Lavrentyi, while this activity existed, admission to it had wide ranging consequences for their families, and even after the war it was hushed up because you never knew who you had to deal with. What happened was this: People who lived in the Sudetenland and were granted those rarely issued passes to the Protectorate (which was a bonus, because from there we were able to get food not available within the German Reich borders) have helped as much as they could. In fact, our "fully stuffed" suitcases with shoes and clothing and items of necessities, were emptied into old decrepit looking shopping bags of the fabric kind which all people used then. By word of mouth we would let the recipient know that we would be walking along a busy stretch on a street at Prague (always different areas) and when looking into a shop window, we would set the bag down while the recipient, in tandem, would pick it up. At that time a quick message could be exchanged. We then would walk back in the other direction minus the bag that had been picked up. Messages were never written down, they were passed on by word of mouth. Everything was highly secret and people were extremely fearful and cowered during these years. So I guess that these underground activities remained underground and were lost as the older people died. At the beginning, when the German occupation started on 1. October 1938, in the Sudetenland, we had friends of my parents staying at our house waiting for the next leg of their journey out of the country. Then, the Gestapo got wind of it and we had unannounced searches almost every week. But all this did not spare us in any way later on, after the war. My mother and I were thrown out of our home in our bedclothes in the middle of the night because we were "Germans" and my father was never able to achieve the return of his factory, although 4 lawyers worked on it in 1945-6-7. When the Czechs voted for a Communist regime in 1948, we were deported as German Capitalists to farm work in the Czech interior. However, our family was (with the help of Czech friends) able to get out with one of the last transports to Germany. All I can say is that any anti-fascist "activity" was never organized and can only be found among the remaining survivors of the expulsion, like myself. But we survivors do not have the entire story either, because we were children then and the knowledge of this time has died with our parents, It was our parents, more so than we did, who suffered the impact on their lives. Aida On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 7:35 AM, Laurence Krupnak <LKrupnak@verizon.net>wrote: > / > > I have always wanted to find writings about Volksdeutsche who joined > resistance groups, but never got around to do it. Anybody have some > citations? > > I do a lot of > Einwandererzentralstelle (EWZ) research at the US National Archives. In > some letters to the EWZ, I always hope to find information that some or > somebody had relatives who dearly loved their new land, that they were > in the military of their new nation to defend that nation against all > invaders and that living in Germany would be foreign to them. > > EWZ program: > > http://feefhs.org/journal/9/obee.pdf > > http://volga.niedermonjou.org:8000/EWZ.html > > > http://www.bundesarchiv.de/benutzung/sachbezug/personenbezogen_genealogie/00248/index.html.en > > http://www.volgagerman.net/Villages/Huck/BDC.pdf > > ______ > > Lavrentiy > > German-Bohemian Heritage Society web site http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

For the purpose of possible genealogical paths to find, I should probably record the following here also, since I am 83 years of age now and my time on this earth might expire as well. The path from Bohemia went either to Switzerland or the South of France. I forgot to mention that the packages we left at Prague contained often large amounts of script money, the kind the German occupation used in France. I know for a fact that my father spent some time at Biarritz where (mostly individual) transports were arranged to Portugal. There, some of the Bohemian Czech and Jewish escapees assembled and shipped out to Brazil. You may want to trace shipping lists from Portugal to Brazil. Maybe someone is writing a book , or a thesis, and uses the rich source of information on our List for family type "eye witness reports" in addition to historical literature. Aida On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 9:09 AM, Aida Kraus <draytonharbor@gmail.com> wrote: > Lavrentyi, while this activity existed, admission to it had wide ranging > consequences for their families, and even after the war it was hushed up > because you never knew who you had to deal with. What happened was this: > People who lived in the Sudetenland and were granted those rarely issued > passes to the Protectorate (which was a bonus, because from there we were > able to get food not available within the German Reich borders) have helped > as much as they could. In fact, our "fully stuffed" suitcases with shoes > and clothing and items of necessities, were emptied into old decrepit > looking shopping bags of the fabric kind which all people used then. By > word of mouth we would let the recipient know that we would be walking > along a busy stretch on a street at Prague (always different areas) and > when looking into a shop window, we would set the bag down while the > recipient, in tandem, would pick it up. At that time a quick message could > be exchanged. We then would walk back in the other direction minus the bag > that had been picked up. Messages were never written down, they were > passed on by word of mouth. Everything was highly secret and people were > extremely fearful and cowered during these years. So I guess that these > underground activities remained underground and were lost as the older > people died. At the beginning, when the German occupation started on 1. > October 1938, in the Sudetenland, we had friends of my parents staying at > our house waiting for the next leg of their journey out of the country. > Then, the Gestapo got wind of it and we had unannounced searches almost > every week. But all this did not spare us in any way later on, after the > war. My mother and I were thrown out of our