European Emigrant Heritage

What does “European Emigrant Heritage” mean?  

Let's take each word separately:  

   Euro•pe•an  Adjective  A person who was born in, or whose family originates from, Europe.  [As opposed to a person whose family originates from Asia or Africa, for example.] 

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   The continent of Europe presently contains the following countries: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechten-stein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Mon-aco, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

      Europe also has ethnicities, former nationalities, and cultures who do not presently have their own countries.  These include the following:

Basque, Bavarian, Bohemian, Catalan, Castillian, Celtic, Chechen, Dalmatian, Karilian, Kiev-Rus, Ladino, Moravian, Pilsner, Posner, Prussian, Ruthenian, Sardinian, Saxon, Scotch, Servian, Silesian, Slavonian, Tatar, Transylvanian, Tuscan, (and many others).   

   Em•i•grant  Noun  A person who leaves a country or region to live in another one : a person who emigrates ▪ Millions of emigrants departed from European ports between 1850 and 1920.  — compare IMMIGRANT : a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence ▪ America is a nation of immigrants.

    Her•i•tage  Noun  1.)  Property or other assets that have accrued to a particular family line, and which by law [should] descend from predecessor to living heirs.  2.)  The traditions, achievements, beliefs, crafts, etc. that are part of the history of a group or nation. ▪ a nation with a rich heritage of folklore ▪ His Polish heritage was important to him.

    Thus European Emigrant Heritage (EEH) is exemplified by the following:

a.)  In 1943 a Polish woman died in a German labour camp.  She owned property that now should go to her closest living relatives, many second cousins living in Europe and the USA. 

b.)  A German soldier died in the Siege of Stalingrad.  22 years later, in 1964, his mother died in Frankfurt, leaving valuable coin and stamp collections, that now should go to the grandchildren of the soldier, who are living in Scotland. [Photo:  Statues in Stalingrad centre which miraculously survived the siege.]

c.)  In 1974 an Italian businessman died in Argentina, leaving bank accounts there and in Switzerland, that now should go to cousins in Italy and Dayton, Ohio, who have never met him.  Results:  Inherit-ances for everyone, a trip to Italy, and a family reunion attended by the Ohio cousins, some of their children and grandchildren, and many Italian relatives.  

d.)  A French-Canadian man in Québec wished to learn about of his paternal grandmother (GM), who had lived in Marseille and gave her out-of-wedlock baby to a Catholic orphanage.  GM's name and what became of her had  been unknown to the man and his family for 99 years.  This example of EEH's work did not involve inheritance of money or property, it is the non-profit side of EEH, involving the 2nd definition of Heritage, above:  the traditions, achievements, beliefs, etc. that com- prise the history of (in this case) the GM.  The client was born in Canada and had never been to France.  He was elderly and living on a small pension, but had always wanted to know about his GM.  EEH undertook the research at no charge, and was able to provide him with documents, newspaper items, and photographs of his GM's life, and a photo album to arrange them in.  Included were documents and photos of his two half-uncles and their children, half-cousins he never knew he had.  (GM had later married again and had two sons.)  In the following year, two of his half-cousins visited him in Québec.

What does the profit side of EEH do?

     The for profit side of European Emigrant Heritage (EEH) conducts research that locates property and/or other assets that are unknown and unclaimed by those legally entitled to them.  Then, through genealogical research (documentary research creating a family tree), EEH identifies and locates the persons who are legally entitled to the assets.  EEH then offers to claim and recover the property and/or assets in exchange for a contingent percentage fee.  If there is nothing recovered, there is no fee. 

What does the non-profit side of EEH do?

      European Emigrant Heritage also operates a non-profit research and cultural exchange / cultural promotion service.  Through cultural, historical, ethnographic, and genealogical research, we aid in the preservation, understanding, and appreciation of old-time European culture:  the crafts, customs, community and family ties, and ethnic/national spirit that were prevalent before the industrial revolution.

   EEH's non-profit services are available to everyone, regardless of where they live or whether they have an unknown inheritance.  Clients pay nothing but may make a donation to the cause if they wish to do so.  Please contact us for further information if you have a specific need, request, or if you wish to help by donating time.  

    The remainder of this page deals with EEH's  profit side.

How did you find me?

    If we have contacted you regarding an inheritance, you are probably won-dering how we found you.   Here are the stages:  
I.)  EEH always begins its research by finding property or other assets which are unknown to and unclaimed by those entitled to them.  

II).  EEH then performs genealogical research to identify and find the enti-tled persons.  Genealogical research dis-covers small pieces of information:  names, dates, and places of: births, marriages, migrations, deaths, burials, etc.  

III.)  EEH then assembles all these pieces into a complete family tree, and contacts the living members who may be entitled to inherit.  

    EEH discovers names on many kinds of records.  For example, suppose the unknown property which EEH has discovered is ac-cruing to you through your maternal grand-mother (GM) from the death of her 2nd husband.  All we have to begin our gene-alogical research is GM's married name.  

      This GM may have registered to vote with the Labour Party in 1936, or received a pension from the American government for her service during the World War of 1914-18.  These records may give her birthplace as Villefranche-de-Rouergue, photo ⟶ 

      To trace your GM, we search the records of the several parish churches in and near the VdR Commune and follow the baptismal records of several girls baptised in the days following your GM's date of birth.  One of them should be your GM.  Thus we may obtain your GM's maiden SUR-NAME, allowing us to find her 1^st marriage to your GF, and so on, eventually leading to you.

      Genealogy involves many areas of study, including history, geography, ethnology, calligraphy, and photographic analysis.  To solve a recent case it was necessary that we discovered that during World War II, while occupied by Nazi Germany, Villefranche housed a large 13th Waffen SS Handschar - 1st Croatian Division, consisting mainly of Bosnians.  Only this fact led to the military records identifying the deceased Frenchman’s father in Bosnia.  Bosnia at his date of birth was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (see Page 4. Historical Maps).

       Would your father’s cousins in Stuttgart or Cincinnati have found your father to give him his lawful share?  In the absence of family, how diligently would the local government have searched?

Who hires EEH?

No one hires us.  We are a gov-ernment licensed private com-pany that investigates public and private records to find “errors, omissions, and frauds.”

What kinds of cases do you handle?

