Travel 2013 - E. Baumann
Past and yet so close!
by Erika Baumann
Finally, we found a common date, the trip from Karlsruhe
we plan to Poland. We, the daughter Erika, granddaughter Christine
and the son-Peter decided from 19.6. - 26 6 the journey, in the
footsteps of my mother to do in the past.
Hot summer days are behind us and the sky is covered with
dark clouds. Actually a pleasant travel weather. Christine
comes with a spare car and you have insurance reasons the
Cope route alone. We drive against 10 clock in the morning of
Karlsruhe rid of. From the farm we go for a while by violent thunderstorms.
To 19 clock we come in Chemnitz, our firstOvernight accommodation at.
The next morning we drive on. The air is cool and pure.
Second destination is Wohlau. After crossing on the Polish
Limit begins Lower Silesia.
The area is flat and slightly hilly. We see from the car gray,
abandoned and ruined farms and houses. Christine drives excellent
and is no risk to the not so good beschaffenen roads in Poland
one. Especially us the way in which the poles occasionally strange
appears. You overtake our terms very daring and risky.
In Wohlau we arrive in the late afternoon. We do not find the same
our hotel and have to ask ourselves. Now we are facedwith the Polish language.
"Just around the corner," replies a young friendly woman
in German language. A small bistro with ice-cream parlor to expect.
We are kindly welcomed and royally accommodated.
We allow ourselves no rest break and looking for a local.
We are hungry. In Diner under the Town Hall, we order a
typical Polish food.
We discover a huge addition to the local beech with a
Trunk diameter of about 1 m. He must be at least 100 years old.
We hope that she might tell what they had seen and experienced
has. In its shade we recover from the journey and look forward
on eating and drinking. We feel immediately at ease. It is a
quiet and the village of appropriate focus, the harmoniously
classifies into the environment. Soon we explore the place itself also
here between new buildings always old and dilapidated houses.
Ancient ruins, that were joined by new walls. Cobblestones
connects the streets together. The village itself gives the impression
as if you have not changed anything on the arrangement of the houses and streets.
It has new homes built in old rows of houses. Harmonious and
cozy unsuspected us to the village.
From Wohlau and their purchases there told my mother and I
try to imagine how they feel about the same cobblestones
went, as we do today, from shop rushed to the store or the on the market
A few found what she needed to the basic necessities for their family
shopping. It happened rarely enough and mostly during the festive season.
It is still bright day and Christine making the proposal today,
now to go right after Riemberg and the courtyard of the parents of my
To seek mother. Even the single pear in Hauffen, from
married into my mother's yard, we want to find.
It is now solstice and a warm summer night is to be expected.
So we drive off, saturated and in high spirits. A curious
Feeling prowls me as we drive into Riemberg.
A village street, how are we to recognize the same. Left the church,
the red brick building next to it, was the former school.
We let the first impressions affect us. No one speaks
Word. It is a village from a rested time.
Nothing has changed here. It's the way it told the mother.
Each of us depends upon his own thoughts. Then we go
planned before. Since we know roughly where the Elternhof my
Mother is, we drive to the end of the village.
There must be somewhere. We go a few times, as well as possible
and permit the routes it to the village.
Suddenly calls Christine: "Over there, a red roof. And there,
on the other hand, the legendary train wagon, of the
already told my mother and no one knows where he comes from
and how he got there. Now see Peter and I also.
That must be it. But how come? Far and wide, no way
there, only a two-lane dirt road for agricultural
Vehicles. This path seemed once to have been wider.
It is overgrown and we only recognize him, because a short time before
Bauer went on his lawn with the tractor. We dare with
car along down the track. The wilderness is getting closer
and confusing, until the car is not moving.
So close to the target we do not give up, no matter what.
The last rest of the way we have to go on foot. No sooner said than done.
We leave the car, which almost disappears in the grass.
Delighted, curious and excited at the same time, we are a couple
few meters away in front of the former estate of the
My mother's parents.
