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Book details immigrant’s escape, life in Canada
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Burgel Mertens and husband Peter, who came from Bonn, Germany have lived in Canada since 1980.
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This is the book cover by Mertens.
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Theresa Seraphim
For Spotlight
A book to be published in August will detail a High Prairie immigrant’s departure from Germany and her new life in Canada.
“There Is A Tomorrow: My Life”, written by Burgel Mertens, tells the story of her escape from Germany and how she and her husband Peter came to Canada from Bonn as visitors in 1979, then as immigrants in 1980.
“Canada is for us a beautiful land where we found peace and freedom,” Burgel explained in a recent interview.
The lack of freedom in Bonn, plus the cost of living in Germany, prompted the couple to make their home here, bringing her mother as well, said Mertens.
Everything fell into place. Peter was offered a job, a requirement for the couple to come to Canada, and Burgel’s sister bought an Edmonton home in their name.
Burgel recalled the day they arrived in Edmonton.
“What we felt (at) this moment is indescribable,” she said.
“The sky was so wonderful blue coloured, which can only see in pictures. And the sun so big and bright you will never see anywhere else.”
Two months later, in April 1980, the Mertens’ world changed the day they followed her brother to his farm just south of High Prairie.
“It was a rainy night and the gravel road was like soup to drive on,” said Burgel, adding her husband wasn’t used to those driving conditions. As he sped up to keep Burgel’s brother’s vehicle in sight, he lost control. The car landed in a ditch filled with water.
“I was lying in the ditch filled with water with both sides’ pelvis fractures. My husband was found after the ambulance arrived, almost 20 metres in the field.”
Peter was in a coma for three months and, when he awoke, faced a long time of rehabilitation.
“(He) still has trouble with slide seizes and walking without balance,” said Burgel, adding Peter has not been able to work since the accident.
Burgel said her faith in God got her through that difficult time.
“My faith was so unshakeable and nobody could ever take that away from me,” she commented.
The couple went back to Germany in 1984, with Burgel hoping to find work. However, nothing came up, and because of his condition, Peter was not accepted.
“In Germany people looked at him as if he would be drunk, because of his unbalanced walking,” said Burgel, adding people with disabilities are kept hidden in Germany, a throwback to the days of Hitler who sought out such people to kill them.
The couple does return to Germany every two years for a holiday, but neither has a desire to be there permanently.
“The stressful life in Germany, you couldn’t live there anymore,” said Burgel.
Burgel said the idea for the book came from God.
“I was inspired…by the Lord who woke me up in the middle of the night in January 2008 and encouraged me to write,” she explained.
“I got up and could not stop writing.”
When the book is published, Mertens plans to sign books for two nights at the High Prairie Library. The book will be available in bookstores and online.
“I hope many readers will see how faith in the Lord works when unfortunate circumstances in life occur,” Burgel noted.
“For me is the motto, never give up.”
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