By ELLEN KOLMAN - Staff Writer - ekolman@starbeacon.com
ASHTABULA — Nine years ago Jeanne Onuska and her husband, Phill Reyes, were looking to buy a house in Conneaut when they happened to attend the annual D-Day re-enactment at Conneaut Township Park — and the rest is history.
“We are both history buffs and really enjoyed the D-Day re-enactment, but noticed there was one aspect missing: education,” said Onuska from her office at the Country Club Retirement Campus, where she is the marketing director. “So, we talked to some re-enactor groups and gave it a lot of thought, and decided to jump on board with a difference.”
The difference would be a shift in focus from the United States side, which is already so well covered, to the European countries that also were involved in World War II, Onuska said.
Together they formed the European Military Historical Society a non-profit organization that also is a museum. Any money raised at events goes toward more educational presentations and veterans’ programs.
“We do not focus on any of the politics that transpired during that era, but we focus on three areas: the soldiers, the women of World War II, and the civilians between the years 1941 - 1945 primarily,” Onuska said. “Ours is an educational purpose to teach others how these people lived: what they ate, wore, their hardships and the good times that still existed.”
Onuska and her husband decided to draw on the backgrounds of their own personal heritage of Spain and Slovakia for their re-enactment personas.
Reyes portrays a soldier from the 250th infantry division of Spain.
“Many people don’t realize that Spain fought side by side with the Germans on the Eastern Front in Russia,” she said. “They did not take the oath of Hitler and were not fighting for Hitler, but against the Russians. During Spain’s civil war, Germany helped to eradicate the communists from Spain, so as a thank you Franco (Spain’s leader at the time), sent 50,000 men to fight along side the Germans.”
Onuska portrays a field hospital nurse for the German Red Cross and tells a heroic and poignant story about these women determined to survive.
“My female was born in 1900 in Slovakia and would be about my actual age in 1941,” she said. “The story is about women who volunteered services under the German Red Cross as a means of survival. They did it because their schools and homes were bombed out and their families were lost.” “These women had nothing so they tried to obtain a vocation they could use both during and after the war, if they survived, mainly due to the invasion of their country by Hitler,” Onuska said.
The field nurses served on the Eastern Front in Russia under very harsh conditions such as 40 degrees below zero wearing only a cotton dress, boots, overcoat and a cap. The floor in their tents was hard packed snow and heated with wood stoves.
“These women treated all of the soldiers who came to them no matter where they were from with dignity, respect and honor in regards to their rank and affiliation,” she said. “But, there was a dark side, a lot of the nurses were abused by the Russians severely. They were beaten, raped, hung from trees, nailed to the sides of barns and houses and disemboweled.”
“This was used as a warning to other women who might consider joining the German Red Cross, but despite the abuses, they continued to treat wounded men,” Onuska said.
After the war was over the trouble for the nurses who survived did not end. They were stripped of their nursing papers and had their heads shaved in humiliation even though they were not officially working for the German army, she said.
“For myself, to re-enact these women is an honor. I am giving back to them the respect they so duly deserved,” Onuska said.
The uniform Onuska wears is an accurate replica based on an original German Red Cross field hospital nurse’s uniform that is part of the European Military Historical Society’s collection.
The society has a huge collection of original equipment, accessories, clothing, personal items and furnishings from the World War II era.
“Only five percent of what we have in our collection are replicas, the rest we found on our trips to Europe, antique stores, the Internet and donated items,” Onuska said. “One of our goals is to find a building so we can permanently display our collection.”
To learn more about the European Military Historical Society and how to have a historical presentation at an event or school, look up www.emhs.info
