Bless you, Sam! Aida On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Sam Koester <sammyk@surewest.net> wrote: > 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 > > > 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 >