Libbe remembers being told that Dad was sent overseas when she was 10 months old. That would be in January of 1945, shortly after the Battle of the Bulge, known in German as the Ardennenoffensive.
Up until that time, Dad had been a "critically needed specialist", doing psychological testing on soldiers to learn if they were fit for combat duty. However with the great losses of manpower after the battle, it turned out that Dad's body was more valuable than his psychology skills. Family lore suggests that his politics might have added to the decision to send him overseas.
Dad did not tell many stories of his combat experiences, but he did come back with a number of photographs. This one was from after the war, while he was stationed in Munich. He was about 30 years old at the time.
Many years later (around 1980), he and Mom had the opportunity to travel to Europe and they returned to Munich... where he had the following photo taken.
I hoped to find the same intersection on our trip.
As it turned out, while in Munich, preparing to search for the intersection I saw a sign reading "Freising". For some reason that sign triggered a memory in me that the photo was actually taken in Freising and not in Munich (which makes sense, because one of the road signs indicates that it is 36 KM from Munich).
Sunday morning Debbie and I drove to Freising and found a location to stop for breakfast. We happened to be in the "new" town at a park beside a church across the street from a little hotel and cafe. As Debbie prepared breakfast, I took the two photographs with me to the hotel to ask if anyone there could identify the intersection. As it turns out, the hotel Am Klostergarten, is owned by a married couple, a bit younger than I. Josef Petz the owner was there with his wife. She knows English well enough to be the interpreter and Josef was born and raised in Freising.
How do you explain, as the child of the "victor" in a war, that you are looking for "souvenirs" of that war (that happened before each of you were born) without making those with whom you're talking uncomfortable about having lost?
After looking at the two photos Josef excitedly determined that they are not of the same intersection, but he did recognize the earlier one and he pointed it out on the little map of town that the hotel gives out to visitors. He drew a schematic representation of the intersection for me. As a tiny token of my appreciation I gave them one of the pocket blessings by Laurie Gross we were keeping for just such occasions. After breakfast, Debbie and I set out on the kilometer drive to the location.
Dad's 1980 (?) photo is probably not at the intersection (as can be seen by the cornices); the actual intersection is at Oberehauptstrasse and Ziegelgasse looking south, down Bahnhoffstrasse.
I'm standing holding the photograph of my father standing at that same location taken approximately 61 years earlier.
The entire area has been completely renovated and made into a "gentrified" shopping mall.
The collage is a view from my position in the photograph, beginning at "six" and continuing "clockwise" to "midnight".
|
|
|
|
||
