The Obituary of a Man Who Escaped Stalin and Hitler

On this episode of Our American Stories, Alex Berezow remembers his grandfather Dimitri the only way a life like this can be remembered, by telling the story. Born under Stalin, forced into Nazi labor camps as a teenager, and surviving through nerve, charm, and impossible luck, Dimitri escaped the worst regimes of the 20th century and eventually made his way to America. What follows is a portrait of a man who cheated death again and again, lived boldly, laughed loudly, and finally faced a quieter ending that raises hard questions about memory, medicine, and what it means to live well.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and now we bring you
an obituary written by Alex Barrizo about his grandfather, Dmitri.
Here is Alex with his grandfather's story.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Early on January twenty seventh, twenty eighteen, the most interesting
man in the world passed away at the age of
ninety one. No, I'm not speaking of Jonathan Goldsmith, the
guy who just pretended to be the most interesting man
in the world. I'm speaking of the real deal. My grandfather,
Dmitri Barrizo, a man who survived Stalin and Hitler, cheated

(00:45):
death on multiple occasions, and went on to live the
American dream. His was an impossibly unique story and one
that seems too extraordinary to be true, and yet is
capped with the cautionary tale about modern healthcare. For many people,
including my Ukrainian grandmother. Life in the Soviet Union was
hell to break the will of the Ukrainian people, Joseph

(01:09):
Stalin implemented a mass starvation program now known as the
Hall of the Moor, which killed millions, But life in
Russia was quite a bit different, at least if one
avoided Stalin's bad side. My grandfather was born in nineteen
twenty six in rostovon Dan, a port city close to
the Black Sea. His mother was a waitress and rather

(01:31):
popular with the boys, so my grandfather never knew his dad.
He also didn't particularly care for school, skipping the classroom
for the local cinema. He got away with that on
most days, but one time, when his mother found him
at home instead of at school, she hit him in
the head with a frying pan and nearly killed him.
Maybe that's when he developed his sense of humor. He

(01:52):
was outside with his grandmother one day when his mother
was late arriving home. He consoled her with a bit
of fake news. There had been a terrible street car
accident and his mother was probably on it. Upon hearing this,
his grandmother passed out, after which he sat on a
fence and threw pebbles at her in an attempt to
revive her. I mentioned these people were Russian right. During

(02:18):
Operation Barbarossa in nineteen forty one, Nazi Germany invaded the
Soviet Union. One reason was to kidnap civilians and send
them to Germany as slave labor, a plan carried out
by Fritz Sokel, who was later hanged at Nuremberg for
this war crime. When the Nazis came from my grandfather
in nineteen forty two, his mother insisted on going with him.

(02:39):
At the age of sixteen, my grandfather and his mom,
along with countless other Eastern Europeans, were loaded into cattle
cars and freighted to Germany. My grandfather had an uncanny
ability to blend in and make friends. Though he never
spent much time in school, he had a raw intelligence
that allowed him to learn to speak flawless Polish, Ukrainian,

(03:01):
and German. In fact, his German fluency was so thorough
that other Germans mistook him for a fellow compatriot. He
recklessly used this to his advantage. Early in the war,
he befriended George, a Nazi guard at the labor camp,
who he later told is reminded him of Sergeant Schultz
from Hogan's Heroes. In exchange for cigarettes that his mother

(03:22):
smuggled to him, George would allow my grandfather to sneak
out of camp for a few hours. Sometimes he would
go out in the town. Other times he would visit
the young Ukrainian girl who would become my grandmother. George
wasn't always so accommodating, as the war drew to a close,
he got nasty and was stabbed to death by a prisoner.
One of my grandfather's jobs was to remove unexploded Allied bombs.

(03:47):
After the Nazis identified one, they would have the Eastern
European forced labor jump into the hole with shovels to
remove it while the Nazis slowly backed away. The laborers
had devised various tricks for getting out of the work.
One of them was to tie a string a rubber
band around a wrist, restricting the blood supply to the hand.
Then they would beat on their hand with a spoon.

(04:09):
Apparently I've never tested this. Their hands would swell up
and they could convince some middle management Nazi to let
them have the day off. My grandfather pushed his luck
when he tried to get a day off by claiming
he had a sore throat. This landed him in the
commandant's office. Unamused, the commandant, who reminded my grandfather of
Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes, backhanded him in the face

(04:31):
and then asked, how do you feel now, great, my
grandfather responded. Toward the end of the war, my grandfather
continued taking reckless gambles not only with his money, but
with his life. On one occasion, when he was let
out of the camp, he was approached by two Gestapo
Nazi secret police. Panicking, he fell back in what he

(04:51):
did best, lending in. He clicked his heels and shouted
in flawless German Hyla Hitler, after which he asked the
officers if they were doing a good job. They dutifully
answered his questions, convinced that he was some sort of
undercover agent. On yet another bizarre excursion, my grandfather took
off his labor camp clothes and donned his best white suit.

