Dipping my toes in.

Today, I thought, would be spent visiting more family and going about the city.  Instead, it turned into a lovely relaxing day.  Maia and I stayed at my aunt's house this afternoon while my mom and dad were out running errands.  Though I promised myself that I would take a break till June 1st, the boxes and my desk were screaming my name. My aunt Elena and I stayed up late talking last night, and we decided to just take a peek at the boxes.  I immediately got chocked up.  So today, as Maia took a nap, I decided to dip my feet into the pool of history that is in these 4 boxes. I soon realized it is a lot more than I thought.  The paper, isn't just regular paper, it is what I call "bible paper."  The writing is either typed out by a type writer, script, old German, scribbles, or even morse code.  The years range from the 1900's to 2000's.  The next thing I realized is that my grandmother has helped me out a lot already, it is as if she knew I would be doing this.  She left all of her letters, documents, and pictures very organized and labeled. It is crazy...

The millions of letters and pictures begin, box 1

 The first folder I opened included letters that she wrote (but never sent) during the late 30s and early 40s to her best friend Hannele, who was still in Germany.  Here, I first saw a letter writen  in the 90's where she tells her friend that she has attached all the letters she had sent her and her mother.  Then she goes on to attach a guide with the year, place, and topic of each letter. This was a bit too much already.  The letters kept coming, I found diaries, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, etc.  There are even copies of every email she sent me, every chat we had on msn, and then copies of every note.  Following, I found emails she wrote to my dad, my dad's sister, and my mom with stories about her childhood, etc. There are pictures, videos, and documents from 1900s ... (I found one huge picture of her and placed it on the desk to have.)

A picture of my grandfather (dad's dad) and my grandmother (mom's mom) watching me on my desk.

looking through box 2

I truly don't even know where to start.  I saw my cousin German today, who told me he still has an interview that he did with her for school.  Then, my mom informed me that she has a recorded interview that was on the radio in 1995.  All of that will be used, as well as my aunt Marianne's wonderful memory. 

Mountains of letters

When my aunt came home, she informed me that she had 2 patients today who were survivors of 5 different concentration camps. As she told me the story, and my mom and I looked through letters, it was hard for the three of us not to tear up. After some intense hours of reading and organizing, we left for Atlantida where we got to see my aunts new house.  Atlantida is magic! After the rush of the city, the quietness and peacefulness is lovely! 

Fun fact:  My dad was at the national archive all day researching for his disertation.  We had no contact with him.  At some point during the day my mom decided to go get coffee at some random place in this city of 1.5 million.  She tried to pay with her card, it didn't take it.  The lady said, "wow, a man tried to pay with one like that today, and it wouldn't work either.:"  She tried her other card, to which the woman said, "wow, the other man tried to use that card too."  Turns out that "that man" was none other than my father.  This wouldn't be surprising in our little town, but here, we all got a kick out of it. 

Another fun story, is Maia at the "doctor" today, but I'll get her to write the story, because I was not there.