       Here are some examples of the many types of unclaimed asset matters we handle:

1.)  Sometimes a person dies without having time to make a will or property list for his family.  We handle many research and collections for descendants of persons who died unexpec-tedly, often in wars and revolu-tions.  During WWII, many Jews opened accounts in Switzerland etc., then perished in concentra-tion camps.  The governments of the several countries which became communist between 1917 (Russia) and 1948 (Czech-oslo­vakia) nationalised (confis-cated) many private homes and businesses.  In many of these cases, EEH has successfully claimed the assets for the living heirs.

2.)  Many Europeans and Ameri-cans who owned rental property, both before and after the bank failures of the 1920-1940 world depression, did not trust the banks and collected rents in










 

cash.  Sometimes when a man owned several properties, his wife and children were unaware of his holdings.  When he died, unless his will listed the properties he owned at death, some of his tenants merely stopped paying rent.  If they paid the property tax every year, they could remain rent-free and even pass the property on to their children.  This continues until a company such as EEH dis-covers it and locates the deceased owner's heirs.

Really, my family is very 
close…

Please realise that no matter how close your family is, there can always be a surprise.  You will not be inheriting from a family member with whom you are close, but rather from a family member with whom you are distant.  Perhaps you remember when US President Clinton was surprised by a man who visited the White House without an appointment claiming to be the President's half-brother, and he was!:  (After reading this People Magazine article, press arrow back in the upper left corner to return to the EEH website.)   http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20110746,00.html 

Of course, unknown living relatives occur more frequently in non-famous families: 
http://vita-brevis.org/2014/07/suspicious-first-cousin/?utm_source=twgnewsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=twg699 

Unknown deceased relatives occur in all families -- For example, can you name your paternal grandfather's nieces?  (And even then, you would need their married names to find their deaths, cemeteries, offspring, etc.)
 

Why have I never heard of your type of business? 

     Unknown inheritances are rare events.  Also, unknown inheritance genealogy is one of the few businesses that does not advertise.  We start with the property or other assets, and then attempt to locate lawful heirs.  [We indeed are the bearers of good news!]  We do not start with potential heirs, or people who believe they are entitled to an inheritance, so we do not advertise for those people to contact us. 

Can I lose any money?

       A basic principle of our work is that our clients never pay any money.  This assures our clients that we are honest.  Dishonest programmes have one thing in common:  You pay money.  Our only fee is a percentage of what we actually recover for you.  You never pay any money, so there is no way you can lose any money.  You can only gain.

Do you take any fees & costs from the inheritance before comupting my 2/3 share?    

    No, we don't.  This is a good question not often asked.  European Emigrant Heritage (EEH) receives only it's 1/3 fee.  We spend on average over £5,000 on those inquiries that reach advanced research stage, to purchase birth, marriage, death and other records, for remote research and researcher fees, our own travel expenses, database fees, etc.  Rather than deduct these expenses "off the top" of the recovered inheritance, EEH pays them from its own funds, without reimbursement from anyone, regard- less of the outcome of the inheritance claim.  These are our costs of doing business, investments we are willing to risk for inheritance claims we believe are valid.  Like Mr. Bond, we must know when to bet and when to fold.  

Is it land?  Is it more than $5,000? 
Is it in Germany? 

     European Emigrant Heritage (EEH) has a policy not to answer such questions until we have located all the heirs and they have either signed our agreement or renounced the inher-itance.  The reason for this is to insure that we are paid for our work. 

How do I know EEH will give me my share?

       EEH never handles your money.  The solicitorserving as administrator of the fund holds the money in a separate account he maintains solely for this purpose.  He calculates the tax due, the calculation is ratified by the Collector of Taxes, and the tax is paid from the account, prior to calculating EEH's percentage fee.  The solicitor then sends you your cheque, and EEH its cheque.  

Who pays for the solicitor?  

       All legal fees and costs are paid from the recovery, before EEH's fee is calculated.  The solicitor's fee is 3% of the inher-itance he is able to recover.  If he is unable to recover anything, his fee is zero.  In rare cases of extensive litigation, the 3% is increased.  In no case do you ever pay anything out of your own pocket.  Since you never pay anything, you can never lose anything.

Are there any guarantees?

       EEH can give no guarantee that our attempt to recover your family's assets will be successful, because unforeseen circumstances may prevent it.  For example, a person or persons more closely related to the original owner of the asset may be found.  Or a mortgage or tax lien may be asserted against the property.  What we do guarantee is this:  WE WILL DO THE BEST WE CAN TO PROVE, MAXIMISE, AND EXPEDITE YOUR INHERITANCE, AND AT NO TIME WILL YOU BE REQUIRED TO PAY  A PENNY OUT OF YOUR OWN POCKET.

What if the debts exceed the assets?

      Let's suppose  that the asset accruing to your family is a parcel of land worth €100.000.  If the land is encumbered by a €30.000 mortgage and a €40.000 lien for back taxes, the net recovery would be €30.000, and EEH's percentage would be calculated only on that  €30.000.  Supposing however that the back taxes were €120.000, so that there is nothing to recover.  In that event, you would receive nothing, and EEH would receive its percentage of nothing, i.e., nothing.  Part of the taxes would remain unpaid, but neither you nor EEH would be responsible for paying them.  One is not responsible for the debts of a deceased relative; debts are not inherited.

How does genealogical research work? 

     Here is a typical example.  The research of a Philip LEOPOLD uncovers that his original surname was LEPAR and that he was born in Kriukai, Lithuania, the son of Yehuda-Leib LEPAR.  This is confirmed by a search in the All-Lithuania Database (ALD) and turns up several LEPAR families in Kriukai, Lithuania and neighbouring villages.

      In order to find the descendants of the original great-grandfather, Amiel LEPAR, it was necessary to hire the entire class of a professor of history in a nearby university, to locate the tombstones in question.  These enthusiastic students walked hundreds of cemetery rows and transcribed over 8,000 tombstones!  Even so, it would not have been possible to solve this case without an index, the Kovno-Slatis cemetery list, which was produced by the "Chevren Kadisha," the burial society of Viliampolka.  This index does not cover the entire cemetery, but is an index showing the names, section and row numbers of those who died in the Ghetto between 1941and 1943, a period which contained many of the key deaths in the family.

      The wedding photograph shown to the left was accepted as evidence in the Austrian court of inheritance as the wedding of Harry KOWEN and Dolly LEOPOLD, who were the grandparents of Mervyn ______, one of the heirs in the case.  The seven LEOPOLD sisters are shown in the photo-graph.  The face of the groom was adjudged to match the German work permit card.