(05:14):
His mother smuggled him not only cigarettes, but nice clothing
as well. Curious about a nearby munitions factory, he walked in.
The Germans who worked there nodded at him, and he
quickly realized they thought he was important. So he walked
slowly with his hands behind his back and asked the
workers to explain what they were doing. They complied. That's
when the factory announced that Herman Goring was in the building.

(05:37):
Herman Goring was in charge of the Nazi air force
called the Luftwaffe. As he inspected the factory, the workers
fell into line. One by one, Goring shook each of
their hands, including my grandfather's. Had he known that he
was a Russian, Goring would have shown no hesitancy to
execute him on the spot. As it so happens, my

(05:58):
grandparents were surrounded mostly by Polish slave labor. This served
them well, as Stalin had declared that Soviet prisoners of
war were traders who should be sent to Goologs upon
their return. My grandparents, having learned Polish, had no trouble
blending in. They even pretended to be Catholic. When the
war was over, they immigrated to America over the objections

(06:19):
of my grandfather, who preferred Argentina because of the many
cowboy movies he saw that were filmed there. Though one
could take my grandfather out of Eastern Europe, it was
impossible to take Eastern Europe out of my grandfather. He
was a reckless driver, speeding his way around the small
town in Illinois, which accepted him as a refugee. Later

(06:39):
in life, he drove a metallic green nineteen sixty eight Thunderbird,
which was the envy of the town. He continued to
dress immaculately as if he was filming a scene for
the Godfather, and he enjoyed that. Many people thought he
had mafia connections. His charming Russian accent and fantastic laugh
went over every person he met, just like in Germany,
deserved in America. One day, when he was driving to

(07:02):
Saint Louis, President Lyndon Johnson was in town and the
police were stopping and checking vehicles. My grandfather knew he
could be in serious trouble because he always carried a gun.
When the police approached his car, he rolled down the
window and shouted, I'm a doctor. I'm going to the
hospital to operate. It worked. Not only did they let
him through, he got a motorcycle escort. My grandfather's luck

(07:25):
was nearly limitless Throughout much of his life. He had
sky high cholesterol. He used to eat sticks of butter.
Eventually this caught up with him. In nineteen ninety, when
he was sixty four years old, he underwent triple bypass surgery.
It was successful, and the cardiologist gave him another ten
to fifteen years. He was off by a factor of two.

(07:45):
Determined to stay healthy, my grandfather took up bicycling. He
pedaled around fifteen miles per day for several years One
time in his seventies he got hit by a car,
but that didn't stop him. It was mostly a minor nuisance.
Starting in two thousand and two, when my grandfather was
seventy six, he began experiencing minor strokes. He always fully recovered.

(08:08):
He also occasionally had intestinal bleeding, which would require him
to be taken to the hospital and refueled with blood.
Despite these setbacks, he continued driving, exercising, and living an
incredibly active life through his mid eighties. Among our family members,
he earned the nickname Rasputin his luck though ran out,

(08:29):
biology finally took its toll. We knew something was wrong
when he would accidentally leave the kitchen sink faucet running.
Then one night he forgot how to get home. That's
when we all knew he had dementia. As a writer
and scientists, I cannot imagine a fate worse than dementia.
It slowly robs a person not only of his memories,
but of his personality. My grandfather became distant, disconnected. His

(08:54):
trademark laugh was sometimes replaced by anger and hostility. Conversations
that could last hour were shortened to brief comments about
the weather on the bright side. He always claimed it
was seventy and sunny, regardless of what the actual weather was.
He no longer recognized his children. He was a shell
of his former self. The final time I saw him,

(09:15):
he was in an assisted living community. As I approached,
I saw a distinct look in his eye that said,
I should know who you are, but I don't think
he did. Behind what became a toothless smile, I saw
a man who appeared depressed, defeated, a man waiting to die.
This was hard to take. Modern medicine could heal our
bodies but not our minds. What was true for my

(09:38):
grandfather was also true for millions of other Americans. Science
can work miracles for our bodies, but not for our brains.
Is it really a good thing to keep people alive
at the expense of their mental, emotional, and social well being?
Is that ethical? Is that moral? My grandfather was alive,
despite us knowing that he never wanted to live like this.

(09:59):
For years, I begged God to take him. In late
twenty seventeen, my grandfather suffered a stroke that left him
partially paralyzed. Then, in January twenty eighteen, my prayer was answered,
albeit belatedly I missed that man beyond words. He truly was,
in every possible sense, the most interesting man in the world.

(10:20):
An entire book could be written about his life. Perhaps
I should do that someday.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
What a life will live? The story of Dimitri Brizeu
told by his grandson Alex. Here on our American Stories