It's been another huge gap since I've updated this, but while I could plead a lack of free time as an excuse again, this time it's a bit more emotional. On 15 April 2012, my beloved Oma passed away in her sleep at the age of ninety with my grandfather right by her side, and as she was the biggest reason for this whole project, it was too painful to go anywhere near it for quite a while. More to the point, I lost one of the most crucial influences on my life and the person I've become, the strongest woman I've ever known, and one who taught me and gave me more than it's possible to repay in a lifetime. She was never the easiest of people to deal with, but digging into the family history gave me a huge insight into why she was the way she was and I'm still filled with respect and awe that she did so much and overcame so many tragedies in those nine decades. For all her flaws, my Oma was someone I feel lucky beyond belief to have known, let alone to have as my grandmother, and when I look at what an impact she had on my life and those of everyone in our family, it amazes me that one tiny woman could change the world around us so much. She loved us enough that she wanted us to be the very best we could be and even if her methods were painful, I never doubted the motives behind them. She may not have said the words until the last six months of her life, but I always knew beyond a doubt how much she loved me. In true German fashion, she showed it every day in her actions (especially when it came to stuffing your face with her incredible cooking, because if you left her table hungry, something was horribly wrong) and in what she gave us every day. A child of the Depression and WWII, she always took pride in what she owned and made sure none of us ever had to go through the deprivations she did. I never put it to the test, but I'm sure I could have worn a different outfit every day for at least a month or two without repeats, and while there were the cringe-worthy items I'd wear once (or twice if forced) just for her, she even managed to influence my taste in fashion with her classic style. There are a hundred little things that will always make me think of her, like grilled cheese sandwiches, egg timers, and sailboats among so many others, and though it still hurts, I'm quicker to smile than cry now. While I always tried my hardest never to take Oma's presence in my life for granted, it wasn't until she passed away that I started figuring out just how many ways she's had a major impact in my life, a list that's still growing almost seven months later. Having her in my life at all was one of my greatest blessings, having her in it for all three decades is still a bit miraculous for me.
The title of this entry comes from one of my best friends, also deceased, who was trying to explain the Irish (all Celts, really, but he was from Ireland) view of death and why wakes and funerals are more like parties. It's an outlook I absolutely love because it focuses on all the good that person brought to the world instead of just the passing, and as Oma didn't want us to grieve for her, I think it's an idea she'd agree with. If for no other reason than that, I'm making the choice to celebrate her life instead of mourning her death and I think it's a choice she'd approve of.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Be Careful What You Wish For
If you've gotten this far in the blog, then you know that the main reason for the whole genealogy project was to uncover my mother's side of the family and get to know the people who, for good or ill, had such an effect on that family that it's still being felt over a century later. I knew there were things that weren't going to be pretty, and given that the whole Lihl family was kicked out of the region that had been their home for centuries, I thought I had a fairly good idea what I was getting myself into. It seemed I had prepared myself well enough, at least while searching through the parish records and finding the children who died young, the women who died in childbirth, and the usual difficulties in centuries past. Finding the letters from Emma's family members who hadn't emigrated with her, however, blew the idea of 'prepared' all to hell.
For years, I had known about the Sudeten Germans being forced to leave their homes after 1945 as a result of post-war Czechoslovakia's unabated anger over Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland, and as Germany had just lost a second war, I knew the economy had tanked and food was probably still rationed. What I didn't know was where they went after leaving Bohemia or what life outside the Sudetenland was like for those expelled, and thus finding the letters was my biggest genealogy (and yes, on a personal level, too) wish granted, though I quickly came to realise that maybe some prayers are better left unanswered. Transcribing the first letter from Daniel to Emma, I was also translating as I went, and while the the letter starts off fairly normally, even somewhat amusing as he wonders if the people in Saxony even know how to wash their hands, it quickly goes down-hill from there. Daniel describes tiny cottages as the best available for the Sudeten refugees, and not everyone could even get one of those, though it seems he was able to buy one with money Emma was sending. He also talks about making their own soap from lye and ashes, as well as making some kind of coffee with the ashes (I think mixing what coffee they did have with the ashes to make it last longer), but the worst was when he talks about the food shortages. A tiny piece of uncooked meat was a luxury, rice was the main source of food, and even that was strictly rationed. This was from people who had always been poor, though back in Bohemia, they wouldn't have considered themselves that way. They had their own homes, could provide for their families, and if they didn't have much money, they could make what they needed and made a life that was at least rich in happiness. I was already choked-up reading about what little food they could get their hands on, and quickly progressed to full-on crying when Daniel expresses his hopes that the troubles will soon be over, that they may even be able to go home someday. From the dates and return addresses on later letters, it looks like they moved from Saxony to Bavaria, but I don't think they ever managed to return home.