      Many of the genealogical records in the above LEP-AR/LEOPOLD case were in German because those parts of Bosnia in which the family resided were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire prior to 1919.  To understand these records one must acquire the ability to read Sütterlinschrift (Sutterlin handwriting), in which the German language of that period was beautifully written:

      Another example is a case EEH recently worked in Siberia.  The following is taken from a letter written by James Hannum of EEH: 

...Our original proof packet translated the words село (selo) and дерев-ня (derevnya) as “village.”  Because there is an important genealogical difference between a selo and a derevnya, the words should not be translated but should instead be transliterated into the Roman Alphabet and separately defined.  According to Vladimir Dahl’s magnum opus, Explan-atory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, which was pub-lished in 4 huge volumes in 1863, the definition of “selo” is “A place built and settled by peasants in which there is a church, and sometimes selo consists of many scattered derevnyas all belon-ging to one congregation and one church.”  The definition of derevnya is “Peasant settlement in which there is no church.”  As you will note from the enclosed revised proofs, the phrases “Village of Petroselki” and “Village of Molotychi ” have been changed to “Petroselki Derevnya” and Molotychi Selo.  Given that they are only three miles apart (Our Proof #25, Petroselki and Molotychi Satellite Map), the fact that all derevnyas had to belong to a selo so that its residents would have a church, and Dahl’s above definitions, we conclude that Petroselki Derevnya belonged to Molotychi Selo.  Thus Grigoriy could say he resided in either place. 

      It is obvious that Grigoriy KORNEEV and Grigoriy ABALMASOV are the same man. Consider:

1. Grigoriy KORNEEV and Grigoriy ABALMASOV are both shown in the above records having the same patronymic name, Kuzmin, meaning “son of Kuzma.”  The given name “Kuzma” is now, and was in 19^th Century Russia, a fairly rare name. 

2. Grigoriy Kuzmin KORNEEV came from Petroselki Derevnya, Fatezhskiy Uyezd, Kursk Guberniya.  (Our Proof #1).
   Grigoriy Kuzmin ABALMASOV came from the Molotychi Selo, Fatezhskiy Uyezd, Kursk Guberniya.  (Our Proof #2).

3. Since Petroselki Derevnya belonged to Molotychi Selo, a man from Petroselki Derevnya could say he was from either place.

4.  Grigoriy Kuzmin KORNEEV and Grigoriy Kuzmin ABALMASOV both arrived in Siberia in 1896.

5. Grigoriy Kuzmin KORNEEV and Grigoriy Kuzmin ABALMASOV lived in the same tiny place, Belovodovskoye Settlement, Mariinsk Okrug, Tomsk Guberniya, Siberia.

6. After 1896, Grigoriy Kuzmin ABALMASOV never again used the surname KORNEEV, and the name Grigoriy Kuzmin KORNEEV never appears again in the record books.

     In the 1916 Agricultural Census (our Proof #24), taken twenty years after the above Petition for Money, Grigoriy’s family is listed as ABALMASOV; there is no Grigoriy KORNEEV or Petr KORNEEV in the 1916 Census...  

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Examples of proofs EEH presented in the above case:

                                                                 _______________________________ 


 

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        Before we discuss war assets, which have been EEH's most successful area of research to date, let's enjoy learning a thing or two about one of the many pillars of culture, basket weaving.  For as much money as Messrs. Hitler, Mussolini, et al. stole from us during the wars, life is not really about money, is it?     

WAR ASSETS

         For several years, the controversy over Switzerland's role in World War II raged in the media, among thousands of possible claimants and their attorneys, and between nations. Questions have been raised concerning dormant Swiss bank accounts, Nazi gold, and property confiscated and stolen during by the German Third Reich.

Refugees  
Beginning in September 1939, Hitler swiftly conquered country after country within Europe. By June 1941, Switzerland's neutrality became a beacon of hope. Increasingly severe restrictions and persecution of Jews caused many to search for safety. Thousands of Jews tried to hide themselves as well as their money in Switzerland.

As Jews reached Switzerland's borders they were turned away. It had become easy to recognize Jewish passports since Germany had begun affixing German Jewish passports with the letter "J" for "Jude" ("Jew" in German) in 1938. The Germans did this at Switzerland's request for an easier way to identify Jews coming to its borders. 

In the summer of 1942, when the mass deportations had begun taking millions to their deaths in camps, Switzerland closed its borders completely to all refugees. Though contemporary views of this action question Switzerland's intentions, Switzerland was not the only nation to close their borders to Jews during the war and the United States and Great Britain are prime examples. However, it was Switzerland's wartime policies that had the biggest impact on those attempting to escape the Third Reich, because it was much more difficult to immigrate to Britain and the US than it was to immigrate to Switzerland, which is located in the centre of Europe and borders six countries.)

Nazi Gold and Loot
During the war, the Nazis stole gold, jewellery, homes, factories, artwork, and other valuables from the millions of Jews they murdered. They also looted (stole) large amounts of valuables from non-Jews in the countries they occupied (France, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, etc.).  The Germans needed a way to place these commodities in the international market so that they could use the money they received in exchange for their war effort. The Swiss helped facilitate the exchange in addition to holding Nazi accounts. Many speculate that some of the gold that the Swiss accepted were the dental gold and wedding rings taken from Jews at the camps.  If a Jewish or Belgian homeowner was killed, died in battle or bombing, or disappeared, the German government simply took the home.

Bank Accounts
Many Jews never physically attempted to reach Switzerland, but attempted to protect their money by opening Swiss bank accounts. Many Jews who opened these accounts perished in the Holocaust.

There are many survivors who remembered that their parents or uncles opened accounts, but they didn't know the name of the bank, the account numbers nor have any paperwork concerning the accounts, so they were turned away from the banks after the war. Far more knew nothing at all about their relatives' monetary holdings; it was safer not to tell anyone that one had broken German law by taking money out of the country.  Some Swiss banks requested death certificates of the account holder before they would allow the survivors to access the money, even in cases where the survivors had the secret account numbers and exact address of the bank. This was a completely unreasonable request since millions were mass murdered in the Holocaust with no official record of their deaths. The banks obtained legal authority for their refusals to release or confirm information, based upon Swiss laws which guaranteed account holders strict secrecy.  

Jews weren't the only persons who had Swiss bank accounts. Many Europeans maintained Swiss accounts to avoid income, inheritance and wealth taxes. Swiss banking privacy laws gave this protection.  

