Warbird Information Exchange

RUDI STIEBRITZ was born 22.3.1923 in Jena, Germany, the youngest child in a family of six girls and three boys. After graduating as a structural engineer (1942), Rudi was conscripted immediately to fight with the German forces on the Russian front.The inhumanity of the war, and his subsequent years as a Russian POW had aprofound effect on this author's philosophy of life and led to his Buddhist persuasion. After repatriation, Rudi found life intolerable in East Germany under the communist regime, and applied to emigrate to Australia. Accepted, he and his wife arrived there in 1955, only to find that his engineering qualifications were not recognised in his new country. Undeterred, he took up bricklaying, and later worked in architects' offices in Adelaide, Gold Coast and Sydney.A car accident in 1963 severely impaired his vision so the Stiebritzes bought a dairy farm near Beaudesert which they worked successfully for some years. In 1969 they turned to buying, restoring and reselling old homes, and in 1975 Rudi undertook a woodworking course for the blind, creating artefacts which, by wearing two pairs of spectacles one over the other on the good eye, he managed to decorate with folk art motifs. Using this 'double glasses' technique for the good eye,he also manages word processing successfully.The folk art led him to painting, and in the past decade he has had works included in several exhibitions.He undertook a creative writing course with Access Arts in 1996; his course tutor became his collaborator on his war memoirs Pawn of War. Recently Rudi has had multiple heart bypass surgery but still finds the time and energy to supervise a sheltered workshop for SWARA; to undertake tertiary course in Sanscrit; and to prepare a dictionary of Sanscrit terms that apply to Buddhist teachings.

Rudy's Collaborator - Jay McKee

Jay McKee has been an active writer, teacher, and theatre practitioner for over 35 years. His skills embrace: writing for theatre and TV, dramaturgy, song lyrics, comedy sketches, poetry, newspaper and magazine articles, PR, short stories, editing, and tutor/facilitator of courses in theatre techniques and creative writing for both adults and school students, as well as for the disabled.

Jay has had work published in England, Switzerland and Germany as well as Australia. He was a member of the Wordfest Board 1990-4, President of Playlab Inc. 1988-92, PR person for International P.E.N. (Australia North) 1998-9, and is currently in his third term of office as Vice President of the Queensland branch of Fellowship of Australian Writers. He has conducted courses in theatre techniques for TAFE and for Queensland Arts Council, and his creative writing tutorials for FAWQ and for USQ's Summer and Winter Schools attract a large following.


http://sidharta.com/books/index.jsp;jse ... C5F?uid=36


Quote:
An idealistic young engineering graduate, torn from his dream career before it could begin to join the German army, finds himself assigned to the Russian front where he becomes aware of a strange affinity with the enemy. Having been recruited at the wrong end of the war, our antihero experiences mainly wounds and the humility of defeat but these become merely cruel rites of passage to manhood and wisdom.

Youthful exuberance and a serendipitous turn of events result in his being taken prisoner of war after the Armistice, and he then spends a longer period in Siberian POW camps than he did as a soldier in combat. He quickly learns the Russian language and his captors put his engineering skills to good use by appointing him site manager on several major building projects.

This is a war story with an antiwar message. Stiebritz/McKee tell itfrankly and leaven it with flashes of wry humour, warmth and humanity to engage readers and transport them through the whole gamut of the war experience: boredom, terror, indignity, mateship, grief, physical suffering, horror, black humour, periods of snatched love and subsequent separations, and the effects on family left behind.Through it all his own emotional fortitude protects him from despair and pessimism.

Stiebritz and McKee adopt the voice of a skillful raconteur, drawing the reader into experiences exciting, bizarre, touching or amusing, in a confidential, late-night fireside style.