Postcards From Home

In 1956 my parents left Germany to emigrate to Canada. My fathers parents and siblings were in Wiesbaden and my Mothers family were left behind in Greifswald on the Baltic coast. Reunification was unheard of in those days and my parents were not the only immigrants to leave family behind.

My Mother never saw her parents again. They both died before there was either money or opportunity to go back. For my Father it was easier to go home but for my Mother, the Berlin Wall interfered. I have also never been to my Mothers birthplace and thus far have only met one cousin from her side of the family and that only happened because he came to visit us.

Yesterday I made a stab of clearing out a little more stuff from my Mom's room which has been incredibly difficult for me. Since her death in May of last year I attempt this from time to time but mostly I just walk into the room, look around and walk out again. Yesterday I found the postcards.

These are some of the postcards that my parents received from home. Cards from mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters and sad to say I can't read them. I read and write German passably but these are written in something called Suetterlin Script which hasn't been taught in schools since 1941 just a little before my time.


There are postcards from all the places any of us ever visited and some that I wrote to my parents from both Germany (where I spent 3 months when I was 16) and from my time in Montreal. They were all kept in neat little packaged with elastic bands around them.

For both my offspring and me it was almost a joke, "don't bring souvenirs, just bring postcards" was what she always said. The postcards that hold the most importance to me though, are the old ones. There are postcards from war time when my father wrote to his parents from the hospital where he (fortunately) sat out the war, and there are postcards from him to my Mom when they were courting. Fascinating stuff, now I just have to find the time to decipher them.

This is what else I found...
My Mom had three great grandsons plus the new granddaughter who was born one month before her death and sadly she never got to meet. The three great grandsons though, when they were young made all their own greeting cards. Birthdays, valentines, get well cards, you name it and they made them. My Mom kept every single card those boys ever made for her. Finding that stash took my breath away and brought tears. In fact I'm still crying. I'm going to pack these up and send them to the boys so they will know how much they meant to her, not that they ever doubted it. And Mom, she would have said to me, "weine nicht mein kind", don't cry my child...I'm trying not to, Mom.