I don't know what my family's politics were. I don't know if they were among the Sudeten Germans who supported Hitler or not, and though I can't believe I'm saying this, I don't think I care. Considering in the 1930s when he was annexing the Sudetenland, the Nazi movement was more about improving the economy and rising from the ashes of the post-WWI devastation than anti-Semitism, I could certainly understand why it might have appealed to them. While I won't deny that the Czechs had the right to be angry that part of their country was taken from them, it doesn't justify the expulsions after the war. An entire region of people was forcibly removed from their homeland, Czechoslovakian citizens as much as the people expelling them, for no other reason than that their territory had been annexed by Hitler and the Czechs outside the Sudetenland wanted revenge. These weren't firebrands or even anti-Czech, just humble people who wanted to live out their lives in peace, and instead bore the brunt of Czechoslovakia's hatred of Hitler and anything at all linked to Nazism. No matter how hard I try to imagine how I'd feel if it happened to me, I still don't think I can comprehend the extent of the devastation my family must have felt. My Sudeten fairy-godmother was among those expelled, a teenager at the time, and when she talks about what she and her family went through, it rips my heart out, but hearing the same kind of stories from my own family hits even harder. Their sheer determination to survive and even thrive is overwhelming, and I wonder if things like that are passed through DNA, because that kind of courage and strength seems bred into the bones of my family.
While I have every intention of sharing with Oma the later letters and the places the family went after leaving Bohemia, I don't know whether or not to pass along the contents of the earlier letters. Part of me feels she has the right to know, but the other part thinks it might be too much for her and not worth upsetting her over what happened almost seventy years ago. It's difficult enough for me to hear about all these years later, so how much worse would it be on Oma, who actually knew and loved them? She still remembers Hannelore fondly, even if she found Johanna too stand-offish to be close to, so while I don't want to hurt Oma with the knowledge of what they suffered, I also don't know that I have the right to keep it from her. I'll have to run it by Pop-pop. For myself, I'm glad I have the letters as a way to get to know the people I've been curious about my entire life, but at the same time, like so much of this project, it came with an emotional cost I wasn't entirely expecting.
For years, I had known about the Sudeten Germans being forced to leave their homes after 1945 as a result of post-war Czechoslovakia's unabated anger over Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland, and as Germany had just lost a second war, I knew the economy had tanked and food was probably still rationed. What I didn't know was where they went after leaving Bohemia or what life outside the Sudetenland was like for those expelled, and thus finding the letters was my biggest genealogy (and yes, on a personal level, too) wish granted, though I quickly came to realise that maybe some prayers are better left unanswered. Transcribing the first letter from Daniel to Emma, I was also translating as I went, and while the the letter starts off fairly normally, even somewhat amusing as he wonders if the people in Saxony even know how to wash their hands, it quickly goes down-hill from there. Daniel describes tiny cottages as the best available for the Sudeten refugees, and not everyone could even get one of those, though it seems he was able to buy one with money Emma was sending. He also talks about making their own soap from lye and ashes, as well as making some kind of coffee with the ashes (I think mixing what coffee they did have with the ashes to make it last longer), but the worst was when he talks about the food shortages. A tiny piece of uncooked meat was a luxury, rice was the main source of food, and even that was strictly rationed. This was from people who had always been poor, though back in Bohemia, they wouldn't have considered themselves that way. They had their own homes, could provide for their families, and if they didn't have much money, they could make what they needed and made a life that was at least rich in happiness. I was already choked-up reading about what little food they could get their hands on, and quickly progressed to full-on crying when Daniel expresses his hopes that the troubles will soon be over, that they may even be able to go home someday. From the dates and return addresses on later letters, it looks like they moved from Saxony to Bavaria, but I don't think they ever managed to return home.
