20 September 2008

It's time to leave Brake and go to Hamburg where we will meet Hannah. But first, breakfast and packing the car.

When we got to breakfast Edith handed me a note where she had written some information. She got a call at 10:30 P.M., she was already in bed, from Liesel Roggenbuck. (Who?) It seems that Liesel lives in Koln (Cologne) and somehow saw the article about me. She was a neighbor that I played with as a child and was glad to hear about me because she always wondered what happened to our family. I was overwhelmed!

Then it was time for the luggage to be packed. Remember that message that came on in the car that I wrote about yesterday? When the "boys" were ready to load the car, it was listing a little. Seems we had a flat. Manfred took the tire to a repair shop and who knows what they did with it. I sure don't, but it got fixed with the spare until we returned to the shop for the REAL fix. When all was well I asked how much it cost and the man said, in German while walking away, something like I wouldn't charge you. I read about you in the paper and it was my pleasure to help.

Before we left the Ambiente Edith got another phone call and handed the phone to me. It was from the daughter of a 90+ year old woman who told her daughter to call me and tell me that she worked for Opa. She then asked me for my email address, which I started to give her. Then she asked me if I could write it down and leave it at the Ambiente for her to get later. I should have written her name down because my mind is a leaky sieve. I'm so sorry I haven't heard from her, yet.

Who knew we would have all these surprise contacts and acts of kindness? If we have the opportunity to visit again, I'm going to take out a full page ad for the first day I visit. What a fun and emotional visit this was. We were reassured because we saw that the Germans are taking ownership for the Holocaust. They DO talk about it. Funny, I haven't thought about it, but in 2000 when we went to The Passion Play, we visited Dachau and someone told our young guide that our family had to leave Germany. She tried to talk to me about it, but at that point I wasn't able to share. I wonder if that's what really started to open my heart about beginning to think about perhaps visiting Brake someday? I'm so glad I came for this most wonderful visit!