Where are you taking us?

We've driven past it a hundred times on our way to pick up our daily bread. In the shadow of the baroque Basilica in Weissenau, it pokes out onto the sidewalk next to tree-lined grounds of the Heilanstalt--literally "healing place"--or sanatorium. 

But the grey bus didn't mean anything to us until we read the plaque nearby:

"The so-called “Euthanasia-Action” (Aktion T 4) of the National Socialists claimed about 200,000 mentally ill victims during World War II. They were considered 'not worthy of living.' At least 90,000 patients died of hunger or inadequate nourishment, or were murdered with drugs in state-run sanatoriums. More than 70,000 men, women, and children were murdered in gas chambers during the secret operation 'T4' in 1940/41. The mass murder was centrally organized at Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin - thus the abbreviation 'T4.' Grafeneck, Brandenburg, Bernburg, Hartheim (near Linz), Sonnenstein, and Hadamar were the towns where the murders took place. Some of the staff of these killing institutions later worked in extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec. There is hardly a region in Germany that was not affected by this organized mass murder. Mentally and physically handicapped people were the first victims of a systematic, well-organized annihilation plan directed against the ill and those regarded as “racially inferior” by the Nazi regime. The 'Monument of the Grey Busses' serves as a reminder of the transports of the patients to their deaths. Artists Horst Hoheisel and Andreas Knitz designed the monument for the Weißenau Psychiatric Centre near Ravensburg in 2006. A bus based on the same model as the one that drove from the hospitals to the death centres in the years 1940 and 1941, in its original size and concrete form, commemorates the mass murder. 'Where are you taking us?' – The question of one of the patients -- is inscribed on the monument." 

Years before, after taking in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., we had entered the family surname in the database. One name popped: Lorenz Hellstern--in Weißenau. 

Lorenz was born August 26, 1878, in the village of Betra, the tenth and last child of Ambrose and Maria (née Maier) Hellstern. He was baptized at 3 days of age in the Catholic church there. Both his parents died before they turned 50; he had seven living siblings, so presumably the family cared for him. The next record found for him is in 1939, in the German Minority Census: he is a patient in the Heilanstalt Weissenau. The last mention of Lorenz is found is March 2, 1940 in a list of NS euthanasia victims in Grafenek. He was 62.

Language barrier

My mother was the family historian, and when she passed on, I inherited dozens of sepia-toned photographs. And then there were the "contemporary" albums of her family's new house with her 1955 BelAir in the carport, and dusty kids in keds camping in the Redwood forests of California. And the envelopes of odd-sized school pictures, because even back then you had to buy 24 wallet photos in order to get two 5x7s--one for each set of grandparents. 

But of all the boxes of sepia corseted women, mustached gentlemen, and posed children, my favorite is a blurry film snapshot taken by a cousin at our wedding reception. My father, who spoke no German, is deep in discussion (about ankles? Argyle socks?) with my husband's Aunt Elfriede, who spoke no English. He was a Navy guy who grew up riding cable cars in San Francisco; she was a farmer's wife in a village in Swabia. And yet they are clearly connecting. When I asked each of them what they had found to talk about, they deflected. Dad said something about not needing language to understand each other. 

They are both on the other side of the rainbow bridge, and perhaps now, free of any language barrier, she and my father can continue the conversation. 

Thank you card

The story begins in a cheesy faux lodge-pole hotel room in Iowa's Quad Cities. We had just arrived and had flopped on the bed to plan our next few days. We knew we wanted to go to the local cemetery and "meet" some folks with DH's surname. Once connected to our complimentary wifi, I got a notification that someone had left me a message on Ancestry. Indeed, it was a user name that I recognized from my digging into the local dead folks, and she was offering information! DH immediately parsed the user name and did a bit of sleuthing on the book of face, and we surmised they were in the same town where we had just landed. 

I took a chance, and reached out--yes, indeed, they were local. And yes, they knew the graves we were seeking, since they are family. We met at the cemetery the next day, and they led us to the family plot as well as sharing stories about their visit to the family village--the same one DH's father was born in. We chuckled at the physical resemblances of our related husbands, and our grey-haired genealogical geekiness. We ended up spending most of the day together, eating lunch, telling stories, having ice cream, telling stories, etc. We have kept in touch, sharing information, parsing old German handwriting, and sharing our trees. 

So it was only natural that when we ventured to the Midwest last fall, we should visit. They opened up their (new!) home to us, shared their grandkids (yes, we tested first!) and even helped right a fallen stone from my side of the family. Because of course we were visiting a cemetery together.

I have a myriad of excuses for not sending a timely thank you card for their hospitality, so when we headed to Betra this December, I decided I must find a postcard of the town and send it. But none such card was to be found in the village. However, in the unsorted box of photos and ephemera from Tante's house (more on that treasure trove later) was a bunch of stationery, including a postcard of our little village from many years ago. 

It's headed to Iowa now as a thank you.

 

Cold leads

I am as cold as I have ever been before, but even our sons agree, this was an afternoon well spent. 

We set out early to head to the town in Southern Germany where my research indicates all Hellsterns originate. There was a dusting of snow, so we all layered up with longies and everything we had that might protect us from the cold. 

We arranged to meet up with a motley crew of history and genealogy buffs, and the oldest Hellstern in the village, who lives with her son on the edge of the village. 

It is snowing hard on the Autobahn, to the point that we can’t always drive on bare pavement. But Germans are efficient, and plows and salting trucks are out in force, even on a Sunday. There's even a little plow on the sidewalk.

Today's car game is to look for businesses with their surname, and we don’t have to wait long: it’s on the side of a snowplow that makes it possible for us to get into the village. We park in the town square, and meet up with our history buff, and together we walk the kids up to the old, now empty home where their Opa and Tante lived. We know it will soon be sold by the last son (who has no children), so we take lots of pictures and talk about when they got to drive the tractor and climb the cherry tree and stuff their faces with their Tante's warm Hefezopf. 

Cousin Ursula arrives with her husband in tow, and produces a 1970s orange vintage thermos casserole with lovely ham and cheese pastries still warm from her oven. Reinvigorated by the warm snack, we head to the latest cousin we have connected with, who lives with his elderly mother. We hope she can help identify some old pictures.

We arrive, and after explaining that we cannot come in (we are vaccinated, boosted and tested, but we are also traveling), they invite us to the back yard terrace, which overlooks the (currently snowy) rolling fields. Soon, someone brings out a table so we can look at notes and sketch a tree to figure out how we are related. The elder takes a while to figure it out (too many people with the same name!) but we eventually realize we are all related, except for our resident historian, though we decide he is probably a distant cousin—we just need to do more research.

Cousin Ursula ducks back to her car, and emerges with the orange casserole, and a huge cake (Käsecreme with meringue). At which point our new cousin's wife organizes chairs, and scurries around and produces plates, cups, and thermoses of steaming coffee and tea.

Yet another cousin joins us, and helps reduce the amount of cake, the new cousin’s son sticks his head out, and the conversation restarts as we tell him how he is related to everyone. Many jokes about the American "uncle" and tons of pictures.

We were thinking we might visit a nearby castle, but it is clear that is for another (warmer) day. The ham and cheese pockets are gone, there is one fat slice of cake left, and most of us cannot feel our toes. It is time to take one last group photo and say our goodbyes. 

It will take a few hours to warm up completely, and even more hours to research my copious notes, but we have laid a foundation for further collaboration—emails are already flying and scans of sepia images are filling our inboxes.