I don't know what my family's politics were. I don't know if they were among the Sudeten Germans who supported Hitler or not, and though I can't believe I'm saying this, I don't think I care. Considering in the 1930s when he was annexing the Sudetenland, the Nazi movement was more about improving the economy and rising from the ashes of the post-WWI devastation than anti-Semitism, I could certainly understand why it might have appealed to them. While I won't deny that the Czechs had the right to be angry that part of their country was taken from them, it doesn't justify the expulsions after the war. An entire region of people was forcibly removed from their homeland, Czechoslovakian citizens as much as the people expelling them, for no other reason than that their territory had been annexed by Hitler and the Czechs outside the Sudetenland wanted revenge. These weren't firebrands or even anti-Czech, just humble people who wanted to live out their lives in peace, and instead bore the brunt of Czechoslovakia's hatred of Hitler and anything at all linked to Nazism. No matter how hard I try to imagine how I'd feel if it happened to me, I still don't think I can comprehend the extent of the devastation my family must have felt. My Sudeten fairy-godmother was among those expelled, a teenager at the time, and when she talks about what she and her family went through, it rips my heart out, but hearing the same kind of stories from my own family hits even harder. Their sheer determination to survive and even thrive is overwhelming, and I wonder if things like that are passed through DNA, because that kind of courage and strength seems bred into the bones of my family.
While I have every intention of sharing with Oma the later letters and the places the family went after leaving Bohemia, I don't know whether or not to pass along the contents of the earlier letters. Part of me feels she has the right to know, but the other part thinks it might be too much for her and not worth upsetting her over what happened almost seventy years ago. It's difficult enough for me to hear about all these years later, so how much worse would it be on Oma, who actually knew and loved them? She still remembers Hannelore fondly, even if she found Johanna too stand-offish to be close to, so while I don't want to hurt Oma with the knowledge of what they suffered, I also don't know that I have the right to keep it from her. I'll have to run it by Pop-pop. For myself, I'm glad I have the letters as a way to get to know the people I've been curious about my entire life, but at the same time, like so much of this project, it came with an emotional cost I wasn't entirely expecting.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Hands-On History
I have most of the contents of the bag of letters sorted now, grouped by language as well as content, and I'm nearly done transcribing and translating the first of the letters from Daniel to Emma. While as always, the Sutterlin script is making it a bit of a challenge, not to mention the water damage that's blurred the ink rather badly in spots, it doesn't take away from the awe factor of having a resource like this. Emma passed away a good decade before I was born and as a result, I only know about her from stories, so part of this project was to get a better sense of who she was and what her life was like. When I started hearing more stories about Emma, like how she saved up the money to emigrate or how she coped after her husband left, and later about her siblings from the time they were raising Oma and Rudi, those little pieces of the puzzle weren't enough for me and I wanted to know everything I could. That's why these papers are such a treasure, because they were all things that she made a deliberate decision to keep and that alone tells me a great deal about her. There are several letters to Emma from friends who were also German immigrants, though they wrote to each other in English (probably to improve their fluency), a letter and Mother's Day card from Oma's first husband Jimmie who died in 1950 when his plane crashed, and even one from Oma to Emma while Oma and Jimmie were stationed in Neubiberg, Germany. Oma describes their apartment in detail, but the fascinating part for me was when she talks about what it was like in post-war Germany, as it seems to have been a concern of Emma's. Given that Emma and Oma had a troubled relationship at best, it really touched me that Emma had kept that letter, and the next time I go see Oma, I want to bring it and see if she remembers writing it.
As for the letters from Daniel to Emma, it's a pretty extraordinary thing to have access to, let alone to be able to hold in my hands. I'm certainly no stranger to handling old documents, as the staff in the Rare Books room at Penn State can testify, but while I've always had a sense of awe when dealing with those, these letters are something different entirely. These are pieces of my family's history, answers to some of the questions I've had my whole life, and so the feelings are much deeper handling these than any of the centuries-old manuscripts I've dealt with in the past. The best way I can describe it is visceral, the sense that I'm reaching into the past and touching a piece of my family, and I now feel connected to them in ways I never thought I could. It's made me realise that I'm far more emotionally-invested in this than I expected, but it makes the break-throughs and the hunt itself even more rewarding.