home in our bedclothes in the > middle of the night because we were "Germans" and my father was never able > to achieve the return of his factory, although 4 lawyers worked on it in > 1945-6-7. When the Czechs voted for a Communist regime in 1948, we were > deported as German Capitalists to farm work in the Czech interior. However, > our family was (with the help of Czech friends) able to get out with one of > the last transports to Germany. All I can say is that any anti-fascist > "activity" was never organized and can only be found among the remaining > survivors of the expulsion, like myself. But we survivors do not have the > entire story either, because we were children then and the knowledge of > this time has died with our parents, It was our parents, more so than we > did, who suffered the impact on their lives. > Aida > > > On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 7:35 AM, Laurence Krupnak <LKrupnak@verizon.net>wrote: > >> / >> >> I have always wanted to find writings about Volksdeutsche who joined >> resistance groups, but never got around to do it. Anybody have some >> citations? >> >> I do a lot of >> Einwandererzentralstelle (EWZ) research at the US National Archives. In >> some letters to the EWZ, I always hope to find information that some or >> somebody had relatives who dearly loved their new land, that they were >> in the military of their new nation to defend that nation against all >> invaders and that living in Germany would be foreign to them. >> >> EWZ program: >> >> http://feefhs.org/journal/9/obee.pdf >> >> http://volga.niedermonjou.org:8000/EWZ.html >> >> >> http://www.bundesarchiv.de/benutzung/sachbezug/personenbezogen_genealogie/00248/index.html.en >> >> http://www.volgagerman.net/Villages/Huck/BDC.pdf >> >> ______ >> >> Lavrentiy >> >> German-Bohemian Heritage Society web site http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >> the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > >

Aida, We who grew up in the U.S., always being free citizens, cannot begin to comprehend what you and others like you have endured. My hat goes off to the survivors and my gratitude to you and others for informing the rest of us of what life was like in that part of the world. Sam in CA -----Original Message----- From: german-bohemian-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:german-bohemian-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Aida Kraus Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2012 9:10 AM To: Laurence Krupnak; german-bohemian@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Expulsion discussions Lavrentyi, while this activity existed, admission to it had wide ranging consequences for their families, and even after the war it was hushed up because you never knew who you had to deal with. What happened was this: People who lived in the Sudetenland and were granted those rarely issued passes to the Protectorate (which was a bonus, because from there we were able to get food not available within the German Reich borders) have helped as much as they could. In fact, our "fully stuffed" suitcases with shoes and clothing and items of necessities, were emptied into old decrepit looking shopping bags of the fabric kind which all people used then. By word of mouth we would let the recipient know that we would be walking along a busy stretch on a street at Prague (always different areas) and when looking into a shop window, we would set the bag down while the recipient, in tandem, would pick it up. At that time a quick message could be exchanged. We then would walk back in the other direction minus the bag that had been picked up. Messages were never written down, they were passed on by word of mouth. Everything was highly secret and people were extremely fearful and cowered during these years. So I guess that these underground activities remained underground and were lost as the older people died. At the beginning, when the German occupation started on 1. October 1938, in the Sudetenland, we had friends of my parents staying at our house waiting for the next leg of their journey out of the country. Then, the Gestapo got wind of it and we had unannounced searches almost every week. But all this did not spare us in any way later on, after the war. My mother and I were thrown out of our home in our bedclothes in the middle of the night because we were "Germans" and my father was never able to achieve the return of his factory, although 4 lawyers worked on it in 1945-6-7. When the Czechs voted for a Communist regime in 1948, we were deported as German Capitalists to farm work in the Czech interior. However, our family was (with the help of Czech friends) able to get out with one of the last transports to Germany. All I can say is that any anti-fascist "activity" was never organized and can only be found among the remaining survivors of the expulsion, like myself. But we survivors do not have the entire story either, because we were children then and the knowledge of this time has died with our parents, It was our parents, more so than we did, who suffered the impact on their lives. Aida On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 7:35 AM, Laurence Krupnak <LKrupnak@verizon.net>wrote: > / > > I have always wanted to find writings about Volksdeutsche who > joined resistance groups, but never got around to do it. Anybody have > some citations? > > I do a lot of > Einwandererzentralstelle (EWZ) research at the US National Archives. > In some letters to the EWZ, I always hope to find information that > some or somebody had relatives who dearly loved their new land, that > they were in the military of their new nation to defend that nation > against all invaders and that living in Germany would be foreign to them. > > EWZ program: > > http://feefhs.org/journal/9/obee.pdf > > http://volga.niedermonjou.org:8000/EWZ.html > > > http://www.bundesarchiv.de/benutzung/sachbezug/personenbezogen_genealo > gie/00248/index.html.en > > http://www.volgagerman.net/Villages/Huck/BDC.pdf > > ______ > > Lavrentiy > > German-Bohemian Heritage Society web site > http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > German-Bohemian Heritage Society web site http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message