Dear Editor:
Greetings from Kurgan, Russia, where my husband Chuck and I are exchange professors from the Fox Cities-Kurgan Sister Cities Program during April and May 2006.

Yesterday, we had a moving experience related to a project called here a "Dialogue of Victors," which Jane Garton covered in an earlier edition of The Post-Crescent. The project began in 2004 when a delegation from the Fox Cities met with counterparts in Kurgan to plan activities with a new civic development emphasis. In anticipation of the 60th Anniversary of the end of WWII, American and Russian veterans exchanged letters about their experiences; school children wrote essays about family members who had served in the war; these materials were exhibited in both communities, and the Rotary Club in Kurgan has just published a booklet of pictures and text for presentation to those who participated in the project in both cities.

Yesterday, Chuck and I were invited by the Kurgan Rotary Club to represent Appleton in a ceremony to present the new publication to five Russian veterans, the youngest of whom, a woman, will celebrate her 80th birthday in October. They arrived in uniforms decorated with an impressive number of medals, and after the presentation, each one spoke spontaneously about the meaning of war in their lives. We found it significant that each one spoke about their first meeting with American soldiers at the Elbe, when they communicated across the language barrier without the help of translators. Until the Sister City project began, they had not encountered Americnas again, probably because Kurgan was a closed city during the Soviet era, yet the warmth of their experience of shared victory over facism remained strong.

Despite the Cold War, alarm about America's current foreign policy, and offensive language from Vice President Cheney last week, the dominant experience in their lives is this victory, and the dominant image of Americans is of those G.I.s, often so different from them in race, ethnicity and religion, who introduced them to the good old American hug.

We felt honored to be present for their stories in the run-up to more formal events on May 9, but also humbled by the greatness and the pain of their achievement, and inspired by their sense of having won a permanent victory over fascism. Russia lost 20 million people in that war for a world of countries free to rule themselves instead of marching to the step of one ruler. When we return (to Wisconsin) in June, we will gladly bring copies of "Dialog of Victors" to all those who particpated in the project."

Sincerely,
Estella Lauter