Category: Essays
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Essay #35 – Back in the USA 🇺🇸 – May 27, 2023
On Passover, we read that our forebears were wandering Arameans (Deuteronomy 26). Though interpretations vary, at its most basic level, it means that our people (starting with Abraham) wandered from Aram (northern Israel/Syria). (Click on any word in blue for link to article or other source) My family is part of a people centered on…
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Essay #34 – Stolperstein/Stumbling Stone in Nürnberg – May 26, 2023
Karoline Lehmann born Freund was blinded by glaucoma in mid-life. America didn’t accept blind immigrants for fear that they would be a financial burden. The Nazis deported her to Theresienstadt, where she died of starvation and sickness. She had no grave and no funeral. Her family had no place to mourn my Great-Aunt Karoline, until…
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Essay #33 – Not Forgotten in Munich – May 25, 2023
Jews murdered by the Nazis were denied the dignity of a funeral and a place for mourning and remembrance. Yesterday, the city of Munich made amends, erecting stainless steel monuments, promising to read the names aloud every year, and giving the family time and a place to mourn and say goodbye. The head of the…
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Essay #32 – Memorial Plaques for 7 in Munich – May 24, 2023
In the company of supportive friends, my sister Sandy, my cousin Carol, newly discovered kin, and marvelous people from the Munich municipal government, today we placed seven memorial plaques in five locations around Munich. My brain is fried, my emotions strung out, and I need time to process the day. I will write more tomorrow.…
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Essay #31 – Engineering in München- May 23, 2023
Engineering is the action of working artfully to bring something about. For the last year, I have worked on memorials for relatives murdered in the Shoah. Today, disparate Freund family members gathered in München. We all grew up thinking we were the only Freunds in a small family. False! I met these Freunds for the…
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Essay #30 – Making Connections in München – May 22, 2023
The Transit Museum in München is a special place for us. Last July, we spotted an intercity tram identical to the one my father rode daily from Nürnberg to a Jewish school in nearby Fürth, after the German government expelled Jews from public school. Museum staffer Christian told us that where we were standing was…
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Essay #29 – Justice in Nürnberg – May 21, 2023
The first trial of leading Nazis was held in Nürnberg in 1945-46. Nürnberg was chosen for practical reasons. It had a jail next to the large Palace of Justice courthouse. Both facilities had escaped serious damage from Allied bombs. It was incidental, but fitting, that history’s first criminal trials of leaders of a defeated nation…
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Essay #28 – Emperors for a Day in Nürnberg – May 20, 2023
Nürnberg’s castle was a fortified site over a thousand years ago. Romans lived in town long before. Today, my sister Sandy arrived and we were imperial guests of the castle together with Jeffrey. With Sandy came American sunshine and warmth! The eagle—single- and double-headed, depending on the era—has been a symbol of the Holy Roman…
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Essay #27 – The World according to Nürnberg – May 19, 2023
One of Germany’s National Museums is in Nürnberg. It houses some amazing stuff. After visiting cemeteries of my dead relatives and thinking and talking about the Nazi period, it was nice to think about earlier centuries. Perspective is important. Cultures, countries, people, all come and go. Humans’ written and artistic record dates back millennia. In…
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Essay #26 – Following In Their Hoofsteps – May 18, 2023
The sun shone on Aschaffenburg today. Iris led us from the Schweinheim—“Pig-Home”—neighborhood, into the hills, to the old regional Jewish cemetery. Jews who lived in Aschaffenburg were buried in the city cemetery we visited yesterday. For the regional cemetery, the Jewish community chose this larger site, atop a steep hill well outside the city, so…
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Essay #25 – Left Behind Aschaffenburg – May 17, 2023
Today we are in Aschaffenburg with our dear friend Iris. Iris volunteers with a local organization to digitize the history of Jewish families (complete with family trees, birth certificates and other documents). She even enters phone book information. A former English teacher, Iris is the main contact for English speakers who visit and she is…
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Essay #24 – Smart in Kleinwallstadt & Elsenfeld – May 16, 2023
It was just a half hour drive from last night’s stay in Miltenberg to Kleinwallstadt. Kleinwallstadt (population 6,000: “SmallWalledTown”) is where my Freund family lived from at least 1773, when German families began to have surnames. For centuries, the town had a thriving Jewish population. In the late 1890s, my great-grandfather was president of the…
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Essay #23 – Born in the USA – May 15, 2023
DNA analysis confirmed what I already knew: I am 100% German Jewish. On this date some years ago, my German-born parents happily welcomed me into the world. My wonderful, supportive husband (who would rather we were almost anywhere else in the world) gave me the silver necklace I’m wearing today, filled with a 1920 buffalo…
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Essay #22 – Walking in the Wald – May 14, 2023
Picturesque Miltenberg sits an hour’s drive from Frankfurt along the Main River, where Viking tour boats stop. In Miltenberg, our friend Ulrike Faust greeted us warmly. Our families have known each for about 100 years, as my two grandmothers (sisters) and their siblings grew up here and attended the local school. My great-grandmother, a smart…
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Essay #21 – Frankfurt am Main – May 13, 2023
It’s just an hour’s drive to Frankfurt from my mother’s hometown. The Frankfurt cathedral is our new neighbor. Jeffrey drives carefully on Autobahns without speed limits. It’s a relief to arrive. Friends Anna and David met us for a personal walking tour. Our first stop was the memorial to the nearly 12,000 Jews who were…
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Essay #20 – Archive Dive & Museum Memorabilia – May 12, 2023
In Alsfeld, we were fortunate to meet with good people who work to preserve Jewish history. Among them are Joachim and Claudia, who took two days off work just for us. They have been interested in Jewish history for decades and have been helping me for years. Joachim arranged for us to meet Vice Mayor…
