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.