Lise

Lise's Promise
She was born Lise Huebert in her grandfather's village of Tchongraw in the southern Crimea, land of the Tartars, under the spell of the Krymskiye Gory, mysterious mountains of the Black Sea. Her Dutch-German people originated in Holland and are a remnant of the first settlers invited by Tsarina Catharine the Great to New Russia. Their historic important in developing the Ukraine has been eclipsed and suppressed by Russia's brutal, bloodied history.
Lise's grandfather taught her the history of her people. "...live to tell the world what happened to your people."
-- Opapa Huebert, 1937

"If he chose me to remember the story of my people, he chose well...he died leaving me this legacy...words I promised never to forget - this is that story."
-- Lise

Louise Huebert Toews (Gerig)

• A Photographer of People
• Toews Studio, Winnipeg, MB Canada
• Louise Huebert Toews was treasurer of The Professional Photographers Association of Canada, 1975-1977.

Honored by
Professional Photographers Association of Canada
Awards accorded Louise Huebert Toews, February 1975:
The Walter Toews Memorial Trophy
Best General Portrait
Highest Scoring Portrait
President's Trophy


The family of Elizabeth Koop, Taganrog, Russia 1914.

I Heard My People Cry, One Family's Escape From Russia
Is dedicated to Lise's mother
Elizabeth Koop Huebert

Survivor of the Great Revolution, Ukrainian Civil Wars and Stalin, she is one of the most remarkable heroines to have come out of Russia in this period of history . . . A woman of uncommon courage and love who nurtured in her children the will to live and a passion for freedom
----Elizabeth Lenci-Downs

"...In the years of hardships, in the days
Of an unthinkable existance
She had been cast up from the depths
By a high wave of destiny."
"Parting" -- Boris Pasternak

One day she told us children,
"I will teach you how to survive.
You must survive and you must
get out of Russia."
-- Tchongraw 1940 -- Lise