Claims  
For several decades after the war, individual survivors petitioned and requested information about these accounts with little to no success. The vast majority of claimants, over time, simply gave up.  In 1974, the Swiss announced that they found 4.68 million Swiss francs in dormant accounts. This money was divided between two Swiss relief agencies and to the Polish and Hungarian governments.  Jewish experts claimed this was only a small fraction of the money in the accounts.

In 1996, U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY) brought the subject of the dormant accounts to the U.S. government's attention, and hearings were started to unearth the truth about the survivors' claims. Pressure from the United States has angered the Swiss, who feel that this is an attack upon their reputation for the benefit of U.S. banking agencies.

The questions concerning the morality of the Swiss during the war came into the public limelight when a night security guard at a Swiss bank noticed on January 14, 1997 a large bin of old documents pertaining to Nazi and wartime accounts waiting to be shredded. The Swiss claim that these were of no interest to the hearings.

On January 29, 1997, the US Congress considered boycotting Swiss banks. (A "Washington insider" remarked that Switzerland would never believe the threat, due to the $Billions held in secret numbered Swiss accounts belonging to US congressmen, cabinet members, and other corrupt US officials.)  Perhaps the Swiss did give some credence to the threat, for eight days later, three Swiss banks announced that they would create a humanitarian fund of 100 million Swiss francs (U.S. $70 million).  Although this fund was criticized as being much too small, and not going to the depositors' families, there was no boycott. There were accusations that some members of the Senate committee had accepted "gratuities" from a fund with relations to the banks, for calling off the boycott.  

Since the overwhelming majority of the Jews who opened Swiss bank accounts died during the war, and the export of money out of Germany and Austria was a heavily punished crime, and no accurate figures about the total amount of money Jews really placed within the Swiss banks. Jewish organisations believe there could be tens of $Billions, while the Swiss have only disclosed several million. Since most Jews residing in Europe in 1940 had been killed by the end of the war in 1945, in most families both the father and mother and all their children, and often all the siblings of the father and mother, were dead. If the father in such a family had a Swiss account, his closest surviving family member would be a cousin, and few elderly cousins come forward to make claims in 1997 when claims began to be allowed.  Those cousins  that were still living usually did not know about the accounts.  

In June 2004, the Swiss government announced that it would establish a $5 Billion humanitarian foundation. The previous $100 million, which the Swiss had claimed was the full total of the accounts, was thus shown to be a sham.

But what about the survivors of the Holocaust whose families' entire fortunes were stored in Swiss accounts? On July 23, 1997, the Swiss produced a list of dormant accounts that is accessible to the public. The list contains names, and often complete pre-1945 depositors' addresses, but no money amounts. Any person or entity with a valid claim on these accounts may go through an accounting firm and then an international panel, by which it will be decided whether or not there is sufficient written evidence and/or oral testimony, and also sufficient genealogical documentation, to support each claim.

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World War I "Assets" and  European Emigrant Heritage

Assets from WWI recovered by EEH consist of bank accounts, insurance policies, stocks & bonds (including government issued), real property (land & its improvements), mines, mining rights, and mining dividends (liquidated and accrued).  While not as frequent as WW II asset recovery, these recovered assets have totalled over £7,000,000 by 2010.  

Lest we overemphasize the pecuniary losses sustained in WWI, "the Great War" as it was called until circa 1942, did indeed cause hundreds of £Billions in property damage and ruined lives and work careers.  Crops destroyed, to deprive advancing armies of sustinance, and several years of no crops planted, alone caused staggering losses and suffering in Europe (and to a lesser extent, the US, where returning soldiers had often not enough left of their army wages to buy seed or clothing to restart their disrupted economic lives.) 

The devastation by death, carnage, and war-caused diseases, was a thousand times worse than all the economic losses and property damage combined.  The below well thought out review is worth the read; it will fill in the blanks left by western education.

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BOOK REVIEW
             The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 
                                                                                                   by T. Christianson (2013) 

There are many things that can be done while one is asleep. Bellini wrote a delightful opera about somnambulism. However it is difficult to share the same sense of fascination or repose even a century after the outbreak of the Great War. Somehow it defies any standard of human sensitivity to allude to the acts and omissions leading to the millions of slaughtered men and boys at the hands of the greediest financial and industrial elites known to recorded history as the result of "sleepwalking".

Consider the most peculiar omission in this prize-winning story written by a young man from the Dominions: that the author has managed to write over 500 pages about the Great War without scarcely more than ten pages about the British Empire-- then the undisputed world power (not unlike its North American cousin today). All the attention is focussed on Sir Edward Grey, HM Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1905 until 1916.

Strangely enough the name "Grey group" is used as attribution for Britain's foreign policy. Although many of the British sources cited in The Sleepwalkers should more appropriately be attributed to the Milner Group (for those uninitiated this is the closely-knit group of primarily Oxonians who initially joined Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Milner (Secretary of State for War under Lloyd George) and together with the Lord Salisbury were the most powerful force in British imperial politics at least until the end of World War I):

"Grey was not the puppet-master; the men of the new policy-- Bertie, Hardinge, Mallet, Tyrrell and so on-- were not manipulated or controlled by him, but worked alongside him as the members of a loose coalition driven by shared sentiments. Indeed, Grey was quite dependent on some of these collaborators-- many of his decisions and memoranda, for example, were modeled closely on reports from Hardinge." (p. 202)

Who these collaborators were has already been explained by Carroll Quigley in his 1981 (posthumous) study of the Anglo-American Establishment. Quigley-- far from a hostile scholar-- objected that by means of entrenched control/ influence of the principal academic institutions and publishers this group concentrated in the Rhodes Trust and certain Oxford colleges have been able to write their own history for the public and suppress any other views. The Sleepwalkers is another proof that Anglo-American historical scholarship regarding British imperial history is still tightly controlled. At the latest after the discrediting of Mr Tony Blair for his willful deceits to promote the recent Gulf Wars, skepticism ought to be warranted when examining the statements and acts of HM Government when it comes to wars.

As Quigley noted-- and anyone who has held genuinely non-conformist academic opinions will have experienced-- the best way to suppress uncomfortable or disagreeable facts is to ignore them. The Sleepwalkers might be viewed as a naive piece of work from a young scholar from down under. However such naiveté or careless omission of the world's great power in 1914 has been amply rewarded-- the author recently received a royal (Regius) chair in history at Cambridge-- as did most of the official historians of the Milner Group.