As for the letters from Daniel to Emma, it's a pretty extraordinary thing to have access to, let alone to be able to hold in my hands. I'm certainly no stranger to handling old documents, as the staff in the Rare Books room at Penn State can testify, but while I've always had a sense of awe when dealing with those, these letters are something different entirely. These are pieces of my family's history, answers to some of the questions I've had my whole life, and so the feelings are much deeper handling these than any of the centuries-old manuscripts I've dealt with in the past. The best way I can describe it is visceral, the sense that I'm reaching into the past and touching a piece of my family, and I now feel connected to them in ways I never thought I could. It's made me realise that I'm far more emotionally-invested in this than I expected, but it makes the break-throughs and the hunt itself even more rewarding.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Hitting The (Grand)Mother-Lode
Yesterday, the hubby and I went to see Oma and Pop-pop, and while the men were folding laundry (I know, but it DOES happen sometimes), I was talking to Oma and told her about the possibility of us getting stationed in Germany, which she's all kinds of excited about. That got her telling me all the places we should see while we're there, and then onto the genealogy project because I mentioned getting to see the archives in person and finding more information. That's about the time Oma remembered that she had papers and such of her mother's, and sent Pop-pop to find them. What he came back with blew the whole case wide open.
A plastic bag full of water-damaged paper might not look like much, but to me, it was the genealogy mother-lode. Underneath a few old receipts for house maintenance and letters from a lawyer was a stack of letters, specifically to Emma from her brother Daniel, who was still in Bohemia when WWII ended and the expulsion began. My jaw immediately dropped as I thought it might be the clue I needed to where my family had ended up, and I couldn't wait to get them home and translated from German to English. Oma seemed really happy she'd been able to help so much, as it makes her feel useful, and Pop-pop was all excited about the letters, too, being the history nut he is. It turned out the letters weren't merely clues. They were far more than that.
Finding the letters themselves was a huge break-through on its own, but then I started finding them in the original envelopes. After sorting through all the ones from Emma's fellow German friends who had also emigrated, I started finding letters from Daniel, also in the original envelopes and complete with a return address. Not only did that tell me they were in Russian-occupied Saxony (just over the Bohemian-German border from their home), but it even gave me the exact address in the town of Aue. Some of the letters aren't dated and I'm only just starting to scan, transcribe, and translate them, but it means I have a really good place to start the search for my expelled family. I'm hoping the letters will reveal what happened to Emma's other siblings, as the tendency was for families to leave together, and that means my chances of finding Oma's relatives have just skyrocketed from slim-to-none, to pretty damned good. When I realised that, I broke down and cried happy tears, since I was terrified I wouldn't ever be able to find them, let alone while Oma was still alive. I now feel like for all she's done for me throughout my life, I can give her something special in return, and that's the family she had lost. This is exactly why I started the project in the first place, and now, it's a reality, which is a pretty awesome feeling.
A plastic bag full of water-damaged paper might not look like much, but to me, it was the genealogy mother-lode. Underneath a few old receipts for house maintenance and letters from a lawyer was a stack of letters, specifically to Emma from her brother Daniel, who was still in Bohemia when WWII ended and the expulsion began. My jaw immediately dropped as I thought it might be the clue I needed to where my family had ended up, and I couldn't wait to get them home and translated from German to English. Oma seemed really happy she'd been able to help so much, as it makes her feel useful, and Pop-pop was all excited about the letters, too, being the history nut he is. It turned out the letters weren't merely clues. They were far more than that.
Finding the letters themselves was a huge break-through on its own, but then I started finding them in the original envelopes. After sorting through all the ones from Emma's fellow German friends who had also emigrated, I started finding letters from Daniel, also in the original envelopes and complete with a return address. Not only did that tell me they were in Russian-occupied Saxony (just over the Bohemian-German border from their home), but it even gave me the exact address in the town of Aue. Some of the letters aren't dated and I'm only just starting to scan, transcribe, and translate them, but it means I have a really good place to start the search for my expelled family. I'm hoping the letters will reveal what happened to Emma's other siblings, as the tendency was for families to leave together, and that means my chances of finding Oma's relatives have just skyrocketed from slim-to-none, to pretty damned good. When I realised that, I broke down and cried happy tears, since I was terrified I wouldn't ever be able to find them, let alone while Oma was still alive. I now feel like for all she's done for me throughout my life, I can give her something special in return, and that's the family she had lost. This is exactly why I started the project in the first place, and now, it's a reality, which is a pretty awesome feeling.
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