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It's Political
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Straight Male / 38
Search For The Past, Or Us It Time To Move On
After I finished college I went on a year's trip to find myself, funded by my grandmother. She married my grandfather, of German descent, his father's family was lost during the 'war'. She wanted me to go to Hamburg where her father's family was from, and do some research. Put my History degree to work.
I started by contacting the Holocaust museum and asked their researcher for ideas, how do I start. With the lady's help I got as much information as possible from my grandmother. Her father was one of a chosen few who were shipped across in 1937 as a child, and raised as a Lutheran, to some 'friends of the family'. No records of what happened to his family.
Their last name was common, his adoptive parents knew his parents from 'business'. He was 'taken in' and his name changed, but no formal adoption. But memories were gone, no one really cared where the adopted son had come from. That was a dead end. No one kept any of the communications of the time.
Hamburg was cold, uninviting. I took a small room paid in advance. No one reached out to me, and no one wanted to talk about 'that'. I didn't speak German, which added to the isolation. An old man I met on a bench told me to start with the synagogues, if they had survived. Family records from that period would be there.
A needle in a haystack, after two months I gave up. Too big a task, too little time, too little money, too little experience, too little information. I sat at the train station headed for Berlin. A young woman sat there too. After a period of silence she broke the ice. We talked, what was I doing? Why was I going to Berlin. She was an art student, going back to school after spending a week with her grandmother.
We rode together, she told me no one talks about any of that now. Leave it alone, it's time to forget. She invited me to stay with her, an ultra tiny apartment for students. To my surprise she was totally open to sex. Three days of 'that' and I needed a break. I traveled around, returning to Berlin to stay with her again. After a year I had invited her to come to the States with me. We got married, a Lutheran church. She told me you went to church to get baptized, get married, get hurried.
She was all American as soon as we set up house. She was a great housekeeper, but wasn't so keen on starting a family, we were too young. Enjoy ourselves now that we were married.
Ten years later, when we took our son Eric to meet her family, the story came out. Her great grandfather was an SS soldier in 'the East'. No one talks about those things now. Time to forget.
I can't. My grandma can't. There is no story as to who my great grandfather was, where he came from. Who were they. Why was he sent. No answers, except that he was one of the chosen few.
Yesterday I got an email from one of my wife's cousins. A manifest from 1937. My great grandfather's name was on it. An unaccompanied minor. If, that's how you spelled his last name.
I started by contacting the Holocaust museum and asked their researcher for ideas, how do I start. With the lady's help I got as much information as possible from my grandmother. Her father was one of a chosen few who were shipped across in 1937 as a child, and raised as a Lutheran, to some 'friends of the family'. No records of what happened to his family.
Their last name was common, his adoptive parents knew his parents from 'business'. He was 'taken in' and his name changed, but no formal adoption. But memories were gone, no one really cared where the adopted son had come from. That was a dead end. No one kept any of the communications of the time.
Hamburg was cold, uninviting. I took a small room paid in advance. No one reached out to me, and no one wanted to talk about 'that'. I didn't speak German, which added to the isolation. An old man I met on a bench told me to start with the synagogues, if they had survived. Family records from that period would be there.
A needle in a haystack, after two months I gave up. Too big a task, too little time, too little money, too little experience, too little information. I sat at the train station headed for Berlin. A young woman sat there too. After a period of silence she broke the ice. We talked, what was I doing? Why was I going to Berlin. She was an art student, going back to school after spending a week with her grandmother.
We rode together, she told me no one talks about any of that now. Leave it alone, it's time to forget. She invited me to stay with her, an ultra tiny apartment for students. To my surprise she was totally open to sex. Three days of 'that' and I needed a break. I traveled around, returning to Berlin to stay with her again. After a year I had invited her to come to the States with me. We got married, a Lutheran church. She told me you went to church to get baptized, get married, get hurried.
She was all American as soon as we set up house. She was a great housekeeper, but wasn't so keen on starting a family, we were too young. Enjoy ourselves now that we were married.
Ten years later, when we took our son Eric to meet her family, the story came out. Her great grandfather was an SS soldier in 'the East'. No one talks about those things now. Time to forget.
I can't. My grandma can't. There is no story as to who my great grandfather was, where he came from. Who were they. Why was he sent. No answers, except that he was one of the chosen few.
Yesterday I got an email from one of my wife's cousins. A manifest from 1937. My great grandfather's name was on it. An unaccompanied minor. If, that's how you spelled his last name.