However a more important issue than the scholarly neglect of the most important power in the world at that time and the most important group of collaborators with Sir Edward Grey is why this book appears now and why has it been so thoroughly promoted in Germany. It is true that the author, who spent several years at the Free University of Berlin and wrote several books about Prussia, has spent enough time on his subject to warrant writing about the end of Prussia as a polity. However just as no one seriously doubts that Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was written as an imperial textbook and that the Classics were developed as a discipline in England and Göttingen to supply scholarship to defend European colonialism (see here Martin Bernal's Black Athena), it is worth asking what policy purpose The Sleepwalkers is intended to defend.

Great Britain has pursued two consistent foreign policy principles since the French Revolution. The first is to control the seas and the access to cheap (or free) raw materials (including labour) throughout the world. The second has been to keep Europe divided against itself both to assure access to its markets and to weaken potential imperial competitors. This was a policy understood even in those ancient days before NATO or the European Union. It was one of the main reasons that England was called "perfidious Albion" on the Continent. This meant that the British Empire governed by playing its European competitors against each other.

In Germany The Sleepwalkers has been received either as a welcome relief or a naive attempt to make German militarism seem innocuous or unintentional in the months leading up to July and August 1914. How does the author attempt to relieve Germany of its historical war "guilt"? The answer is rather simple and therein lies the ground for suspicion. The author explains that in essence Germany's leaders did not understand the gravity of the Serbian "threat".

This is a serious shift in the World War I narrative that is by no means accidental. 1991 was the year in which German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher unleashed what became a vicious aerial bombardment of Serbia and the destruction of Yugoslavia, commencing with his recognition of Croatia's independence. By the time NATO bombs ceased to fall on Serbia, there was no Yugoslavia and the way was cleared for one of Europe's biggest contraband trafficking hubs under NATO management: Kosovo. Back then the media was full of reports about how horrid Serbs were and the danger that Russia would feel obliged to defend the Serbian state. It didn't and everyone was relieved. Today in the Ukraine NATO is engaged in overt and covert operations to separate the country from what the West would call "Russia's sphere of influence". There is every indication among the mass of Germans that they disapprove of this indirect attack on Russia. Nonetheless the German mass media has been entirely on the side of NATO, condemning everyone who dissents as a "Putin-Versteher" (someone who "understand" Putin).

After some ten years of virtually silent deployment of German armed forces in Afghanistan to provide support to the CIA's war there, it now appears as if European NATO units may be necessary to support the right-wing usurpers that have ruled in Kiev since last year. There are two ways to justify this short of an outright attack by Russian forces-- still unlikely since Putin has continuously resisted every provocation to date. One involves absolving the remaining guilty consciences among Germany's elite and the middle class that supports it, thus making outright war seem civilized again. The other complementary approach is to reiterate that it is not Germany (or any other NATO power) that is escalating the crisis but Slavs-- Ukrainians who sympathize with Russia or even consider themselves to be Russian (like so many West Germans seem to think they are Americans). By reminding the educated German that World War I was caused by Serbs and Russians, it is not far fetched to adopt the position that Russia still protects those Slavs who are essentially the cause of the Great War (and if we wait long enough, also caused World War II).

The Sleepwalkers is written like a plenary indulgence granted by the unnamed Anglo-American elite that has profited from every major European war in the 20th century to those whom it would recruit again in its "association of helpers"-- witting and unwitting instruments of neo-imperialism (aka globalisation).

By ignoring any serious discussion of British Empire, its ruling elite, or the global economic and psychological warfare that was waged by it against its European competitors in the years between 1871 and 1914, this book shows that it is the author who was probably sleepwalking, not the European imperialists (today called the financial elite or the "1%-ers,") who together with Great Britain, through their puppets the politicians wantonly slaughtered more than 4 million people for their personal profit and power. Hundreds of thousands in the bloody carnage were women and children, just as in the US dronings, bombings, invasions, and occupations of Iraq, Libya, etc.  For the record World War I was fought by six empires: the British Empire, the American Empire, the French Empire, the German Empire, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Three were destroyed and two became vassals of the USA. It is a good time for all of us to wake up.

                                   __________________________________________

Historical Maps

       A genealogist must know town, city, & country name changes and border changes.  If a funeral home record says that a person was born "1880 Russia," there is a good chance that his birthplace today is in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, etc.  This is because in 1880 the Russian Empire contained those places.  If a baptismal record states that someone was born in Breslau, Germany, beware! you will find Breslau only on a pre-1945 map; it is today the large city of Wrocław.  

Map of Europe in 1800:

Germany 1916:


Between 1815 and 1921, Poland was divided into thirds, each controlled by a different empire:

Poland after 1945:


Ukraine 1850:

Ukraine 1914-19:

Ukraine 1921-32:

Ukraine 2003:

  ____________________________

Cultural heritage is made of many little pieces.  

Attention and patience builds what has value and lasts. 

So with the long-developed cottage craft of weaving:

Belarus circa 1890:


Belarus' Expansion of Borders 1921-1926:

W. Belarus under Polish 1921-1939:

Belarus SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) 1940:

Belarus 1992, showing Oblasti and Railroads:

The Immigrant's Song

Let us not speak of those days 
  when coffee beans filled the morning 
 with hope, when our mothers' headscarves 
      hung like white flags on washing lines. 
 Let us not speak of the long arms of sky 
     that used to cradle us at dusk. 
       And the baobabs—let us not trace 
        the shape of their leaves in our dreams, 
     or yearn for the noise of those nameless birds 
        that sang and died in the church's eaves. 
Let us not speak of men, 
  stolen from their beds at night. 
   Let us not say the word 
                   disappeared. 
 Let us not remember the first smell of rain. 
 Instead, let us speak of our lives now— 
   the gates and bridges and stores. 
And when we break bread 
   in cafés and at kitchen tables 
         with our new brothers, 
  let us not burden them with stories 
      of war or abandonment. 
Let us not name our old friends 
   who are unravelling like fairy tales 
   in the forests of the dead. 
 Naming them will not bring them back. 
Let us stay here, and wait for the future 
  to arrive, for grandchildren to speak 
   in forked tongues about the country 
         we once came from. 
Tell us about it, they might ask. 
 And you might consider telling them 
    of the sky and the coffee beans, 
    the small white houses and dusty streets. 
 You might set your memory afloat 
    like a paper boat down a river. 
You might pray that the paper 
      whispers your story to the water, 
     that the water sings it to the trees, 
    that the trees howl and howl 
    it to the leaves. If you keep still 
   and do not speak, you might hear 
         your whole life fill the world 
             until the wind is the only word.

