Elfrieda's relatives from Kazakhstan

We are now in Alfeld (Leine) south of Hanover where Elfrieda's cousin, Lena lives. Lena is the daughter of Elfrieda's aunt who lived in Frunse, Kirgizia. her aunt was born in Sergejewka, Fürestenland near Zapoizhe in south Ukriane. Lena has three married daughters, and about 10 grandchildren. Lena's sister, Katja, lives in another city, and may show up later today.

We are staying with Elvira and Walter Friesen and their children, Tanya and Eddy. Walter picked us up at the train station at noon yesterday (friday) and we visited with Elvira, Tanya and Eddy as Walter had to go to work (afternoon shift).

We spent the evening exchanging stories, and visiting. We found out that Tatanja, who has just finished school, wants to be a nurse, and she has volunteered to go to a mission in Kazakhstan to get some hands on experience.

This morning, Saturday, after a wonderful breakfast, Walter and I did some shopping. We expect many many relatives and friends to show up this afternoon for an Emfang. As the noise level has just gone up from downstairs, the first ones must have just arrived, so I will post this go downstairs.

On to Netschkau, Plauen, Moeschwitz & Treuen

Pictures follow:
1. Golschtalbrücke near the Ketzel Mühle
2. Gerhard and Dave at the Plauen lookout
3. With the Heinz brothers at Möschwitz
4. On our way through Wetzelsgrün, where the Bauer and Seidel ancestors lived
5. After hard research, relaxing at a famous Eis Cafe in Treuen.







May 28th
After leaving Werdau, we headed to Ketzel Mühle next to the Goltschtalbrücke, the largest bridge in the world tht is made from bricks. We were warmly greeted by Adreas Ketzel, and we decided to sit down and have a drink and to take in the view. We had a nice visit with our fifth cousin, took some pictures and headed on towards Plauen, the city where Gerhard was born.

On arrival in Plauen we booked into the Schweizerstube Hotel, and then headed out for a tour of Plauen. We saw where Gerhard was born, where he went to school and then we went to the lookout to get a good view of the city. We also made a relaxing stop at Ziggy's Kleingarten (Gerhard's brother).

Afterwards we went back to our hotel for a meal with Andrea and Andre Harnisch. We discussed plans for the morning and where we would meet.

Next day (May 29th) Andrea picked us up to go to the village of Möschwitz where our (Gerhard u David) mutual ggrandmother, Wilhelmine Ketzel was born in 1843, but first Andrea wanted to take us to Tobertitz, a village where my Glück ggrandmother & gggrandfather had lived. A local couple told us about the farm where the Glücks had lived. On our way to Möschwitz we also drove past the Elsterbrücke, another smaller version of the large one we had seen in Netschkau. On arrival in Möschwitz we were heartily greeted by the two Heinz brothers and their wives, and as we sat in the back garden, Andrea (using her laptop) explained how we are all connected (3rd cousins).

We then had lunch together in the local Gasthaus before moving on the the Treuen Pfarramt where Andrea helped with research using the old church books. Without her expertise it would have been impossible to get so much information so quickly. Later Gerhard and Marita showed up and we had treats in a local Eis Cafe. The town of Treuen is only 3 kilometers away from where Marita grew up and where her parents live.

Later we said our goodbyes and our thanks to Andrea, and headed off for Leipzig where we had dinner in a local restaurant close to the new lake being created out of the abandoned coal mines from DDR times. We went back to their apartment to do our packing for next day's departure for Alfeld.

First to Werdau, birthplace of my Grandmother

Pictures above are:
1. City Hall on Market Square
2. View of Lutheran Church from City Hall Tower
3. Mayor Dittrich (centre) with Gerhard and Marita

Our destination today, May 28th, is Vogtland in Saxony - a beautiful part of Germany. Gently rolling hills covered in crops of many colours, with wooded areas and rivers, surround the beautiful towns and villages, with attractive older buildings - some going back centuries.

