My two sisters, a brother-in-law and I are in Germany for the next two weeks. The reason for our trip is to find our roots. My ancestors (a whole village of them moved from Germany to Crimea, Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Great of Russia (a German who married a Russian). They began farming in that area. Just before the (1910) 1st World War my grandparents moved to Canada and shortly after those family members still left in the village were forced to move to Siberia, near Omsk where they had their own village and farmed until after the fall of communism they returned to Germany. (1991).
Since we have been here we have found that several of the men in the village where killed and we had not heard this. In fact our cousin who came to interpret for us told us that her father, the village pastor was taken and killed and his wife would take meals to him each week 120 kilometeres and was never allowed to see him because they told her he was alway or working. Later she found that they were eating the food and that they had already killed him.
Anway, we are very thankful that there are still so many left and that they have returned to a Germany which is progressive and they can live quiet peaceful lives once again.
Maybe I'll get to share more later. Have to go and eat supper now.
HEY DARLENE
WOW this is neat to find out about our ancestors.
my great grandfather was from GERMANY he was all german
my great grandmother was from ENGLAND but was part English
and part Irish. MY great grandfather came to the U.S in the
late 1870's. MY great grandmother came to the U.S. in the
early 1880's.
dgrimm60
Greetings once again from German. Not sure where I'm at at the moment but, hope you all have a great Sabbath. I know that this place will be very busy today. We head home on Tuesday. Talk to you more later.
HEY DARLENE
WELL good to here from you again
hope you are enjoying your selfs
dgrimm60
Thanks. We have been having a very, very good time and eating and eating. Everyone gives you their best food and to refuse it would be an offense. We've probably gained a few pounds.
We head home on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to home but, will miss all our newly found relatives. Also will miss Germany, it is a very beautiful country! Clean and neat and well organized.
I arrived home late last night after a long flight over Iceland, part of Greenland and northern Canada, landing at the Vancouver Airport where my car was in longterm parking. It was a great flight but, it is so exhausting to sit in those little seats for 9 hours. Oh, well.....if it wasn't for those seats one wouldn't get to visit another country, would they?!
When I got to my car I found that it had a flat tire. Fortunately I have membership in BCAA so had to wait for 1/2 an hour for it to be fixed and then got home at 9:30 p.m. I didn't have to go to work today so, I'm being lazy and getting caught up on sleep. These 10 hour differences sure make one feel horrible for a while but, tomorrow I'll be raring to go.
Just a short comment about my trip as I'm sure not everyone is interested in another's family. Our trip showed us that my family was very fortunate to come to Canada when they did. To begin with, many, many years ago my family all lived in Germany, then at the invitation of Catherine the Great of Russia they left Germany for Crimea, Russia. They did very, very well there. In 1910 both my grandparents (both my father's and mother's parents) came to Canada. Shortly after this World War I took place and the Russians sent my other relatives to Siberia near Omysk where they lived in their own village and farmed the land. In their village was posted a Russian who would report on them to the government. As a result, there were times when several were killed by the Russians. Life for them was extremely difficult, however, they survived and after the fall of communism in Russia the German Government paid for them to come back to Germany. They moved back from 1994-2000. About 100,000 Russian speaking Germans moved back to Germany (more than just my family) Today they are doing very well in Germany, however, many Russian speaking Germans aren't really made to feel welcome in Germany. At least that is what we were told.
We found that Germany is a very, very beautiful country! It is very neat and tidy with little villages scattered throughout the countryside. They also have some large cities but, everything was very green at this time of year.
One of the places we visited was Hanover. The day we were there a old bomb from one of the wars was found and they were moving it out of the city to dentonate. Since all the roads were closed the police had to give us directions on how to get out of the city and back onto one of the autobons. They say that in Germany there are many of these old bombs but, since they are old they have to be extremely careful with moving them as they will easily explode. Now that incident is not one that I will easily forget.
We visited many of our newfound relatives in many places in northwestern Germany. It is a trip we will not soon forget!
HEY DARLENE
1ST LET ME SAY WELCOME BACK .
AND 2ND it sounds like you had a very nice and interesting
trip. that you also found out alot about your family roots.
that is great
dgrimm60
Oh, my....it sure is hard to get over 10 hours of jet lag. It's only 7:30 p.m. and I'm exhausted. Will get to bed so I can continue to recover. It was a great trip to Europe, a real blessing!