Nov 10, 2024
On this date, 86 years ago, my father, his parents, his grandmother, and his uncle escaped across the border to Holland.
Today, we followed the same path. I’ve followed this path before. But this time I am with all my kids. Here are some highlights:
-We walked across the border on Millingseweg into Megchelen. This was the same spot as my family of 1938 ran across. We noticed the border marker, a stone pillar about two feet high (see photo, #1), had some large divots. We soon learned that these were from bullets during the war.
-About a half mile up the road, we stopped at the 1938 address of the baker, Jan Düking, where my family had been arrested. I read aloud the police report about the arrest (see photo, #5, for my father’s English translation).
-Next, we were invited for coffee at Ursula’s home (Betje in the book) in Megchelen. Ursula is the person who had confirmed the border crossing location for us in 2019. I got to practice my Nederlands (Dutch) as we sipped coffee, ate an apple pastry, and enjoyed conversation. We learned that one of the crops in the area is rapeseed. The rapeseed flowers seem to be in full bloom now. We also learned that the word for clove (the spice) is nagel which translates to “nail” because of its pointy end! I love the things one can learn in conversations with a small group of people.
-We drove a few minutes to Gendringen to meet Peter and Hetty for lunch. Peter, the former town archivist, had met my father in the Gendringen town hall in 1991, where my father obtained the aforementioned police report. There is a series of *a-mazing* *coincidences* around Peter’s meeting my father and also my finding Peter. Maybe one day I’ll write a post just about these stories.
-Peter toured us around Gendringen and showed us the places my family stayed, that I knew I didn’t have quite right in the book. These places were among the few locations I wasn’t certain about, until today. The downtown was only a one-block area and included:
- Het Posthuis. Behind the windows on the top floor is where my family was held under house arrest (see photo #2).
- The Spier home location. This is where my father lived for a few months.
- The Cussel home location at the Bringenborg. I believe my great-grandmother stayed here (see worn etching of it in a nearby plaque, photo #4).
- The synagogue site where there is now a driveway.
-At the Gendringen synagogue site is a new plaque (see photo #3) commemorating Jewish people from Gendringen murdered during the Holocaust. My grandfather, Moritz Stern, and uncle, Kurt Herzfeld, had only lived in this town for six months, and it was well before the Nazis had invaded. Yet, their names were on the memorial. I knew this was in the works, but didn’t know where it was until Peter showed us.
We couldn’t do everything on our itinerary (you might know my tendency to over-schedule) and needed to rest a little before our evening events. No matter, the sites we saw and conversations we had were so special and meaningful. For me, it was much less sad than the last times. This time (and I’m simplifying here), I was filled with joy and purpose to be able to share this experience in person with my adult kids.
Photos: Clockwise from top left: 1. border crossing from Germany into Megchelen, Netherlands; 2. top floor of Het Posthuis in Gendringen, where my family were kept under police protection; 3. shadows of three of us in the inscription at the site of the former synagogue in Gendringen; 4. plaque depicting the Bringenborg in Gendringen; 5. police report translated by my father.
