The MV Wilhelm Gustloff . . .

. . . sank 71 years ago today. Over 9,000 passengers—including many Displaced Persons—died.

Camp Memento

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Schweinfurt, Germany, 1945 to 1949. This is a "holy card" Dad carried throughout the postwar years. The text printed on the back is not a prayer; it's the lyrics to the Lithuanian Anthem.

The waiting began.

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Seligenstadt, Germany, August 15, 1945. This is the card with which my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, registered her intent to emigrate from postwar Germany. She sailed to New York three years later.

(Note that Tatjana recorded Lithuanian as her dominant language.)

Exchanging Portraits (Part 51)

Erlangen, Germany, March 4, 1945. My Mom's classmate gave her this memento.

A Small Party

Hanau, Germany 1945. Lithuanian Displaced Persons at the Hanau camp host a children's party. My friend Nijole is the girl standing on the left. Her Mother holds her (her Mom also appears in this photo, sitting on the sofa behind my Mom).

Thanks to my friend Nijole for making this photo available to us.

Transition

Schweinfurt, Germany, probably 1945. Dad used this photo for his Displaced-Persons documents. The image captures his appearance at about the time he and other refugees fled Lithuania. During the six years Dad was a Displaced Person, he "grew into" his face.

Related by Marriage: Student Photo

Würzburg, Germany, about 1945 or 1946. This is the photo Ignas—the older brother of Mr. Irene's Dad—used for his student booklet when he enrolled at the university.

The Second Update

Recently I posted a postcard my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, had sent to her daughter, Jonė. Here is s second postcard Tatjana wrote before she, Jonė, and my Dad reunited in Schweinfurt.

The card is addressed to Jonė at the "Litauischer Lager"—that is, the "Lithuanian [DP] camp."

Tatjana wrote:

My most treasured Jonė, Yesterday I mailed a letter to you. I want you always to know where I am, and how I am doing. I'm already writing for the fourth time fromm Oberstdorf. I am living and eating at the home of a local cobbler, whose wife looks after me as though I were her relative. I've given her everything she'll need for meal preparations through August 16. In the mornings (and in the evenings) she makes a delicious "malzkafé" with very good, real milk. But by now, I have absolutely no bread. It turns out the bread that Casey's mother gave me was from one of the local [DP] camps, and it came from a "swindler." When we sliced the bread, its inside was filled with a stringy dough. I think it's a particular type of bread made with a large quantity of potatoes. So we dried that bread thoroughly in the sun, and we made crackers. Your aunt left today. Although I truly love her a great deal, I am happy she is gone because she was starting to get on my nerves. She worries way too much about food. Now I won't have to think about food. I am sitting outside, the sun is setting but still high at the top of the mountains. The light continues to sparkle on the peaks, and the blue fades to gray as the light meets the snowcaps. (I'll finish this in the next postcard.)

Thanks to my Toronto Cousin for making this photo available to us. 

Exchanging Portraits (Part 4)

Rotenfels, Germany, October 22, 1945. My Dad's friend wrote, "Let's remember our times together in Kaunas."

Tatjana describes the situation.

My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, arrived at the Schweinfurt DP camp in about 1946 and became active in the camp's administration. Before Tatjana settled in Schweinfurt—where her twins, my Dad and Jonė, also lived after the war—Tatjana briefly traveled in other parts of Bavaria while she was a Displaced Person.
 
