The NDSU Libraries’ Germans from Russia Heritage Collection has published a new hardcover book, “Sunflowers and Thistles: Bessarabian Germans Speak Out,” by Elvire Bisle-Fandrich and translated by James T. Gessele.

“Sunflowers and Thistles” is a collection of stories by Germans from Bessarabia. Secondary school educator Elvire Bisle-Frandrich traveled throughout Germany, researching and collecting accounts. The contemporary witnesses relate many experiences about life in Bessarabia, resettlement to Germany, war, flight, expulsion and a new beginning after 1945. Originally published in German, the translation makes the stories available in English for the first time.

Michael Miller, director of the NDSU Libraries’ Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, said, “This is one of the most important scholarly books published by the collection for the Germans from Russia community. The book is a wonderful addition to our published book, ‘Bessarabia: Germans Colonists on the Black Sea.’ We are deeply grateful to James Gessele, a Mercer, North Dakota, native, for volunteering to translate these books from German to English.”

Gessele said, “Simply astounding insights into Bessarabian-German societal interactions are collected and portrayed in ‘Sunflowers and Thistles.’ When they answered a puzzling dilemma posed by a family photo of my great-grandparents, I knew the work had to be translated.”

For more information or to order a copy of the book, go to https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/order/general/sunflowersandthistles.html.

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