Traces of Heimweh

Heimweh  is a longing for the things that were lost or were taken from us, a wish for family and friends who understand our feelings, a yearning for a landscape with its familiar sounds and smells. Most of us harbor certain nostalgic cravings; longings for times and places that remain lost, that will never again become reality for us. Although I have since walked the actual roadways of my childhood, they no longer lead to that serenity, that ethereal realm of my childhood that inhabits the depth of my soul.

My children have never seen the home of my parents, or walked the land of my grandparents, nor seen the visions of my great-grandparents. Perhaps there may be the chance that my grandchildren will wish to learn the makeup of their ancestral legacy. I still hold the belief that not only physical attributes are passed on but also certain characteristics, inclinations, traits and predispositions are part of the total composite derived from the family gene pool. For those of my grandchildren, who share such views, they may find an insight into their own personal makeup by examining the lives of their ancestors as I have done.

Regrettably I have started this project only recently. I was prompted and encouraged by friends and younger family members who listened to family anecdotes with genuine interest and fascination. With the help of such family legends that were passed on to me by my mother, aunts and uncles, I was able to invigorate an understanding of the family life into which I was born, which then helped me in the reconstruction of my own experiences and to see them from a more comprehensible perspective.   I have since come to regard my efforts with a greater sense of purpose, and have discovered the importance of preserving the ties to our family’s heritage for successive generations. Not all family members exhibit an equal interest in our lineage, nor are they equally fascinated with our family legends, but for those who are thus inclined, this is about as complete a record of our family as can be found to date. This effort is for my descendants on whom they may continue building their own comprehensive family history. It is my hope and wish that at least one of my grandchildren will continue this effort, to build on this rugged foundation and to add pages and chapters to their family history long after senility keeps me from making an intelligible sentence.

Such an endeavor will surely be assumed by someone who will feel the need to discover a deeper sense of personal identity, whose curiosity will lead him or her to uncover a history that is saturated with colors and odors of the past, details that have been marinating in the brine of tradition. Many of us have the need to look beyond the superficial and the obvious; we have the desire to feel the textures of those lives that have contributed to our physical and to our social attributes, to our looks and to our personality. For whatever reasons psychologists, psychiatrists or sociologists may give to our personal quests for answers that are mysteriously hidden in the attics and closets of our ancestry, we pursue to uncover these mysteries with an innate curiosity.

Throughout these pages, I have used certain terms repeatedly, such as Mutti, Opa, Oma, Tante and Onkel. Mutti is a German term of endearment for Mother, just as Vatti stands for Vater (Father). When I mention Mutti in the following pages, I refer to my mother, my children’s grandmother, which they called Großmama (ß is often replaced with ss since this letter does not exist in English).   The lengthy German title for Grandmother was often abbreviated to Gossie by some of her grandchildren. My grandchildren have learned to call me by the German term Opa, which is the equivalent of Grandpa. I have asked them to call me Opa out of love and respect for my grandfather, whom I also addressed as Opa. Opa in these pages only refers to my grandfather. Oma is what I called my grandmother, as that is its meaning. My mother did not like to be called Oma, but preferred the more formal German term of Großmama, which translates to mean Grandmamma. In these pages I refer to my aunts by the German term of Tante and to my uncles as Onkel. Somehow it feels uncomfortable for me to refer to Tante Maly as Aunt Maly.

The correct spelling of our name is Büschke. No German vowel or Umlaut is found in the English alphabet, therefore, “ü” becomes “ue”. This is also true of my maternal grandparents’ name of Hübscher. I have cousins in Canada who spell their name Huebscher.

Within these pages, I honor the memories of my ancestors. I am proud of my family and cling with pride to my ethnicity. However, this should not be construed to mean condoning, or even offering an excuse to the inexcusable atrocities committed during the Third Reich.

There are periods and events in our history that many feel are best left buried, left to only those who enjoy rummaging through dusty old archives to uncover and expose the proverbial closet skeletons. Some question the value of continuously repeating details of grizzly atrocities that were committed by one ethnic group to another. I find it deeply disturbing to recall the murder of my father and my uncles. In my research I came upon myriads of records detailing the disgusting events, highlighting gruesome accounts of such sadistic mutilations and atrocities. These records describe in detail the unimaginable cruelties that were inflicted on the German population, things that made me sick just to read about. I was sickened to think it possible for humans to be that cruel and sadistic to one another. Such atrocities were committed in Poland by Poles during the years following the end of World War One and continued until 1939. And then this carnage continued through the reign of the Third Reich. 

After having dwelled on my family’s past, I often project my thoughts forward to some date in the future, to envision the lives of my great-great grandchildren. The task seems no less inspiring than it was to speculate over the lives of my ancestors — your ancestors as well, some of whom I had gotten to know only superficially. Given today’s social climate, with its confusing and uncertain spiritual goals, leads me to believe that we have even a greater need to remain connected to family with its promise of permanence in a world of rapid changes —