Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 29, 1994 TAG: 9408290073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Somewhere in her attic, Nina Magier still has the black hat - the one with the white lace veil that came from Marshall Field, the most expensive department store in Chicago in the '50s.
She was living with her husband and son in Springfield, Ill., far from her native Poland. But instead of prescribing pills and examining patients as she had done in her homeland, the physician scrubbed hospital floors and changed bedsheets. And instead of writing medical journal articles, she struggled to master basic English sentences.
"I was tired and frustrated. My husband said, 'Look, you are down. We must do something to lift the spirits.' He took me to Marshall Field's. And he told me to pick out any hat I wanted. We were poor and really could not afford this, but I did. I chose the black one."
Magier wore that same hat a few years later, on one of the most important days of her life - the day she was finally able to tuck her war-torn homeland safely away in her memory and begin living a free life with her family in the United States.
Now, as she sits in her Raleigh Court home, she stares at her calendar in amazement. Next March will be the 40th anniversary of the ceremony in which she became a U.S. citizen.
The 84-year-old doctor still talks of her tumultuous life with an air of disbelief: that she was able to study at all in a nation continuously occupied by one aggressor after another ... that she was forced to practice medicine in a Nazi prison camp ... that a small Russian-American newspaper held the key to her passage to the United States.
She says she was blessed to have ended up in Salem, working for more than 25 years as a psychiatrist with the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Her journey began halfway across the world, in Vilno, Poland, before World War I.
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Magier grew up in a poor country that could hardly provide heat for its citizens, much less a formal education.
But Magier enjoyed learning from a young age, and pursued her studies through a Russian governess, a private German tutor and finally a high school. Her perseverance earned her a place at the University of Stephan Batory Medical School in Vilno in 1932. Out of a class of 120, she was one of 20 women.
Despite facing intolerant professors who "just couldn't understand why women should practice medicine" and would fail any female wearing fingernail polish to an exam, Magier graduated from medical school in December 1938.
During school, she met and married fellow doctor Vladimir Magier. They planned to begin residencies, he in surgery and she in pediatrics.
But less than a year after she completed school, her homeland was being invaded again, this time by Nazis. After the Germans agreed to split Poland with the Russians, Vilno was occupied by the Soviet Union.
"Our residencies were over then. We worked in a medical clinic, treating any emergency that came in."
Vladimir rode a bicycle to visit homebound patients, and Nina prepared for the worst.
"People were disappearing, many who had no political dealings whatsoever. My best friend was a nurse; her father worked in forestry. Their entire family was sent to Siberia by the KGB. It was petrifying. ... It was always hanging over our heads."
So they packed a bag with wool socks and sweaters and dried bread in preparation for the night they might be taken from their home.
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Nina, Vladimir and their 4-year-old son, Igor, were taken from Poland, but not by the Soviets.
In 1941, Germany broke its treaty with the Soviet Union and reoccupied Poland. Three years later, the Magiers were taken to a prison camp in Konigsberg, in what then was known as East Prussia, an area between Poland and Lithuania. The Magiers were sent to treat wounded French prisoners, replacing the German doctors who were called to the front lines.
Magier's voice, which usually is strong and tinged with delicate "r" trills and elongated "s" sounds, shakes as she recalls what happened there. Her hands sweep across the ivory tablecloth as if trying to sort out the confusion and terror.
"We were housed, not in the prison camp, fortunately, but in a hospital owned by Lutheran sisters. My son ... he was so sick with diphtheria ... the rations only entitled him to one glass of milk twice a week. But those sisters made sure he had two glasses of milk a day, and extra carrots and beets for juice. They knew what they were doing."
After eight months, the Russian front was moving quickly toward Konigsberg. Most of the Germans had fled.
Because the Magiers were the only family among the remaining doctors, the sisters chose them to travel with the 32 French prisoners by train away from the fighting. They arrived in a small town on the Baltic Sea at 6 in the morning.
"It was January 28, 1945. Russia had broken through, and we had no place to go with our patients." They needed a boat, but each one that passed was overflowing with injured Germans returning from the slaughter. Finally, a small Red Cross boat let them aboard as torpedoes whirred past in the water.
At long last, they reached a small town called Celle.
Between bombing raids, and despite severe food shortages, Magier and her husband nursed all their patients to health and watched them flee to safer parts of Europe.
"One day, my husband ran into the room, shouting, 'We are free! We are free!'"
That was April 11, 1945 - their son's fifth birthday - when the Allies marched into town.
Soon, the Allies had found jobs for both doctors in a nearby town. They practiced in what had been a German hospital, serving almost 100,000 displaced people who had been forced by the Nazis to work in factories.
Magier was able to complete a residency in pediatrics, working long hours to serve the overwhelming influx of children. "There was no such thing as this 'half-day' doctors take now - we caught sleep and fresh air when we could."
The Magiers grew weary of the never-ending strife in Europe and desperately wished to move to America.
"I had always said our family was blessed that we were able to stay together through the war, but how we got to America was miraculous."
Vladimir knew of an uncle who had emigrated to America before World War I. Nina thought they could place a classified ad with the uncle's name, and their name and address, in a Russian newsletter published in New York. Perhaps, she thought, the uncle might see it. Vladimir thought the idea was nonsense, but he sent the ad.
Six months later, in December 1948, they received a letter from a Polish-American couple who recognized the name Magier. The couple had lived next to Vladimir's parents and had heard stories of their son and his doctor-wife, Nina.
"It was the best Christmas present we'd ever had."
On Columbus Day 1949, their ship landed in New York. Shortly after, with the help of the couple, the Magiers settled in Illinois.
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In those first few months, Vladimir feverishly studied English to pass his medical exams. Nina worked as a maid in a Chicago hospital and kept her true profession a secret.
"I was endlessly grateful to have the job - I was the breadwinner. It would have been awkward if anyone I worked with knew I was a trained physician."
Soon, Vladimir had a residency in Albany, N.Y., and Nina's English was improving.
Then, a "wonderful opportunity" emerged for her: a chance to study and practice psychiatry with a Veterans Administration hospital. The VA offered a three-year residency in exchange for two years of work.
After she was accepted, Magier was given several possible postings - including one in Salem.
"My friends in Albany were upset about me going south - they told me it was just like the Hatfields and McCoys, shooting each other.
"But I am philosophical. I thought, `Well, it is only a few years, and time is flying. ... One thing, it is not Siberia.'''
Magier enjoyed practicing psychiatry, viewing it as a natural extension of her career as a physician.
"I treat the mind and the body as a whole. I took the Hippocratic Oath to serve people, and when you truly enjoy serving, any type of work is pleasure."
Most of her years at the Salem VA hospital were spent treating women for depression, schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. Experiences in the war-torn towns of Europe, she says, prepared her for the difficult task of comprehending and healing the mind.
"It helped me understand the potentialities of people to endure and adjust ... I learned how people can overcome."
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Vladimir was a surgeon at the Salem VA hospital until his death in 1966. Igor went to Cornell University and now is a psychiatrist in Norfolk.
Nina still devotes much of her time to medicine, serving as a psychiatric consultant for Catawba Hospital, attending medical conventions, and staying active in the American Medical Women's Association.
She listens to Abraham Lincoln's speeches on tape, to learn from his eloquent use of the English language. She contributes time and expertise to the Sister City program; one of Roanoke's sister cities is Pskov, Russia.
And she thinks about planning a 40th anniversary celebration. It might be held after Mass in her church, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox.
She'll probably display the framed photograph she cut out from the Springfield, Ill., newspaper. It's the one where she's standing next to her husband, smiling as she holds up her right palm as the oath begins, wearing a fancy black hat.
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB