Ever since I began this blog, back in 2013, one of the many mysteries plaguing me has been the real story behind Hans Grohmann. As a victim of history, during his short life, he seems to have played a pivotal role in one, if not two lives that I know of. Yet, even, with new information that’s recently turned up, he still remains an enigma. That’s because of the mystery that continues to surround his untimely death, and how that … Read More
THE GARDEN A little garden Fragrant and full of roses The path is narrow And a little boy walks along it. A little boy, a sweet boy Like that growing blossom When the blossom come to bloom, The little boy will be no more. — Franta Bass, 9/04/1930 – 10/28/1944 It wasn’t until months after our visit to Theresienstadt that I even became aware of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, the person, and Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, the heroine to the imprisoned children she helped there. A … Read More
….or Pete & Linda’s Excellent Adventure! Reporting about a recent week in my life is not a subject I normally blog about. But it was a special week crammed with memorable events and marvelous people. Within the span of nine days I experienced enough truly positive adventures that I now feel compelled to share them with you. It all started with an obscure note on my Linkedin page, a page I rarely look at. It was from an unknown source, asking if I’d be interested in … Read More
Dr. Adolf Natzler and his wife, Hedwig, were names from my childhood. As dear friends of my parents, they would visit us at least once a week, unless we were visiting them. He was a highly regarded orthopedic surgeon from Germany, who came to America with his family about the same time as my parents. But Adolph Natzler died in 1939, when I was only five, and by 1945 my parents had lost track of his wife and daughter Then just a few years ago, I happened to … Read More
Normally I wouldn’t try to write about a relative unless I knew a fair amount about his or her life story, but I was so fascinated by my discovery of Margot Rehfisch and what I learned about the latter part of her life that I had to share it with you, regardless. Googling Rehfisch My mother’s maiden name was Rehfisch, but all during my years researching my family’s history, Margot’s name never came up, until quite recently. It surfaced as … Read More
Berlin to Shanghai When the full story of my cousin Eva Baruch’s life was finally revealed to me, it played like the old movie serials, where the heroine always got caught in a life-threatening situation at the end of the current chapter, only to escape at the beginning of the next one. That’s how Eva lived much of her life. But let’s go back to the beginning. It was in 1999 when I first became curious about my family’s history. … Read More