Here they had thus spent her childhood. From here, she told
Stories of their oh-so-strict father. Here they grew up with
her four siblings. Here they had from an early age
work in the fields and meadows. Little Toys
they had and fancy dresses was not talking. With
her three sisters, she had to share a pair of Sunday shoes.
When the village was a feast was allowed each of them in the evening a
Go an hour, then she had to come home and now
the other sister was allowed an hour to the village festival.
Now I can imagine very vividly how right she was to me.
It was no different than that here - perhaps in this way -
ran home barefoot, shoes in hand prefer-supporting,
so they were not dirty and then the other sister
handed.
We trudge on through the meadow, regardless of the animals on the
moist soil, run no longer a man for decades on the
is. We're getting closer. My heart beats stronger and
suddenly we are facing the little peasant house.
It has disintegrated, smashed doors and windows. Roof tiles are
heaps on the floor and out the roof protrudes a thriving
Elder tree, as a living sign of decay and new awakening.
Cautiously we venture into the interior of the house. Square
arranged room can be seen. In one room you can
recognize a few pale yellow tiles of a furnace. The soil
is littered with dirt and rotten wood. In one of the rooms
someone must have slept wild years ago. It is still a
To detect fire. A staircase down into a basement is to
recognize. From the half of it is covered with earth. Christine dares
to a surviving stone staircase to the upper range up to
. rise The images are the same as below. All weathered,
rotted and degenerate. Nevertheless, the sun shines over everything and
distributed such thing as a golden glow over all the unsayable,
what we see.
Besides all that depraved, keeps popping up the image of my
Mother in me. I can so imagine how a child
grew up here. Then we discover that in the context of the
Door a rusty key is inserted. Falls On closer inspection
us that the door was smashed, so only the
fragmented framework recognizable.
A feeling prowls me that I not unhappy and not
can describe sad. It is really what I have otherwise
expected? I'm touched and an inner heat creeps me.
The sun sets on the horizon, enveloping the old weathered and
say pregnant house in a golden light, as if it must be so
and not otherwise.
A setting sun, which comes every day and again a
vanished time living in the memories that never again
appears. Or is it? Maybe in altered form?
Anyway. We are looking for a few intact brick on the
Ground are, as a souvenir for Elke, our other daughter
and granddaughter of my mother. I pluck flowers, grasses and
Elderflower for drying and pressing home later.
The outbuildings are overgrown and not accessible.
Only crumbling ruins can be seen.
Then I discover a walnut. My mother told of
a walnut. Only, this must be an offshoot. He seems
young and new. Outside the front door, we still see a hole in the
Earth. We are not sure if the soil is friable and make
an arc around him. We spend a while yet wordless
front of the house and everyone is lost in his own world of thoughts.
Then we make our way back. Again, by head-high
Nettles and creepers, wet meadows, cornflowers and grasses
all kinds, we hardly feel the mosquito bites, there are too many.
The view from the hermitage to the village Riemberg is impressive.
In the distance is still a peasant in his meadow, in the air
motorized hang gliders. A beautiful landscape.
A village when one has forgotten it, so idiosyncratic, pure and pleasing.
On the way back we noticed the poles, on which still old
Pears hanging that had lit the way to the farm, once, in a
another world.
A thoroughly penetrating herbal scent fills the air in the
the setting evening sun and the longest day of the year.
We return to the car. The present and the here and now
We are back. The grass at the bottom of the car dragging, bumpy
and careful driving, we are back on the road.
We drive back to Wohlau. We are overwhelmed by the
Impressions of the old and dilapidated house on the Elternhof
my mother.
Tomorrow we Hauffen and my mother's pear tree, their
Search deceased husband and her two children from his first marriage.