                                                                                by Tishani Doshi

 

To mouse-click links to the other 7 pages of this website,
go to CONTENTS (above right).

lf you enlarged the text of this website for easier reading,
you may have to mouse-drag the long bar at the bottom of your screenfrom left to right to see CONTENTS.

_______________________________ 

To enlarge the text of this website, in the upper right corner of your screen click , , or ⋮, [click View,] and Zoom to 150%. 

The CONTENTS list on the right side of this page has links to the other pages of this website.  After you have zoomed to 150%, to view CONTENTS list you may have to drag the long bar at the bottom of the screen from left to right. 
                                                               _______________________________ 

 

      Each of the millions of emigrantions from Europe is its own dramatic story; these are stories of sadness and joy, of loss and discovery... of all that was left behind, and all that awaited, startled, and trans-formed.  Each emigrant's new life in USA, Latin America, Australia, etc., from the day of his/her arrival, altered each of them forever.  For the languages, cultures, customs, and materials of their new homes differed greatly from that they had known in the "Old Country."

      This page contains part of the story of one 2nd generation Russia to NYC (New York City) immigrant Annie Cohen, a tale told by her nephew who learned of her existence and much more, 30 years after her death.   Annie's existence had been kept secret by her parents and sister for 71 years, since the date she was sent away and hidden.  During that 71 years, Annie, those that hid her, and those who cared for her, all died.  So this is a story of discovery, and it begins in 1995.  [The book is entitled Annie's Ghosts, by Steve Luxenberg (2009 Hyperion Press, Nonfiction, incl. footnote pgs 365-387)]

Excerpts

Pg. 15-  [an unnamed overseer at the Michigan Department of Community Health]:  "I get dozens of calls a month from people just like you... family members who have just discovered that they have a relative they never knew about...  State law doesn't let me tell them anything... "  Mr. Luxenberg, the author:  "But she's been dead thirty years... I'm her next of kin."  Overseer:  "That doesn't matter.  You'll need a court order."  Mr. Luxenberg is persistent through 400 pages though, successfully "pursuing the secret that would ultimately lead me back to the beginning of the 20th century, through Ellis Island to the crowded streets of Detroit's... immigrant communities, through the spectacular boom of the auto industry's early years and the crushing bust of the Depression, through the wartime revival that transformd the city into the nation's Arsenal of Democracy, through the Holocaust that brought a relative to Detroit and into my mother's secret, through the postwar exodus that robbed the city's old neighborhoods of both population and prosperity."

     Wherever you live in the world, you are likely to have emigrants who left Europe on your family tree.  European Emigrant Heritage (EEH) stands ready to facilitate your securing the heritage of your family's past.

These map sections (not from Mr. Luxenberg's book) show the ethnic communities of Manhattan, NYC in 1919.  The below section shows the parts of NYC's Lower East Side in red where Mr. Luxenberg's family lived during the first half of the 20th century (1900-1950).

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Frequently Asked Questions to EEH
 

Q:  Why have I never heard of your type of business?

A:  Unknown inheritances are rare events.  Also, unknown inheritance genealogy is one of the few businesses that does not need to advertise.  We start with the property and then attempt to discover any lawful heirs.  

Q:  Can I lose any money? 

A:  Our only fee is a percentage of what we actually recover for you.  You never give us any money, so there is no way you can lose any money.  In addition, EEH pays all research costs from its own funds, without reimburse­ment, regardless of the outcome of the inheritance claim. 

Do you know for certain whether your grandfathers had other marriages, or children by an-other woman?

Do you know the father of your paternal grandfather? 

What town was this great-grandfather born in, and what were the names of his siblings, nieces, and nephews?  If one of them was an only child, never married, and died intestate in London or Philadelphia, how hard would the solicitor have looked for you?

If one of the above relatives owned several rental properties but didn't list them in his will, and some of the properties were unknown to his surviving wife, and thus they were not probated, and ever since then the property has been inhabited by "squatters," would you know about it?

Q:  How can you have found something when I know all the assets my relatives had?

A:  Many people keep their wealth private.  Even if you have a close relationship with an uncle for example, and remain close throughout his lifetime, he may live frugally and give little indication of his wealth.  Below are links to two such cases.  After viewing each link, click the ←  (back arrow) in the upper left corner of your screen, to return to the EEH website.  

http://www.npr.org/2009/07/27/111091624/homeless-man-leaves-behind-surprise-4-million  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254875/Homeless-millionaire-dead-told-fortune-Body-heir-reclusive-Huguette-Clarks-300m-discovered-frozen-death-railway-bridge.html  

Q:  Are there any guarantees?

A:  EEH can give no guarantee that our attempt to recover your family's assets will be successful, because unforeseen circumstances may prevent it.  For example, a person or persons more closely related to the original owner of the asset may be found.  What we do guarantee it this:  WE WILL DO THE BEST WE CAN TO PROVE, EXPEDITE, AND MAXI-MIZE YOUR INHERITANCE, AND AT NO TIME WILL YOU BE REQUIRED TO INVEST A PENNY. 

Q:  What if the debts exceed the assets?

A:  Let's suppose  that the asset accruing to your family is a parcel of land worth €100.000.  If the land is encumbered by a €30.000 mortgage and a €40.000 lien for back taxes, the net recovery would be €30.000, and EEH's percentage would be calculated only on that  €30.000.  Supposing however that the back taxes were €120.000, so that there is nothing to recover.  In that event, you would receive nothing, and EEH would receive its percentage of nothing, i.e., nothing.  Part of the taxes would remain unpaid, but neither you nor EEH would be responsible for paying them.  One is not responsible for the debts of a deceased relative; debts are not inherited. 

Q:  How does your genealogical research work?

A:  Here is a typical example.  The research of a Philip LEOPOLD uncovers that his original surname was LEPAR and that he was born in Kriukai, Lithuania, the son of Yehuda-Leib LEPAR.  This is confirmed by a search in the All-Lithuania Database (ALD) and turns up several LEPAR families in Kriukai. 