We left Leipzig and headed south towards Werdau where my Grandmother Hedwig Lina Bauer was born in 1875. She was the oldest sister to Ernst Bauer, grandfather to Gerhard Sarunskis, my second cousin who with his wife, Marita, was hosting our visit. We arrived in Werdau around noon, and after showing Gerhard and Marita some places where our ancestors had lived, we headed for City Hall hoping to make a courtesy call, and to take Grhard & Marita to the rooftop lookout where one can get a great overview of the city. Alas, I had forgotten that City Hall is closed on Wednesday afternoons, so we went to an outdoor cafe to order some local fare for lunch. As we waited, a man walked by and Elfrieda said, "Isn't that the Mayor? We met him last time, didn't we?"

As he had gone inside the restaurant, I went to look, and noticed that he was sitting alone and busily reading so I decided not to disturb him. But as he passed by us outside, he had said 'Hello' so I figured he either had to be a politician, or had actually recognized us from 2006.

Later as he came out and headed towards City Hall, he again passed our table, and this time we said hello, and then asked if he was indeed the mayor. He said yes, and that he remembered us. After chatting a couple of minutes, I decided to practice my chutzpah, and so I told him of our desire to go to the City Hall look-out. He said if you can be at my office in about five minutes, I will be glad to take you there.

We hurried our mealtime, paid our bill and headed for City Hall up the street. We bypassed the front desk and went straight to the second floor and opened the door to his outer office. In no time he came out, and we headed up the tower. He told us that his time as mayor was coming to an end in June, and that over the years he has enjoyed taking school children to the top of the tower. We got the $1000 dollar tour, and he answered many of Gerhard's questions, by giving a lot of interesting history of Werdau. On the way up he had showed us the tower clock mechanism.

We took some pictures, and then headed downstairs where Mayor Volkmar Dittrich wished us a pleasant stay and safe journey through Vogtland.

Our day with Gerhard & Marita

Chess set of Meissen porcelain

View of Meissen from across the River Elbe

View of Elbe River from the height of land by the church

The church in Miessen


We woke up after a goodnight's sleep, and Gerhard and Marita arrived from their Kleingarten Hauschen to have breakfast with us - a tasty mixture of European and Canadian styles prepared by Marita. Gerhard is my second cousin on my mother's side. My maternal grandmother and Gerhard's grandfather were brother and sister, and the origin of the family is Vogtland, Saxony. After breakfast we headed off in his car, a 2007 BMW, heading south-west toward Dresden. As we had been to Dresden on the last trip in 2006, they suggested we spend the day in Meissen, and it turned out to be an excellent choice. It took us an hour or so to get there; as we were on the Autobahn, Gerhard went fast when it was safe to do so. Once or twice the speedometer hit 220 K per hour - and Elfrieda didn't say a thing!!! Perhaps she was in shock.

On arriving in Meissen we decided to start with the porcelain museum, as Meissen is the first place in Europe that made porcelain. We were very impressed with the tour. Elfrieda and I received headsets that gave everything in English simultaneously with whatever was happening. The tour explained the history of porcelain development in Europe, and how porcelain is made in Meissen today. I was allowed to take photos as long as there was no flash, and I got some good ones. As we went through the presentation areas there were people demostrating each stage of the porcelain process. We were surprised by how much of the work is done by had, and is such detail. Next we toured the display of thousands of samples, all of them truly amazing. We bought nothing from the giftshop, as the prices were beyond our range, and we wondered how to get it home.

Next we headed off south along the Elbe River to find place to eat. This is the wine district, and we were tempted to take in some wine sampling, but chose not to do so as time was limited. We stopped at Neumann's Dampfschiff to have lunch. As they had a whole page of specials using recepees that incude fresh asparagas, we all ordered from that page, and were happy with the experience. The person who served us was the co-owner, Anna Rosa Neumann. She was very friendly, and their business included a restaurant and a Gasthaus.. We then headed back to Meissen to experience the ambience of the old city. It has an amazing stock of older heritage buildings, and we heard about how the city was spared destruction during the war. Towards the end of the war, a Meissen leader surrendered the city to avoid its destruction. Hitler had issued an order to have him killed, but it never happened as the war was drawing to a close and the officials had more pressing things to attend to. Consequently, Meissen has a wonderful building heritage to present to the visitor. We wandered through the cobbled streets, and heard a children's choir singing to raise money for those affected by recent disasters in Myanmar and China. We saw many shops and businesses, including cafes and restaurants.