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Essay #19 – Alsfeld – May 11, 2023
We started the day in Alsfeld, my mother’s hometown and home to my Steinberger family for at least 300 years. We were greeted by Sarah Schaefer, a smart and engaging English teacher at the Max-Eyth School. Sarah made this visit possible! Sarah and I have been talking for months on Zoom. The key, we thought,…
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Essay #18 – Fulda, Germany – May 10, 2023
The first step on any trans-Atlantic journey is the trip to the airport (this time via the M57 bus and E-train) and the chaos of checking in. Only when I reach the Delta Sky club do my nerves begin to settle. We landed in Frankfurt around 8am and drove directly to Fulda, where I was…
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Essay #17 – Yom HaShoah – April 17, 2023
Tonight (after sundown) begins Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and we remember the lives of those forced to flee and those murdered in Shoah. Thanks to good luck and some smart grandparents, ich bin hier, I am here. I’ve been interested in family history for decades, grilling my parents on their past and more recently…
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Essay #16 – Awestruck – February 2023
What is awe? From devoting.com: “Awe induces a sense of wonder/amazement so overwhelming that we are a bit afraid”—like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Nature can be humbling, and makes us feel small. History humbles too. I feel a sense of awe from my genealogy work, meeting new relatives, finding new documents,…
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Essay #15 – Memorials for Murdered Family
After returning from Germany in June, 2022, my father suggested that I turn my attention to having memorials placed for those who were murdered by the Nazis. Now in January 2023, I sit at my desk in New York City with a new mission. To determine who in my family perished, I took a detailed…
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Day #14 – My Roots Tour’s End
I’m home and thinking about our trip to Germany. Many smart, kind, generous people made this trip possible and special. Already, I miss the coffee and my new friends. On prior trips to Germany, I couldn’t sleep. I feared that Hitler would jump out of the closet in my hotel room or that I would…
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Day #13: Another Province Heard From
Jeffrey here. With Nancy. In Germany. “Not my country, man!” Nancy’s parents and grandparents thought they were German—until the hate and violence of their German neighbors forced them to flee. My grandparents, who escaped the Russian Empire 30 years earlier, had no such illusion of belonging. Still, Nancy and I are not so different. As…
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Day #12 – Where Alsfeld Babies Come From
Here in my mother’s home town, we were grateful to meet Daniela and Claudia, who spoke to us about Alsfeld history and gave us a wonderful tour. They are passionate about remembering and learning from the past. At dinner we were joined by Aegidus and Joachim. All of us were born after WW2. We had…
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Day #11 – Freund means Friend: Aschaffenburg
[First, some housekeeping: To see my latest post, and to scroll back through prior posts, always go to nancysgermanyroots.com/home .] I have been interested in our family history for decades, asking my parents to share their stories. Getting a feeling for how my relatives lived fascinates me. Understanding the Nazi period is hard. As my…
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Day #10 – Grandma’s Shoe Store in Miltenberg and Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake)
Miltenberg is a beautiful medieval town. Cruise ships dock for the day so tourists can walk in the woods, see the castle and shop along the old cobblestoned streets. Both my parents came here as children to visit their loving grandmother Selma. My skinny mother was sent to Cafe Sel to eat Schlag (cream) off…
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Day #9 – Our Savior from Reichelsheim: Louis Joseph
My Freund family from Nuremberg was saved from certain death by a distant cousin, Louis Joseph. Though everyone in the family knew his name, it took me almost a year to figure out our exact relationship. Louis arrived in New York in 1893 at age 16 from Reichelsheim, with two teenaged cousins, as third class…
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Day #8 – Tears of Sorrow and Triumph
Zeppelin Field was the site of the Nazi’s biggest rallies and where we started our day on Wednesday. It was chilling and brought tears to my eyes as I stood on the same platform where Hitler roused hundreds of thousands of stiff-arm saluting Nazi supporters. The stadium design was based on the ancient Greek Pergamon…
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Day #7 – A Day Off – On Freund Street
We had a very busy day and it is late in Germany. I will post the next two days’ adventures tomorrow. To read prior essays, click HERE.
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Day #6 -My Dad’s Tram 🚃 to School – Nuremberg!
Often I wonder what life was like for my forebears. Today I had a taste. Inspired by our train-loving friend Art Bilenker, we decided to visit Munich’s transit museum (not my usual museum choice) just across from our hotel. There we saw a Nuremberg city tram, built in 1926, the year my father was born.…
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Day #5 – Munich Fog
While we had hoped to visit the famous Alte Pinakothek museum today, it is closed on Mondays. Instead, we visited Haus der Kunst (House of Art) and we were not disappointed. An exhibition by Fujiko Nakaya was called “Fog”. Every 15 minutes, the room slowly fills with fog around a pool of water. Other pieces…
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Day #4 – Welcome to the Bundes Republic of Germany and München/Munich
Some say that we have family and friends in almost every country. It may be true. WWII sent my family around the globe. On day #2, I mentioned that in 1933 my dear mother sailed to Haifa from Germany with her family. She was just 13. There she made many friends (often other German refugees).…
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Day #3 – Feeling at Home in Europe –
In so many ways, Austria and Germany feel like the home in which I grew up. We ate 6 minute eggs in small cups with little spoons just like this. We had little baskets for warm eggs and bread. Our beds were made with duvet covers. When my parents first took me to an American…
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Day #2 Weitra, Austria
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…