In order to find the descendants of the original great-grandfather, Gaddail LEPAR, it was necessary to locate a tombstone, using the Kovno-Slatis cemetery index, produced by the "Chevren Kad­isha," the burial society of Viliampolka.  This index does not cover the entire cemetery, but shows the names, section and row numbers of those who died in the Ghetto between 1941and 1943, a period which contained many of the key deaths in the family.

Ireland

Here is an account of the Irish in America, written in 1886:

I met several people from Cork, and they were overjoyed to meet me, who could tell them the history of the beautiful citie for the last generation. To some I spoke the Irish language and their delight was inconceivable. I may here remark that wherever I go I find the love of Ireland amongst the Irish to be the most intense feeling of their souls – an all-absorbing passion, running like a silver thread through all their thoughts and emotions. They think forever of the old land, and sigh to behold it once more before they die. One man who  drove us one day for an hour refused to take any payment. He was    from Ireland and we were two Irish priests, and that was enough for him!

“What part of Ireland do you come from?” I asked. “From Wicklow, sir; I am 32 years in the country. “And do you ever think of the old country?” “Think,” he exclaimed, “Oh! yes sir, I do think of the old country, not so much by day as by night. In my dreams at night I see as distinctly as ever the lanes and alleys where I played when a boy. I fancy I am at home once more, but I awake and find I am in Montreal, and am like never to see my native land again.”

This dreaming of Ireland I found quite common, many people would give all they have in the world to get back again and live in Ireland steeped in poverty, rather than flourish wealthy in this strange land. And what is stranger still is, that amongst the young people, those love Ireland most who are born here of Irish parents. Their love is far more intense than the love of those who were born in Ireland. Philosophers must account for this; it appears to me to be a transmitted passion; they hear their parents constantly speak in terms of affection of the land of their birth.’ 

Rev. M. B. Buckley, Diary of a Tour in America, Edited by his sister Kate Buckley, (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Walker, 1886), pp. 50-1.

European Emigrant Heritage     

Irish Emigration

Ireland is one of the smaller European countries, but due to large numbers of children per family and hard times, huge numbers of emigrants left its shores for the US and other countries.  Many years before the above pictue was taken, and also many years before the above article was written by Reverend Buckley, Irish were forced to emigrate from their beloved homeland in greater numbers than ever before or since.  This period is known as THE IRISH POTATO FAMINE. When the English conquered and occupied Ireland they gave all the rich bottomland farm land to English & Scottish people who came over to Ireland and occupied it in big estates, and became the ruling class, the financial elite of their days.  They were all protestants and they made many laws discriminating against the conquered Irish, who were  Catholics, similarly to what the English and Dutch did to the Black tribesmen in South Africa.  That is what imperialism does, that is its purpose, to steal and exploit.

       The Irish were thus forced up into the hills and mountains, onto small rocky & infertile plots, where they had little option but to grow only potatoes.  Other crops such as carrots, cabbage, beets etc, and meat, all of which were staples throughout Europe and which the British overlords in Ireland consumed by the ton, take too many square feet to grow compared to the amount of calories they contain.  Only the potato, which thrives in the rocky soil and cool summer clouds & fogs & frequent rains of Ireland's hills & highlands, could produce enough calories to feed the Catholic Irish families (each of which had approx. 8 children).    So when the blight suddenly struck 1841-45 and most of the potatoes were destroyed, thousands begin dying of starvation, and from diseases common to the malnourished.  

       One or two London newspapers and members of Parliament spoke up, saying that England (not to mention that English imperial conquest was responsible for the potato famine) England should send food to the Irish to help them.  These few voices were ignored.  No aid was given the conquered Irish.  Throughout the five year famine the native population of Ireland fell from about 9 million to less than 5 million, mostly from deaths, but many from emigration to the Americas, Australia, etc.  

       Throughout the Irish Potato Famine the affluent Protestant British plantation operators and absentee landlords continued to export ₤Millions of Irish raised beef, lamb, wool, & corn.  Again, this is the purpose of imperialism.  Just as it is in today's "third world" countries ruled by western puppet governments who allow privitization of communal farm lands (the "peasants" never have any deeds, they have just lived and farmed these plots for centuries), big corporate mines, plantations, and sweat shop factories, deforestation and other environmental devastation, and the destruction and replacement of milleniums-old cultures for the sake of profits to distant corporation owners.        

 Old Skibbereen (an Irish ballad)  
by Patrick Carpenter - 1889
 

Oh father dear, I oft-times hear you speak of Erin's isle
Her lofty hills, her valleys green, her mountains rude and wild
They say she is a lovely land wherein a saint might dwell
So why did you abandon her, the reason to me tell.

Oh son, I loved my native land with energy and pride
Till a blight came o'er the praties; my sheep, my cattle died
My rent and taxes went unpaid, I could not them redeem
And that's the cruel reason why I left old Skibbereen.

Oh well do I remember that bleak December day
The landlord and the sheriff came to take us all away
They set my roof on fire with their cursed English spleen
I heaved a sigh and bade goodbye to dear old Skibbereen.

Your mother too, God rest her soul, fell on the stony ground
She fainted in her anguish seeing desolation 'round
She never rose but passed away from life to immortal dream
She found a quiet grave, me boy, in dear old Skibbereen.

And you were only two years old and feeble was your frame
I could not leave you with my friends for you bore your father's name
I wrapped you in my cóta mór in the dead of night unseen
I heaved a sigh and bade goodbye to dear old Skibbereen.

Oh father dear, the day will come when in answer to the call
All Irish men of freedom stern will rally one and all
I'll be the man to lead the band beneath the flag of green
And loud and clear we'll raise the cheer, Revenge for Skibbereen!   

 

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          Disban the EU 
                              by James Hannum

     EEH, long an opponent of the EU (European Union), in 2004 created the maxim "CULTURAL DIVERSITY REQUIRES INDEPENDENT ECONOMIES."  In the US the phrase "cultural diversity" is misused to mean the melting pot of emigrant cultures.  Melting pots melt their contents all together into grey slag; they rapidly assimilate and destroy the individual emigrant cultures, within one or two generations replacing them with the dominant monoculture.  For example, tens of millions of Americans today are of German descent, yet very few of them know much about German culture.  They have lost the language, literature, folklore, art, dance, woodcraft, history, and the thousand other things that their German ancestors brought to America.  Their immigrant [grand]parents adhered to German culture, but their descendants were Americanized.    