First we visit the next morning the Mayor,
Mr. Jurek, in Riemberg. I want to know where the name
"Bendier" comes. Our questions he can not answer, but
friendly faces, he invites us into his garden shed. Its
German knowledge he acquired once at a working stay in
Germany. Of the former owners of the farms he knew
nothing to report. Only so much that an older woman after
(Name not known) departure of forced migrants, the court
commercially acquired. One day she pulled away - about 10 years ago -
and no one knows where she went.
Mr. Jurek, invites us to visit a monastery nearby.
He knows the abbot, a guide for us the next day
wants to arrange. Unfortunately, we have this really nice offer
time limit, since we have an appointment in Opole.
At least we can first take only a short visit.
We see a totally newly renovated beautiful monastery,
which we can only be viewed from the outside unfortunately.
The friendly abbot, Father Joseph, the guide on the next must
Cancel day. He forgot that this weekend retreats
take place. A trip alone just to the monastery would be worth it.
(The name of the monastery is not known to me).
We spend the afternoon in Riemberg. First of all
we are looking for the farm of my mother in Hauffen. Hauffen belonged
to Riemberg and is only about 1 km from Riemberg away.
From the courtyard there is nothing to see. We are looking for the pear tree,
which was written by the son of my mother from her first marriage.
We find a fallen tree trunk. The it must have been
be and at this point must have been the yard.
A palatial manor is said to have been standing some
Farms in a row along the road.
All the farms and the castle are burned and there were many
People to death.
A strange feeling comes over us. While we of
Mosquito swarms are circumnavigated, Christine and I dig in
the earth to come across any wall remains. The floor is waves
like and clearly suggests that including wall remains are present.
There are, finally, the inexorable mosquito bites, which we
distribute.
We then visit the cemetery in Riemberg. On a
Hill, the cemetery was once created.
German former graves are totally devastated and you can
the weathered stones criss-cross and superimposed
recognize as a former grave stones. Sorry, no names are more
read. A peculiar rest is above the cemetery and we
go through the ranks of the newly created graves. Before each grave
is attached to a small bank. A nice gesture and we sit
a long while silent before the graves.
In Wohlau arrived back, we feel the impressions
enriched in Riemberg and express as the name "Wohlau"
tries, we feel safe in this place. Because in the place
no guest house is available, we spend half the night
on a bench in the middle of the town and tell us the
Impressions of the day. Everyone keeps doing a bottle of beer in his hand.
The next day we visit Wroclaw and spend two days there.
We see only a tiny part of this beautiful city
during a 1 1/2stündige guide with a tourist train.
We will visit the Cathedral, Holy Cross Church, Jesuit Church,
St. Magdalena, art line, former street meat. We see many
Beggar sitting with children in front of churches. A group of young people
comes to meet us, "Free Hug" they call themselves. We are guided by
embrace them and feel that you could easily come in contact,
if not for the language barrier.
We are experiencing a very thoughtful and deep impression of the
Restore the once totally destroyed city of Wroclaw.
It is here in the center as if nothing ever happened.
We leave after two days of heavy rain in Wroclaw,
Wind and cold towards Dresden.
Erika Baumann
Note:
Under - www.erzaehlte-welten.de - they learn more about your life and work. Her first novel, published in 2013.
The author tells in her family novel "George and Ann" the moving story of a family torn apart by fate. The focus is on the conflict-ridden love between the brother and sister George and Anna. What determines their life? Racism and discrimination are discussed, without raising the moral high ground. But solidarity and compassion to experience the characters cope with their difficulties.
Under - www.erzaehlte-welten.de - they learn more about your life and work. Her first novel, published in 2013.
The author tells in her family novel "George and Ann" the moving story of a family torn apart by fate. The focus is on the conflict-ridden love between the brother and sister George and Anna. What determines their life? Racism and discrimination are discussed, without raising the moral high ground. But solidarity and compassion to experience the characters cope with their difficulties.
* * * * *
Erika Baumann has compiled of your visit from the old country on 19-26.6.2013, the following images, the font was slightly enlarged. It is enshrined in the pictures.
*****
more images of Riemberg are still being processed.