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Monday, October 13, 2008
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SURVIVOR Antje Olson's long path from Nazi Germany leads to Brainerd Senior Reporter Antje Olson's Baxter co-workers admire her energy and her charm, bound in an 81-year-old body of a former world-class athlete.
And those qualities speak to a unbending will to survive through terror that once covered much of the globe and through personal tragedy. She's had more than her share of both.
As a child growing up in Heidelberg, Germany, Olson loved to swim and discovered she had a particular talent for it. She trained with the goal of being an Olympic swimmer. The backstroke was a specialty. It was ultimately much more than an athlete's dream.
"It saved me," Olson said.
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Antje Olson survived Nazi Germany and found opportunity in the United States where she was willing to work hard to seize it. Though she's suffered through personal loss, Olson retains a positive outlook and at 81 she has remarkable energy. Her work as promotions coordinator at The Lodge at Brainerd Lakes in Baxter has brought her recognition from her peers where her supervisor said she brings professionalism and charm. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey
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Being an accomplished swimmer was a reason Olson said the Nazi Party kept her alive. The only child of a Jewish father and Christian mother, Olson was born in 1927. She said she remembers training in Heidelberg when news of Germany's invasion of Poland to begin World War II reached the pool.
"That's something I never forgot in my whole life," she said. Her father would lose his life in a Nazi gas chamber and Olson said she went to a labor camp where food was often the watery remains of a vegetable soup. Her mother would sneak bread to her and the group of Poles she worked with.
"That's part of life," Olson "I learned from that experience a lot. It made me work. I wanted to go to America."
Antje Olson
Words to live by: "Don't give up," Olson said. "Be strong. Don't sit in a chair. Keep going. I want to keep going - doing what I'm doing for as long as I can."
Brush with fame: Knew Dear Abby, then Pauline "Popo" Esther Friedman and her twin sister Esther Pauline Friedman who became Ann Landers, while living in Eau Claire, Wis. Olson became friends with Pauline Friedman. They met attending a synagogue and played cards together.
Favorite things to do: Shopping armed with coupons and looking for bargains and things that will last. One of Olson's daughters still has the first winter coat her mother bought on a layaway plan about 60 years ago.
Most important thing: Family. "I have good kids," Olson said. Her daughters call her every day.
Be fluent: Olson speaks English, German and French.
Creating a following: Olson started a free bingo night at the Lodge Bar & Grill and gets prizes from area businesses for the family event. Jolanta Nowicki, Lodge food and beverage manager, said Olson has developed a following. She's a special employee, Nowicki said. "People love her."
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After the war, Olson said she worked as an interpreter at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. In 1948, she came to America as a war bride. She arrived in New York City after 10 days on a troop ship with $2 in per pocket. Even though the marriage ended in divorce and the chilly post-war reception to a German in Eau Claire, Wis. was difficult, Olson said coming to the United States was the best thing she did.
"I worked my way up," Olson said. "Nothing was handed to me."
When Olson left Germany she had a nursing degree and she went to Switzerland to the culinary institute and had a food service degree. In America, she scrubbed floors and spittoons and waited tables.
Her first marriage gave Olson a daughter. She married again and had five more girls. She moved to Brainerd with her husband and with her food service degree, Olson was chosen to work at the Brainerd School District's new model program - the Apple Cafe. She earned a master's degree in special education and taught there for five years. And she lost her husband to cancer.
"He said 'somebody would be coming and sweep you off your feet' and I thought he was kidding."
But at the high school she ran into a visiting tennis coach from Normandale Jr. College, a doctor at Hennepin County and later found her students had given him her number. The next day she got a phone call. The two were married and Olson moved to Edina, returning to Brainerd when her husband retired. Olson worked as a service trainer at Madden's resort working with the international students and stayed there for five years.
Three years ago when her husband was 87 he suffered serious health issues, bypasses and a stroke while they were living at their winter home in Palm Springs, Calif. Olson said they returned to Brainerd and her husband has made considerable progress going from a wheelchair to being able to walk with a cane. But tragedy wasn't done with Olson. She said losing a daughter to health issues was the most difficult loss of her life.
Advised to get out of the house more, Olson started at the Lodge at Brainerd Lakes in Baxter 18 months ago. She is now the promotions coordinator. Olson contacts area businesses about the Lodge's restaurant and started a Wednesday night bingo there gathering prizes from a host of companies and she pitches in to clear tables.
Jolanta Nowicki, Lodge food and beverage manager, said Olson brings a positive energy to work. More than just coming up with ideas, Olson executes, Nowicki said.
"Just being excited about things is really a nice character to have," Nowicki said of Olson.
Olson said she's been given nice friends, a good family and wonderful co-workers. "I enjoy what I'm doing," she said. "I've got a lot of miles left."
RENEE RICHARDSON may be reached at renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5852.
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