After a while we climbed the cobbled streets upwards toward the Dom (cathedral) now a Lutheran church. We spent a lot of time touring the church and enjoying the view of the Elbe River and the town from that height.

We then found our way back to the car and headed back to Leipzig where Gerhard and Maita took us to a restaurant in the village of Stoermthal (literally, stormy valley)right next to where the new lakes being formed from the abandoned DDR coal mines are emerging. The Stoermthal Restaurant and Gasthaus has good service, tasty food and reasonable prices. Before heading back for our night sleep we stopped at their garden to appreciate the hard work they had put into it, and it was beautifully laid out and growing well - very beautiful, orderly and clean.

Part of the day today involved setting our plans for Wednesday and Thursday: we will head for Vogtland and will stay overnight in Plauen. Stay tuned.

Travel Day - leaving Ukraine for Germany

Our day in Kiev


After a wonderful day in Kiev, we moved on to start our tour of Germany. Alex and Don drove us to the Kiev airport. We shared the ride with Michael & Anita from England, the others having left much earlier that morning for flights to the United States and Canada. Don is staying on in Zhitomir to work on matters related to the Samaritan Mission in Ukraine. We arrived at the airport at 10:30 am, in plenty of time for our 2:05 pm flight to Frankfurt. Our flight to Frankfurt was a bit delayed, and that meant a very rushed transition to catch our plane to Leipzig - running here and there and up and down steps to get to our departure gate. The Franfurt airport is very large!!!

We got to Leipzig 10 minutes late, and finally met Gerhard. We got a ride in his new BMW from the airport to his house. On the way he stopped at the Leipzig Halle Messe (Trade Show Centre), one of the largest in Germany. We had a great visit, and a wonderful rolladen meal that Marita had prepared. We made some tentative plans for the next 3 days as our next travel day will be on Friday to Alfeld (Leine) to see Elfrieda's relatives.


Note: Elfrieda managed the 170k per hour on the autobahn into Leipzig. We barely noticed that the new BMW was going that fast.

Kiev Day - our last full day in Ukraine

We left Zhitomir for Kiev early in the morning and had our breakfast on the bus. The plan was to see as much as possible in the one day that we had available, as everyone was flying out the next morning.

Alex, our interpreter, informed us that we had arrived there on Kiev Day. It's a day to celebrate Kiev as a city, and it also happened to be election day. On arrival it was decided to start our tour at the Kiev Lavra Monestary started over a thousand years ago in caves. Kiev Pechersk Lavra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it was a good place to start our tour of Ukraine's capital city. Here's what it looked like at the entrance.

We were assigned a tour guide for our group. Her name was Olga, and her English was very good.

Church of the Saviour at Berestove

The Great Lavra Bell Tower

One of many churches

A view towards the Dnieper River. Down and to the left are the caves. We did not have time to see them.

A large number of tours and tourists are all around.

The beginning of what Don called St Andrew's Descent. The street from the city centre to the river is closed to traffic, and literally hundreds of peddlers and artsy booths are there.

The church after which this experience is named: St Andreyevsyi Descent to the river

We bought a few things here, but never had time to make it all the way down to the river.

Here we are on that famous square.

Some of our tour group rest up in front of a monument.

Here's a contrast. We had lunch at MacDonald's! It was fast.

A view of the magnificent Dnieper River. I wanted to see it because my Dad had worked on the big Hydro Electric dam project in the late 1920s just before he left for Canada in 1929. That was ,of course, much farther south.

We decide to take a river cruise, and guess what? The name of the boat is Ostrowkiy - almost the same as the name of the village in Volhynia where the Neumanns lived.

Some of our group are lined up for the tour.

A view of the skyline. The massive statue is the WWII Monument built by the Soviets. there was a controversy about the fact that it would be taller than the church spires associated with the Lavra Monestary, and we were told that the planning was altered to make it a little shorter than the monestary.




Elfrieda poses in front of a beautiful tree on the square

Getting ready for tonight's big concert.

Scene on the square

Kiev Opera House

This was the scene from our hotel window. A WWII monument. If you look closely, you will see 1941 (in red) on a building on the left side, just under the roof, and 1945 on the right side (under the word 'Shake.' For the Russians WWII (soviets) the world war started when Hitler invaded the USSR, not when Hitler and Stalin both invaded Poland by agreement. This picture was taken in the morning just before we left for the airport to start our trip to Germany. Double click on the picture. That may help.

