You find the darndest things in the Stumpp book.[1] It’s a classic and almost beloved reference work for those researching their German ancestors who settled in the Russian Empire. It’s also infuriating for its gaps and sometimes just plain wrong information. And then other times, it’s…well…quirky. Lists of Odessa City Germans When Glueckstal researcher Tom […Read more]
I’m an explorer. Whether it’s traveling to explore ancestral towns, traveling to explore new places with friends and family, checking out new hiking trails in the mountains, or simply trying a new restaurant in my neighborhood, my life is all about being out and about. So being in lockdown for weeks, with no known end […Read more]
My reason for being in Ukraine became abundantly clear in a rundown bar on a Sunday morning in Odessa. I was serving as an international observer at Ukraine’s first parliamentary election after the Maidan Revolution had toppled the corrupt, Putin-puppet president eight months earlier. My observation partner, Kevin, and I had started the day early, […Read more]
There was joy. There was singing and dancing and borscht. There was violence and death. Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution was a complex progression of populist protest, community gathering, and deadly serious revolution that cost people their lives. Counting Sheep, the interactive “guerrilla folk opera,” brilliantly portrays Ukrainians’ hopes for a better future as they stand up […Read more]
I am an idiot. In the space of about 18 hours, I participated in two demonstrations (one in pouring rain), tweeted about both, participated in a Twitter storm (an online protest), wrote emails to my senators and congressional representative, and prayed for Nadiya Savchenko. Nadiya is a woman to admire—a pilot who was the first […Read more]
“I’m dying.” –Tweet from a 21-year-old volunteer medic, Olesya Zhukovskaya, February 20, 2014. This update was the first thing I saw in my Facebook feed that morning two years ago. I’d woken up determined to cut back on my obsessive reading of news about Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution. Since the day in November 2013 when brutal […Read more]
This is the final of 6 blog posts on my grandfather’s home village of Hoffnungstal, Bessarabia (now Ukraine). Resettlement to Poland The areas of West Prussia and Posen/Warthegau in northern and western Poland had been directly annexed to Germany. By the first part of 1941, the SS had expelled close to 400,000 Poles from their […Read more]
This is part 5 of 6 blog posts on my grandfather’s home village of Hoffnungstal, Bessarabia (now Ukraine). The beginning of the end … leaving Bessarabia The year 1940 was a major turning point in the history and life of the Bessarabian villages, including Hoffnungstal. As part of the Versailles Treaty after WWI, Bessarabia had […Read more]
This is part 4 of 6 blog posts on my grandfather’s home village of Hoffnungstal, Bessarabia (now Ukraine). Celebrations Memories of life in Hoffnungstal include much hard agricultural work. But there are also many stories of dances in the fall on the empty threshing areas with the musicians playing “zippy” dance music, the young men […Read more]
This is part 3 of 6 blog posts on my grandfather’s home village of Hoffnungstal, Bessarabia (now Ukraine). Education and the legendary teacher, Leopold Roßmann Until 1858, there was no schoolhouse or teacher in Hoffnungstal. Children attended school in a farmhouse and the teachers were those farmers who were knowledgeable in reading and writing. Once […Read more]