Germany: Roots & Remembrance

Thanks to those of you who read yesterday’s post. Today, I’ve moved the blog to WordPress, which should be easier to follow for those who are interested to receive email updates.

I’m standing in front of the town hall, in German the Rathaus (for some reason spelled with a double ”h” on the building). Almost every town has one and this Rathaus is particularly beautiful.

We drove ten minutes to Gmünd, ate a lovely lunch and walked into the Czech Republic, now part of the EU. The old passport checkpoint is just a drive through. The Iron Curtain barriers are gone.

We ate in the lovely courtyard of the Golden Star restaurant.

From there, we drove to a textile factory museum. To my amazement, a display on shipping showed the exact ship, the Martha Washington, on which my mother (may she be remembered as the extraordinary person she was) sailed to Haifa from Germany via the port of Trieste. While I had seen a photo of the ship, I never had seen the interior.

To read prior essays, click HERE.