A typical day on the Volhynian Villages Adventure Tour.

Don Miller briefing our group on the first day.

Zhitomir is a city of about 300,000 population. It happens to be the place my father secured his final permission to leave the USSR in the spring of 1929. He and his wife, Adolina, crossed the border and sailed from Lithuania to Liverpool, landing in Quebec City, before taking that long train ride to Saskatchewan.

Our base of operation for the Volhynian Villages Tour is the Ukraine Hotel here in Zhitomir (about 3 hours westerly from Kiew.) Each day starts out with breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

The main desk gives out vouchers for each member of the group for our breakfasts. Don Miller gives them to me, and I hand them out to group members. Each day we start with a small plate of cheese, jam and butter. There is bread on the table. We then are served our 'main plate' the same for all of us. One day we get kashe (soft warm buckwheat) and suasage, the next we get two eggs sunny side up, then the next, doughy dumplings with meat, after that rolled pancakes (bliney) with a stuffing of jam or cottage cheese. This rotation then starts over. We each get one beverage, so you have to choose: juice, water, tea, or coffee (instant only). It seems that once we have each selected our beverage the first time, that's what we get each day thereafter. On the first day I asked for coffee, having already had my juice, and was given a bill for the extra.

We were told by Don not to drink the water that comes from the taps in our rooms. On the first day we were each give a bottle of water and we marked these with our initials. After that we refilled the bottle from a larger bottle with a pump on it. This was kept supplied by Don and his staff. Water is also taken with us in the van.
After breakfast we have 15 minutes to be ready for boarding the van (a large Mercedes van that seats about 20 people).

Each day an itinerary is selected from the requests put forward by the members of the tour group (12). Don Miller accompanies us on all excursions, and with him we have a driver and an interpeter/guide. As we travel along we frequently stop if there are interesting things to photograph, such as a train station or a woman milking a cow along the road.

When there is full attendance, there are 15 in the group: twelve tour members, plus Don Miller, the driver, and the interpreter. Don's key assistant for these tours is Alex. The destinations each day are villages that have some meaning for one or two of the group members, and as we start out those members (sitting near the front) give a brief overview of what we are looking for and how it relates to their family history. We have a general idea of direction, but the Ukrainian GPS system appears to to consist of stopping and asking someone by the roadside. One of our interpreters told us that there is an expression in Ukraine: "anyone can find their way to Kiew, just stop and ask along the way."

When we get to our destination village, we also stop to ask directions to find the locations for a church (former church site), a school (former school site) or cemetary; sometimes to help find where a certain farmstead was. We also ask who the oldest people are in the village who have lived there from birth or at least for a long time. One of our interpreters wanted to say that we are now close enough to start asking for older people to help us, and said, 'now it is time to seek for an old liver'. From then on, that became the expression - time to find an old liver.
Dave with two 'old livers'.

Sometime between 12 noon and 1 pm we seek out a spot along the way to have our lunch by the side of the road.

It should be where there is room to pull over, where there is some shade and a spot to set up our small buffet table. The spot should also be close to some bushes - actually two bushy areas, one for men and one for women.

In some places, where we are in a larger village or small town, we seek out the administrative centre, and ask to meet with an official to give us some history of the area, or to answer our questions. Where this has happened, it has worked out very well. Generally in a village we look for school, church and cemetary sites, and try to interview people who know something about the area.
Alex, Don's assistant, and our main interpreter and guide, holds up a map created by the Deputy Mayor of Emilchen. This is the result of his research; the yellow areas show where villages were removed to make way for collective farms in the Emilchen region.

As most of the people in our group are decsendants of German settlers or homesteaders from the 19th and early 20th century, we would ask about villagers' recollections from or about that era. In the case of older members of our group, they can recall being at some of the sites we have been to. The oldest member of our group is 88 and the youngest about 30.

