blowing. I
Speaker 4: had no idea about that, and actually also just finding
Speaker 4: out about my maternal grandparents and the journey that they
Speaker 4: took partially on foot, by water, by train to flee.
Speaker 4: But I think the thing that really sticks out to
Speaker 4: me the most is they all chose to come back,
Speaker 4: and they all returned to Poland in nineteen forty four.
Speaker 4: And when I say that, people think, well, isn't that
Speaker 4: too early, And I have to explain, well, no, the
Speaker 4: front had already moved at that point, so they weren't
Speaker 4: in danger. But it was that decision to return when
Speaker 4: so many people just they had been done with it
Speaker 4: and didn't want to return.
Speaker 2: And I can certainly understand that. But you know, there
Speaker 2: is some weird connection that we as human beings had
Speaker 2: with our home land. Come what may, politics otherwise you
Speaker 2: still won't always go home. So I understand that, but
Speaker 2: real quick before we part company again. The name of
Speaker 2: the book, Your Roots Cast a Shadow, One family search
Speaker 2: across history for belonging Carolyn Topperman, the author. You can
Speaker 2: get a copy of the book at my blog page
Speaker 2: fifty five cars dot com. On the Afghan market thing.
Speaker 2: Did she get special treatment because her husband was building
Speaker 2: a road or is this just a period of time
Speaker 2: where there was a sociological advancement where women were accepted
Speaker 2: and allowed to participate. What's what's the backstory on them?
Speaker 3: And if I can ask, Yeah, absolutely so. No.
Speaker 4: She actually the first time she went, she had rotten
Speaker 4: fruit and stones thrown at her. They didn't want her there,
Speaker 4: and she was just extremely determined to do that that
Speaker 4: she would be able to handle the groceries for her family.
Speaker 4: And the other thing that's not in this part of
Speaker 4: the book is that she actually convinced the local governor
Speaker 4: to let girls wear jim shorts to class to the
Speaker 4: gym class because she taught at a local school. So
Speaker 4: it was just it was her. It was entirely her
Speaker 4: attitude and her perseverance and who this woman was.
Speaker 2: She's like the rows of parks of Afghanistan a little bit.
Speaker 2: That's awesome, Well, Carolyn Topperman, and has been a real
Speaker 2: pleasure talking with you about this wonderful book. I'll encourage
Speaker 2: my listeners get a copy of it. Heck, you know
Speaker 2: it's a holiday season, gift giving time, why not get
Speaker 2: a book and maybe encourage people to explore their own
Speaker 2: family's history or perhaps even travel abroad. Carolyn, thanks again.
Speaker 2: I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. I wish
Speaker 2: you the best on book sales. And it's been a
Speaker 2: pleasure actually seeing you and talking with you during this
Speaker 2: video conference.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. This has been really fun.
Speaker 2: My pleasure. It's a sixteen at fifty five KRC the
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