In the year 2000, Eleanor and I visited the German village of the Germanna immigrant Blankenbaker families, namely Neuenbuerg. This is a very small village and we were puzzled by a few Jewish gravestones in the cemetery. They generally carried a date of death in 1945 which is a usual year in a German cemetery. In the year 2002, we visited again. The only person that we found that we could “talk” to was a woman in the (Catholic) church who was arranging flowers. Her English was nonexistent and our German is almost nonexistent but we generally gathered that during WWII, the village had housed Jewish and Christian people from outside the community. I expressed our mystery along with a picture of a Jewish gravestone on the Germanna history web page that George Durman maintains.
Sometime later, a person wrote to me and said he could tell me more about the Jewish gravestones. This person had been living in Neuenbuerg in April of 1945 when the Allied forces had occupied the village. One afternoon, a convoy of trucks led by a French officer arrived, carrying many obviously sick people. He told the residents that they had fifteen minutes to evacuate the village. They could take with them any of their possessions that they wished but they could not return to the village for some time. The person telling me the story said he walked with some relatives to Unteroewisheim a few miles away where they had some relatives. Neuenbuerg had become a refugee camp for a number of very sick, Jewish and Christian, people. So I understood better the Jewish gravestones in the cemetery but there were still mysteries.
A few days ago I heard from a man, one Peter Zuckerman, who said he was one of the people who had been brought in by the Allied forces and settled in the village. His story is expressed on a web page that he maintains and so I do not hesitate to relate his story in some detail.
Both of the people I have mentioned now live outside Germany, the evicted person in Canada and the refugee in the United States.
Peter Zuckerman and I were born in the same year, 1929, which causes me reflect upon what I was doing in 1945 when Mr. Zuckerman was moved to Neuenbuerg. I will give his story, as he himself tells it, in following notes. By then he had many experiences that he would have preferred not to have had; however, he has let these experiences became a motivation for him to try to improve the world. Certainly, there is a need in this area.
(03 Oct 06)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.