Archive for August, 2005

Well, we know how to time our visit – on the same day as the worst flood in Lucerne in 30 years! It seems to have been raining in Switzerland for several days. It was certainly pouring with rain when we arrived in Zurich on Sunday afternnoon. It continued to pour for most of Monday, so there really wasn’t much we could do in Zurich except wander around the shops in the old part of town which were full of lots of beautiful things we couldn’t afford…

We had to wait for the afternoon before we could get a train to Lucerne as there were apparently problems with flooding along the way. However eventually we were off and arrived in Lucerne at about 5.30pm. Our humble hotel is in the middle of the old town which is nice, and after we checked in and dropped off our things we went for a wander along the riverside to find something to eat, finally settling on a English pub called Mr Pickwicks. We noticed during our walk that people were busily dropping off loads of sandbags, lining them along the river and stacking them in front of shop doors. The pub we ate in had a pile ready to go just beside the door. We returned to our hotel wondering just what today would bring.

Early this morning we could see that the river had indeed burst its banks and flooded some of the lower lying places. We were still able to cross over to the other side to visit the train station to see about trains to Geneva tomorrow and to find out if it is worth taking a day trip to Mt Rigi given the conditions. We were advised that there is no problem getting a train, and that we should wait until midday to see what the conditions are like to go to the mountain. As I write this we are still waiting… From there we decided to venture back onto the side of the river on which our hotel is based to check out the Glacier Gardens which were really interesting. Discovered in 1872, it is a now exposed rock surface on which you can clearly see the impact of a glacier. The area includes a museum with some lovely old furniture, and a hall of mirrors which was brough to Lucerne after the 1896 national fair in Geneva, and which did my head in completely… thought I was never going to get out!!

We were probably there for about two hours, and walked back to the train station to discover that the street we could walk along before was now closed to traffic, and that pedestrians were now having to roll up their pants and wade through. I would like to congratulate the makers of my hiking boots; once again they have proved their waterproofness! Mr Pickwicks has now got half a metre of water banked up against its doors (and hopefully not flooding throughout…). Guess we won’t be eating there tonght!

So, as I type, the waters are still rising. However it is quite clear that the authorities here are well organised and prepared to deal with whatever eventuates! However we might be here for another day yet…

Sorry for the lack of updates. It is really hard to find time to sit in an internet cafe when there is so much to see and do! This is our last day in Germany. In the past week we have visited Berlin, Hamburg, Eisenach and I am writing this in Munich. Today we catch a train to Zurich in Switzerland where we hope to spend much of the next week.

I will write in more detail later, but suffice to say I have really enjoyed it here, and have had loads of opportunities to improve my German! I also wish I had a spare couple of hundred Euros and an empty pack so I can load up on the new season winter clothes. The Germans do have such good taste in shoes!

On Wednesday afternoon we headed for Poznan for two nights. My reason for choosing to stay here (in spite of all the Poles telling us not to go there ‘because there is nothing there’) is because it is the base for the organisation Discovering Roots (http://www.discovering-roots.pl/welcome.htm). I had booked a guide from this organisation to take me to Trzciel, the home of my German ancestors who made the long and perilous journey to Australia in 1840-41. The village was (and still is) a small country town where few (if any) people speak English, so if my visit was going to mean anything, a guide was quite necessary.

At 10am Thursday morning we met Magda, our guide. She turned out to be an enormously helpful and interesting woman in her early thirties. She dr0ve us to the village (my first time in a car driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road!) chatting all the time about the history of the town and what we might (or might not) find there. The town has a population of only a couple of thousand people, and is quite sleepy and off the beaten track. I don’t think they see too many Australians there! The town is divided by a river, and the German settlers (who had come to the area from other areas of Prussia) lived on one half while the Polish lived on the other. The German section had an Evangelical Church, and the Polish a Catholic. The two communities always existed harmoniously together, until the Germans were forced to leave and return to what was now Germany. Since WWII and the communist takeover, no German was welcome in this area. Anyone visiting claiming German ancestry (even if they were Australian) was regarded suspiciously, even with fear as the communists had successfully persuaded the local population that it was only a matter of time before the German sought to return to take their land from them. Thankfully this is no longer the case, and since 1989 and the end of Communist rule, many Germans have returned freely to visit the home of their ancestors.

I had hoped to visit the Evangelical church as it was the church my ancestors had attended and possibly married in. Unfortunately it was bombed during WWII and not rebuilt. A park stands there now. I already knew the nearby cemetry was virtually non-existent as there was no longer any German families to care for it, but was still pleasantly pleased by what we found. Yes, the gravestones had fallen and the whole area was covered in ivy. However it was a pleasant, quiet place, and a memorial had been recently placed there to commemorate the Germans who had been buried there. We will always wonder if any earlier generations of our family are buried there, but will never know for sure because of the lack of records.

We spent some time in the Catholic church, thanks to Magda who approached the priest to unlock the building for us. It is a beautiful building, and existed in the time of my ancestors. It is likely to have been a significant place for them.

After lunch Magda drove us to a nearby village to show us a church that had been built in the same style as the Evangelical church so we could see how it might have looked. She again sought out the local priest, and found a radical retired priest who apparently had written a book about his belief that original sin began with Cain rather than Adam and Eve. Interestingly the Catholic church was reluctant to publish it!

Magda returned us to Poznan where we shared a drink, and then dinner, and ended up chatting until 10pm. We really enjoyed talking with her, not only because of her genealogical knowledge, but to find out what life was like in a communist country (Magda was 17 in 1989, and well able to remember the things that happened). After 12 hours with Magda, I felt I had well and truely got my money’s worth, and then some. If you have ancestors who came from this region, I can highly recommend this organisation!

Will update as soon as possible!

One can’t really come to this part of the world without visiting Auschwitz Birkenau, the location of one of the most infamous of the Nazi death camps. On Sunday we caught the 9am bus – its a journey of about 60km, an hour and a half. Entry to the museum is free, but we decided to pay to join a guided tour. We were glad we did because there was so much to see we could have been overloaded! We began at Birkenau, which is about 3 km from Auschwitz, and is the site where most of the gas chamber murders took place. I had no idea the place was so large. The extent of the camp was chilling, the rows upon rows of barracks. The wooden barracks had all been destroyed by fire, their chimneys the only things remaining. They had rebuilt a row of barracks for visitors to see what conditions would have been like. The barbed wire fences, watch towers and train line still remain, making it easy to picture what it might have been like. At the far end of the camp were the gas chambers and furnaces. They had been blown up in the final days before the camp was liberated, but the ruins were still disturbing. A dramatic memorial stands there now, and is a special place for people to come and remember and mourn.

We returned to Auschwitz, which was primarily a work camp, although plenty of people were murdered here too. We passed through the gates with the words “Arbeit macht Frei” (Work brings freedom) and began a tour of the exhibitions. Several rooms contained items taken from those murdered at Birkenau, including reading glasses, shoes, suitcases, and the most sickening, an enourmous pile of human hair taken from the heads of some 40000 women.

We spent the whole day at the museum; there was more than enough to see (too much?). Like the Peace Museum in Hiroshima, this is a place all people should come if they possibly can. It is not a pleasant day, but it is an important one.

Tomorrow we take the train to Warsaw, where we will stay for two nights. After that we head west to Poznan, where I will visit Trzciel (formerly Tirschtiegel) which is the village from which my Hampel ancestors came.