On December twentieth, my family flew from Atlanta to Copenhagen before boarding a connecting flight to Hamburg, Germany where we would then drive three hours to a small, picturesque winter town known as Goslar to visit my mother’s extended family. We decided as a family to take a trip to northern Germany over winter break because my mother’s father was from Germany and due to him being five years old when World War II ended, he never went back which discouraged my mother from visiting as a young adult. When my grandfather was twenty-one years old, he traveled by boat to New York where he met his two older sisters that had moved to North Carolina after marrying U.S. soldiers that had been originally stationed in my grandfather’s home town of Bremen after the war. His sisters sponsored him to stay in America where he made a living as a talented welder, even being commissioned to make products for the U.S. Navy before eventually meeting my grandmother one night while dancing.
My grandfather refused to teach my mother Deutsch because he believed it would hinder her learning English at school and never once had any desire to go back to Germany. My mother has told me that although his sisters visited home many times throughout the years, he never wanted to return because the home that he had grown up in was war-torn and decimated from bombings. Earlier this year, my mother was able to get in contact with her remaining relatives that still live in Germany which created the seed for our trip. My grandfather died from pancreatic cancer a few years before I was born so I never had the chance to meet him but hearing stories about his life, seeing excavated old photos and visiting the places he was once in gave me a better understanding of who he was and what he would have been like.
During our ten day journey, we made a sort of circle in Northern Germany, where we started in Hamburg after leaving the airport and then stayed in Goslar for two nights where we spent time with my grandfather’s first cousin, a sweet woman named Katharina and her husband Eric where they made us dinner and showed us around the town center before traveling through the beautiful Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) where my mom tried the famous mulled wine called Gluhwein and I tasted the richest hot chocolate I’ve ever had. We then went to a rural village called Leverkusen where we stayed in a century old home with another first cousin, a brilliant and comedic man named Manfred and his kind wife, Ulrike. They took us to see the circus where we witnessed incredible acrobatics, dances, aerial magic tricks and so much more. Everyone we visited always made sure to make us feel at home where we were constantly provided with hot coffee and cake at all hours of the day.
We were able to travel to Dortmund, where we met my mother’s cousin, Knut Reinhardt who was a professional soccer player for the famous BVB (Borussia Dortmund) back in the 80’s and 90’s. He gave us a tour of the arena where he talked about his time as a midfielder for the legendary team before showing us around the city where we went to the bustling city Christmas market and my brother and I shared crisp, hot seasoned fries called “pommes”. Knut and his wife made us a traditional German dinner, complete with bratwurst as well as currywurst and German potato salad. Before the final stop of the trip, my family traveled to Bremen (Bremerhaven) where one of the few people who would remember my grandfather still lives and she showed us the spot where his home was, his first school, the river that sat directly behind it where they would swim as children and the concrete bunker where he hid as a child with his sister, Marianna (Marianne) when Allied bombers swept over the city and targeted the German naval base that was located across the river.
We then went to Hamburg where we went through a dramatized dungeon tour attraction complete with professional actors and a well-versed history lesson of the city itself with my father’s colleague and friend for over twenty years, Christian, who we then stayed with at his beautiful thatch-roof home out in the country. With him, went on a short trip to Cologne where we saw the beautiful cathedral and other historic sights before returning to have dinner with his wife, Doerte who is a professional equestrian rider.
I visited three different but extremely beautiful Christmas markets, ate more bratwurst than I can count, stayed full on roasted, sugar-coated nuts called gebrannte mandeln, had coffee at nearly every place we went and met so many wonderful people that were related to my family as well as friends who treated us like family along the way. My mother was smiling and filled with light the entire time because ever since she was young she had wanted to visit her father’s home but never had the opportunity until this winter. She had been learning Deutsch on her own so that when the time came to meet her family, she would be able to speak with them and she did a great job. My brother even picked up a little German which helped significantly with the older relatives who knew little English but me and my dad mainly resorted to using a translator with difficult words.
We spent so much time together as a family, enjoying one another’s company, meeting new people and trying new foods, exploring new places and creating cherished memories that I will remember forever. I am so thankful that my family was able to travel to this wonderful country and that my mother was finally able to see the places in real life that she had heard so much about as a young girl at family gatherings where her relatives would be loudly talking in rushed German and laughing at jokes that only they understood but that she loved nonetheless. All of our family continuously begged us to come back during the summer when the world is blooming and the sun is out to highlight the beautiful cities and lush fields dotting the landscape so we promised we would try to return as soon as possible. Although it may not be within the next few years, I have enough fresh memories to last me until and if we get the chance to go back. Tschüss, as they would say.