It's not always easy to find the villages we are looking for. Every village has gone through several name changes over the years, and sometimes entire villages have dissappeared - most often because of the collectivization that occurred in the 1930s, where houses were torn down or moved to make way for large collective farms. All over the rural areas we travelled through we saw the abandonned buildings of the collective farm operations that ceased functioning right after Ukrainian independence in the early 1990s.

Once we have completed our goals for the day, we head back to Zhitomir. Sometimes we will have our evening meal at a restuarant along the way, or back at our hotel, or at another restaurant in Zhitomir. The evening meals have been varied, and the food was very good.

After the meal is done we head for our rooms to get rested up for the next day. If it is still early enough, we sometimes go for a walk, or head to Don Miller's office to use his computers to check our e-mail, and to send out e-mail messages.


There was a three day period when Zhitomir was without any water as the system was being upgraded. In addition to the drinking water supplied by Don Miller, the hotel provided buckets of water for 'flushing'. We learned how to get by on very little water, but it wasn't so bad for us because we were away on our day trips for long hours, and only had to deal with the water stoppage in the evenings, at night, and during the morning preparation times. It was a pleasant surprise when we arrived back in Zhitomir after our Sunday touring, to find that the water had been turned back on a day early. Ah! - but then we found out that hot water did not appear for another day or so. Some courageous people took cold showers.

Tour of Zhitomir

The city of Zhitomir lies about 180 kilometers west of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The drive takes almost 3 hours, and we took that journey the evening after the long flight from Toronto on May 13th. Zhitomir has a population of about 250,000. We stayed at the Hotel Ukraine for 13 nights, and mostly did day trips seeking out ancestral villages requested by members of our tour group of 12 persons from Canada, USA and Britain. All of us had one thing in common - an interest in researching family history relating to the time our ancestors had lived in Volhynia.

On May 22nd we had a short tour of some of the highlights of the City of Zhitomir. Alex, Don Miller's assistnat, led the tour. He started with a height of land that marked the founding of the city by the leader of a Slavic tribe known as the Drevlians.

This Orthodox church was turned into a natural history museum in Soviet times. Today there are demands for it to be returned to the church. Ah! - but who is the rightful owner? the Bishop in Russia or in Kiev?

This picture shows part of the area where the annual Ashkenaz Jewish festival is held each year in Zhitomir. People come from many parts of the world.

The Roman Catholic Church of St. Sofia is nearby.

An adjacent construction site illustrates the different techniques used here.

Inside St Sofia's church, Alex reveals secrets about the caves that lie below. This is one place he explored and played with his friends during his childhood. During war and revolutionary times, people hid out in these caves.

We are looking at the remains of a building that became a temporary prison for thousands arrested during the Great Terror under Stalin. Many were shot in the back of the head and buried in mass graves.

This is a centre for Polish culture in Zhitomir. Later we ate dinner here and had a short tour of the facility. It was of great interest - especially for two of our group members, Anita and Michael Wasilewski.

We are approaching the monument marking the victory of the Russian Soviet troops over the Nazis in Zhitomir in 1944.

Alex explains how every battalion is listed on the monument (behind his legs). You can see how massive this monument is.

Looking away from the monument towards the River Teterev.

A local artist paints the river scene including the dam and water above the dam.

Two goats skip and play, and sometimes stop to graze in the shadow of the monument.

Looking up toward the height of land on which the monument is built.

We stopped to see the former Lutheran Church in Zhitomir. Most of the German settlers who came to Volhynia in the 19th century were Lutheran.

This large Evangelische church (Lutheran) in Zhitomir was closed for many years. In our time it has re-opened as a Baptist Church.

Here is the Zhitomir memorial to the millions who died in the massive starvation of 1932-33. Many believe there is evidence that it was a calculated effort to enforce collectivization of agriculture, and any who resisted in any way, or were even suspected, paid the price with their lives or by being exiled. Will the world finally recognize that this was indeed a holocaust? Ukraine is waiting to see.

Our group stopped for our evening meal at the Polish Cultural Centre.

Behind the centre one can see the ravine where many tried to hide from the KGB during the years of terror.

Michael and Anita Wasilewski (brother and sister) pause for a picture inside the Polish Cultural Centre. Their father was born in a Polish village in Volhynia. They came looking for their lost family history and found a new extended family of relatives who sought them out from as far away as Kazakhstan.