Funny thing I’m doing today.
Emailing the Dachau Memorial Library located at the site of the former camp. Sending them the names of my grandparents and their birthdates.
Sounds simpler than it is.
Had to find their birth certificates since I don’t even know their official names, nevermind their birthdays. On top of that, the paper for my grandfather are in Polish and those for my grandmother in German.
But what a surprise the prowess of Google Translator. It actually updates and changes the translation as you add more text.
Anyway, I’ve found a few interesting things along the way. First of all, I had no idea that my grandmother’s birthday is only one day after mine! Wow. Just these silly little things that I never knew.
The certificates have the towns where my grandparents were born in Poland and Austria respectively. Again, I had no idea and isn’t it strange the wonder of Google – I used google maps to find where those towns are located and it was not without a little bit of happiness that I discovered my grandmother’s birthplace is only a two and half hour drive from Munich!
I am still wondering though what town it was that my grandparents met in. I don’t know that yet.
I also found it strange that though my grandmother was born in 1916, that the birth certificate my mother provided for me is actually from November 16, 1942. This led me to try and get a feel for what the heck was going on around the time in the region my grandparents were located – of course, I still don’t know the dates they were at the camp so I can’t figure out what was going on geographical for them at this date.
I do know that they were out of the camp then because I believe their first post concentration camp child was born in 1941.
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