       The phrase "cultural diversity" in the above blue poster refers to the independent and diverse cultures of Europe (French, Dutch, Polish etc.) which are being systematically destroyed by the EU.  Culture is the glue which holds all true communities together.  Communities don't need global corporations and banks, "big box" stores, and 8-lane inter-provincial carriageways jammed with 18-wheel lorries hauling produce and goods hundreds of miles from cheaper foreign sweatshops and corporate plantations.  The EU and its masters, the globalists- financial elites, in order to increase their personal already gigantic incomes, must destroy and replace Europe's local communities, independent local economies, and the non-corporate farms, shops, craftsmen, and other businesses, which have done quite well all these centuries without globalization.  The EU's policy of cultural and economic homogenization is very bad for the people and sovereign countries of Europe.  

       In 2016 millions of Europeans began speaking out in anger, protesting against the EU policies.  Especially rankling was the EU forcing their countries to accept large numbers of "war refugees" from the Middle East.  First of all, it is the US and the EU that are the aggressors in the Middle East.  The people of Europe don't want those imperialistic oil wars, which make $Trillions in profit for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc.  When the US & EU conquered Iraq and Libya the US and EU people didn't receive any of the conquered oil, it was all stolen by the financial elites, who then sold it to the people, for a higher price per gallon than Iraq and Libya had been selling it.  

       Carpet bombing, invasion, and occupation causes "terrorists," i.e., those whose family members or spouses have been mass murdered by the US & EU military naturally want revenge and to expel the US & EU by force.  Second of all, only a small fraction of the "war refugees" are women, children, or older people, i.e., the people you would expect to be refugees.  In wartime all the young men are in the armies, either the national army or the "rebel" arm(ies) run by the US.  They are busy fighting and cannot emigrate.  It is the civilian population of women, children, and elderly, whom the young men send out of the country to protect them.  But that is not the case here.  The vast majority of the "war refugees" from the Middle East are healthy young men.  They come to Europe for higher paying jobs and for governmental benefits.  Later after they have established themselves they may send for their families.  

       This is how emigration has always been done.  The young men come first and bring their wife, children, siblings, cousins over as soon as they are able.  That's how America, Australia, and every other country has been populated by immigrants throughout history.  Europeans are increasingly realizing that the EU emigration policy, which the EU claims is for humanitarian reasons, is actually designed to aid in the continuing destruction of their diverse cultures and independent economies.  This is the reason why in 2016 the UK voted to exit the EU.  Hopefully other countries will soon follow the UK's example.

       If the EU were really humanitarian they would stop obediently aiding the United States in its imperialistic dronings, carpet bombings, helicopter gunship strafings, and bayonettings in the Middle East.  The word "Globalization" is an euphemism for imperialism.  

GLOBALIZATION DESTROYS ALL CULTURES  
 

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Deutsche Demokratische Republik [DDR]
[East Germany]
 

Undivided Germany, 1945:  

DDR (Communist East Germany), 1949 - 1990: 

 

       In the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or GDR, German Democratic Republic), the names for Communist East Germany, the State owned all land, factories, shops, houses, etc.  It wasn’t every man for himself, as it is now in the world. There was a strong feeling of camaraderie and collective identity. One knew one’s neighbors and would often help each other.  It was said that one's friends were true friends who could be counted on to help in all situations.  They were not shallow or "fair weather friends."  If shoes became available at a Berlin shop cross town, one woman who worked in, for example a brick factory, would somehow get off work, take the tram and buy a pair for every woman working in the brick factory.  Shoes were not often available in stores.  The people of East Germany hadn't much money and gadgets; this brought them together and they helped each other in ever so many ways.  

       There wasn't much television, and there were certainly no computers, internet, or smart phones.  These modern inventions divide people from each other.  Today a person may have 1,000 "friends" on FaceBook, but will not even know the names of people living in his apartment building, much less know who is getting married, who is sick, and who has that large pipe wrench everyone uses.  The Deutsche (German) Demokratische Republik (the DDR) had true communities where people lived together rather than in proud isolation.  

       The DDR lifestyle was destroyed by money-first, business-über-alles neo-liberalism when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.  Capitalistic competition and materialism divide people from each other.  In East Germany people lived in small cozy apartments, several families sharing the same kitchen and bathroom, often three generations of a family living together.  Almost no one had a car, which made the cities and towns much quieter, better air, and safer to walk in.  Cars isolate the people from each other, but pedestrian E. Germans knew their neighbors because they would always meet while walking on the streets. 

 
      

Above stamps:  "Working Class Fighters" -and- "National Rebuilding" [WW II damage]



Two families and the house in Schönwalde   
by Vanessa Stella Johnston

When Germany was reunified in 1990, many West Germans reclaimed properties they had lost under the GDR (German Democratic Republic, A.K.A. Communist East Ger-many). In 2006, my mother, Silke Sonntag, received a mysterious call saying that there was a property east of Berlin in Schönwalde, which might be claimed for her. "I thought there must have been some mistake," she later told me. My mother had only ever been in West Germany, where she emigrated from 23 years ago. East Germany had been like a foreign world that she knew existed, but barely thought about. 

It was later explained to us that the property was purchased by my great-great-grand-parents in 1933. As a Communist country, the GDR nationalized all property, which means they took it for "the People." This is how private ownership was abolished in the GDR. In 1953 the GDR assigned the house to Ernst Hartmann, and five generations of the Hartmann family occupied it for the next 55 years. No one in the GDR ever had to pay anything for their housing. In 1992, the German government begin looking for the owners of the property but was unable to find us. 

The reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 was sudden and unexpected. Not long after, the newly formed German government received 2.3 million applications from West Germans for the restitution of real estate that the GDR had nationalized. The re-unified government announced several deadlines to file claims over the years, but each of them was extended. Many properties are unclaimed because of the millions of owners who perished during World War II, the millions more who moved within the GDR and Soviet Bloc during the 43 years of GDR rule, and the millions who departed the GDR after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. 

At the end of our claim process in 2008 we went to have a meeting with the Hartmanns at our family's house in Schönwalde, where they have resided all these years. As we walked up to the house from the train station I asked my mother whether she felt sorry for the Hartmann family having to give up the house. "No, not at all," she replied, "they never paid a penny for it and they've had 50 years of free rent!"  The Hartmanns were waiting for us at the gate. 

              Erhard Hartmann and Vanessa Johnston at the house in Schönwalde