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May. 24th, 2023 04:16 pm
Germany, Thursday, Continued
You may have noticed that my father’s stolpenstein says “Schicksal Unbekannt” or “Fate Unknown.” His parents had called him Edgar, but for some reason they changed their minds later and decided to call him Heinz-Jürgen. Whoever had researched the family had not realized that the name had changed, and so had not been able to find out anything about him.
My brother had taken pictures of the stolpensteine, and when I saw them I wondered if we should tell someone that my father’s “schicksal” was not “unbekannt” after all, that he had gone to the US and married and had two children. On the one hand, like a lot of people who had lived in a police state, my father hated to call attention to himself. On the other, I felt uneasy leaving his story untold. The purpose of the stones, after all, was to make sure that the names of those who had gone to the concentration camps were not forgotten.
We finally decided to write the Villa Merlander. They agreed that he should be given a new stone, but the process seemed to go on forever. First they had to find someone who could read the part of the birth certificate that documented the name change, because it was in the old German script that no one studied any more. Then, with all this new information, my brother and I had to decide what to include on the new stone. And each stone, I was told, took about a year to make.
There would be a ceremony where they replaced the stone, and we would be invited. Then the pandemic started and everything shut down. It seemed like nothing would ever happen, and finally I decided that I wouldn’t wait but just go to Germany. Unfortunately — well, fortunately, but unfortunately for me in this case — now that things have opened up the ceremony might take place next year, and I’ll be going back sooner than I planned to.
My brother had taken pictures of the stolpensteine, and when I saw them I wondered if we should tell someone that my father’s “schicksal” was not “unbekannt” after all, that he had gone to the US and married and had two children. On the one hand, like a lot of people who had lived in a police state, my father hated to call attention to himself. On the other, I felt uneasy leaving his story untold. The purpose of the stones, after all, was to make sure that the names of those who had gone to the concentration camps were not forgotten.
We finally decided to write the Villa Merlander. They agreed that he should be given a new stone, but the process seemed to go on forever. First they had to find someone who could read the part of the birth certificate that documented the name change, because it was in the old German script that no one studied any more. Then, with all this new information, my brother and I had to decide what to include on the new stone. And each stone, I was told, took about a year to make.
There would be a ceremony where they replaced the stone, and we would be invited. Then the pandemic started and everything shut down. It seemed like nothing would ever happen, and finally I decided that I wouldn’t wait but just go to Germany. Unfortunately — well, fortunately, but unfortunately for me in this case — now that things have opened up the ceremony might take place next year, and I’ll be going back sooner than I planned to.
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