Recently I called the producers of the Oprah Show to let them know that after reading my winning essay on the 1989 Valentine Day Oprah Show, the essay including my husband Norman's World War II service, we had now prepared this story for publication and would like to present Oprah with a copy of "WWII Liberator's Life: AFS Ambulance Driver Chooses Peace."
No, I wasn't fishing for this book to be Oprah's choice for her next book selection - just for her to read the whole story.
Oprah's most recent book club selection is "Night" by Elie Wiesel. It was at the ceremony to open the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. that Wiesel spoke eloquently to liberators and those who had been interned in the camps. In the audience was my husband Norman who had special tickets for us to attend as he was a liberator at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany.
My husband has now brought closure to his wartime experiences that he shared with Oprah's audience. He served with the British in the jungles of India in the war against the Japanese, helped to repatriate Italian citizens after the war and surveyed the horror of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where he sorted the living from the dead.
His book begins with a nostalgic look at what life was like in the early twenties when the Kunkel family came west from South Dakota (reported in a recent column) and continues on through the life of a young man who met his future wife, Georgie Bright, at the Trianon Ballroom right here in Seattle. Letters traveled at a snail's pace back and forth between Seattle to the battlefront. Norman once wrote what he thought would be his last letter from a foxhole surrounded by the Japanese. The letter went into his diary because he didn't think his life would be spared.
Earlier Norman had sent me a package containing a Ceylon Sapphire ring. The caption with the ring said: Consider Yourself Engaged. Almost three years later Norman and I were married and we are celebrating our 60th wedding anniversary on April 29 at High Point Community Club from 1 to 3 p.m. Those who know us may call and RSVP at 935-8663. It is a very special celebration because on our 59th Wedding Anniversary Norman went to Harborview Hospital with a severe brain bleed. Now we are asking all our friends to party with us following Norman's year of healing.
Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer and speaker and can be reached at gnkunkel@comcast.net For more information on the book WWII Liberator's Life contact the Kunkels.
