Centerfield

Grandad's Cool War Story Blogging

My grandad was a Russian Jew, who immigrated after WWI, after being imprisoned in tiny Albania(!). After the war, he was given the choice between returning home to the now-USSR or New York City. He was no dummy, so here I am. He stayed in the city; I still have family there.

His story was that, although he was given a gun to fight with, he was issued a different kind of ammo than his gun used.....

It gets more interesting. I read Churchill's history of WWI (he also has one of the second war). It's simply chock full of Churchill trying to keep his ally supplied with ammo, so maybe there were plenty of units who even had no ammo atall, especially as the war progressed.

But, more on point, the Russians never fought the Albanians in WWI. Albania is hundreds of miles away from the Russian fronts in WWI, between Italy and Greece. Just south of Kosovo on a map, if you remember where that is.

My first thought was that, maybe Albanians had faced Soviets in a weird episode where the new USSR provoked war with the Allies by treacherously firing on some armed prisoners. Half the ethnicities in the region were represented in the armed prisoner group, and different Albanians were on different sides. BUT, that group would've had no way of getting prisoners home, so that's out.

My guess now is that he was a refugee of some kind. The simplest explanation would be desertion. His government loved pogroms (remember, he was a Jew) and couldn't be bothered to get him the right ammo, so he wouldn't've been too attached to the Czarist Government. Other alternatives would include the possibility of being captured and getting away from unmotivated Austrian soldiers (most Austro-Hungarian soldiers didn't care a whistle about their creaking Empire).

Albania is pretty near Turkey (the last gasp of the Ottomans, then). He, or a group he was with, might've heard that the Ottomans/Turkey were a refuge, especially for Jews. If I'm right, he got hundreds of miles, certainly on foot, across several borders, before being hauled in. It's interesting to think I might've lived in Turkey, maybe Istanbul, instead, if my guess is right. I think I prefer here, though Istanbul is pretty cool - it's easier to do edgy stuff here.