Here is a postcard Tatjana sent to Jonė during this interval (probably in 1945): 
 

 
Tatjana wrote:

My most treasured Jonė, your aunt [Victoria] and I live in this hamlet, not far from the church, on the other side of the mountain. Yesterday we already rode 2000 meters to the top of the mountain by means of a particular funicular that takes wagons up a rail line to the very top, in the air. There, we drank coffee while sitting on the veranda and sunning ourselves. Although it was a hot day, it was rather chilly up there. We stood in line for three hours to get a ticket for the funicular. Tomorrow, if it doesn't rain, we're going to go to the mountain lake that isn't very far at all from the town—it's only about a one-hour walk. Today it rained a bit so we strolled around the shops. Beyond that, we're looking for a room because we've got to move out by Monday or Tuesday. We've also been looking for UNRRA because it's getting very difficult for us to find bread. Without a ration card we can't get a stamp—one must have a card in the first place to fashion a potato stamp. [DPs sometimes used halved potatoes to craft official-looking stamps that would pass at shops as legitimate documents.] There's no real UNRRA organization here; only a Ukrainian DP camp. [Here, there's a line I cannot read.] I'm quite worried about the bread situation, and it might be necessary for me to come back.

Thanks to my Toronto Cousin for making this postcard available to us.

Courtship

Probably Degendorf, Germany, about 1945. These are Ron's Parents when they lived in Germany as Displaced Persons.

Thanks to my friend Ron for making this photo available to us.

The Littlest Scout

Schweinfurt, Germany, about 1945 or 1946. This is my Dad—in his scouting uniform—visiting with a friend's daughter at the Displaced Persons camp.

Sunday at the Playground

Schweinfurt, Germany, 1945. Displaced Persons gather in a makeshift playground. I don't know more about the persons in or circumstances of this photo. My Dad had stored it in an envelope that he called "Voketija," or Germany—referring to snapshots from the Displaced-Persons era.

Another Mystery Location

Location unknown; between about 1943 to 1945. My Dad tucked this photo into an envelope in which he had stored sentimental photos from the time before he married. Most of those photos capture Dad's friends and places he visited. This photo has no notes written on the back. I don't know whether this church is in Lithuania or in Germany. Can any of my readers identify it?

Remember us this way.

Kaunas, Lithuania, about 1944 or 1945. Two friends of my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, chose this touching photo as a keepsake to send to Tatjana after she fled Lithuania.

Postwar

Schweinfurt, Germany, Summer 1945. I wrote earlier about how weary my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, looked after the end of World War II. Here's my Dad at the conclusion of hostilities in Europe. His face, too, speaks to the hardships he endured in the last months of the war.

Mess Hall Duty

Seligenstadt, Germany, 1945. Mom doesn't recall what she was making during this round at the Displaced Persons camp's mess hall. She remembers peeling a lot of potatoes, though.

A Lost Friend

Location uncertain; December 1944 or January 1945. This is my Mom's friend Vojtěch. Vojtěch was from Prague. Like Mom, he was a Displaced Person and a medical-school student. Mom and Vojtěch worked together as orderlies. Vojtěch returned to Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1945 to join the Czech resistance. In May of that year, Mom received a letter from the Red Cross explaining that Vojtěch had been shot while fighting for that cause. Heartbreaking.

Beginnings

Displaced Persons who fled Lithuania sought refuge in DP Camps established by UNRRA after World War II ended.

Mainfranken, or "Franconia," is a Bavarian, administrative district in Germany. The Mainfranken Displaced Persons Control Center was the place at which UNRRA processed those Displaced Persons who would be relocated to Würzburg or Schweinfurt. The DP camps in Würzburg and Schweinfurt were part of the U.S. Zone of the Allied, post-war, occupation of Germany.

This means my Dad, his twin sister Jonė, and their mother, Tatjana, all shuffled through the Mainfranken Control Center before settling—for the next five years—in Schweinfurt.

It's also the place at which my friend Kris's Mom, Donna, her Uncle Al, and Donna's Parents received permission to secure housing in Würzburg. Mr. Irene's paternal Uncle, Ignas, also would have passed through Mainfranken on his way to Würzburg.

Mainfranken, Germany, 1945. Displaced Persons await processing at the UNRRA Control Center. A priest and two altar boys also greet the refugees. Notice that the DPs have few belongings.

Thanks to my friend Kris for making this photo available to us.

Profile

Seligenstadt, Germany, about 1945. This is my Mom, shortly after she arrived in the Displaced Persons camp as a refugee.