Saturday, August 28, 2010

From the archives: 1912

     Here is a photo, taken in about 1912, of my mother’s family on her dad’s side: the Schultzes of Bärwalde, Pommern (in what was then the far eastern part of Germany—Prussian territory; see old map).
     Karl and Emilie, who are seated, had twelve children (!), but only six are shown here. My mother’s father is the boy at the right.
     Martha, the woman at the left, and Else, who is wearing the same outfit over at the right, both worked at the time for the Berlin Opera. Perhaps they were home for a visit.


     Aunt Martha (b. 1891) took in my mother, Edith, when Edith’s own mother died in the mid-30s. Edith’s father, shown below, died in a logging accident in 1939. That occurred in Stettin, a big city to the northwest.


     Else hanged herself in 1950. My mother, age sixteen, discovered the body. (She left Germany a year later.)
     I'm intrigued by the little dog.
     My mother knows absolutely nothing about him. She doesn't even know the names of two of the girls in the above family picture.
     Efforts to get this kind of information have thus far failed.
     When the Russians advanced, they destroyed a great deal (they raped all of the women, including young girls).
     I have not yet found any records from the town of Bärwalde, which is now in Poland.

Mom and Aunt Martha at father's grave, c. 1941

9 comments:

Roy Bauer said...

UPDATE: I (Roy) and my folks travelled to Poland, and to Bärwalde, in 2011, an event chronicled in detail at the Bauer Family Blog (see)--and also on the pages of DtB, back in about May of 2011

Anonymous said...

hey Roy I live in barwalde!! do you have more old picture of barwalde??

Anonymous said...

hey roy i live in barwalde do u have more old pictures?

Anonymous said...

hey Roy do u have more old picture of barwalde because I live there .It's fantastic blog .please respond thank you

Roy Bauer said...

I might. I'll look. Who are you, may I ask?

Anonymous said...

Nice to meet u man I'am Patrick do you have a facebook??

Anonymous said...

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Urz%C4%85d-Miejski-w-Barwicach/417232935019134?ref=ts&fref=ts official barwalde facebook or website

www.barwice.pl

Anonymous said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6lPwvITJdc

Roy Bauer said...

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/roy.j.bauer

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...