[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Ostrowka

[Dave Neumann]

In 2002, after a discussion with Virginia Less, I volunteered to start
collecting information on the village of Ostrowka. It is located in Volhynia
East of Nowograd Wolhynsk about 10 km ESE of Neumanowka, and is the ancestral
village of my NEUMANNS. At the SGGEE Conference in Regina in the summer of
2002, Dave Obee told me that he had been to Ostrowka (or what is left of it)
that spring, and sent me two pictures - one of a meadow and one of two people
looking at a couple of tombstones from the former Lutheran cemetery. Dave had
told me that the entire village of Ostrowka had been demolished in the 1930's
as a consequence of collectivization of agriculture.

I have not had a lot of time to work on this but I did start collecting
surnames of people who were associated with Ostrowka from various sources.
Around 1925 Lydia NEUMANN (my father's first cousin) married Edward STAHL in
Ostrowka. In 1927 they emigrated to Saskatchewan. In the summer of 2002, after
the SGGEE Convention, my wife and I made a side trip to Oxbow to look up their
descendants. We had a very nice visit and I was able to add some valuable
information to the family tree. I also made phone contact with one of their
relatives in BC.

Recently I received an email from Irene Kopoetzke in Germany asking about the
Stahls in Saskatchewan. A STAHL who had recently immigrated from Kazahkstan to
Germany had posted a message on her list asking about Stahl relatives in
Saskatchewan, and she asked me to check if it could be connected to the Stahls
I was researching. Irene and I had been in contact about three years ago, and
she had helped me identify documentation of land confiscated from Julius
NEUMANN (father of Lydia) in 1915. She recalled that STAHL was one of the
surnames on my list.

The recent reconnection between us produced some amazing consequences. The man
in Germany turned out to be a nephew of the Edward STAHL (above), and he had
recently been to Ostrowka to do research on the STAHL family there. Irene put
us in direct contact and then he sent me some great pictures - some of
Ostrowka today, and some old family pictures. Amazingly, he found that the
Stahl house was still standing. One old Ostrowka picture he sent me from his
collection included a 1925 outdoor shot of Lydia NEUMANN and Edward STAHL as
bride and groom, surrounded by numerous relatives. What a treasure to have
that picture! Now if I could only identify the people in it.

I then contacted  the STAHLs in Canada to tell them I had been in touch with a
STAHL in Germany that I believed was related to them. I was referred to
another STAHL in BC (someone I had not been in touch with before),  a first
cousin of the STAHL contact in Germany - also a nephew of the above Edward
STAHL.  Amazingly, this man had also recently been to Ostrowka. He too sent me
a number of Ostrowka pictures and an account of his experience there. He had
visited the Stahl house (it is still known by that name today) and met with
the current owner, the former (and last) manager of the collective farm. It
turns out that the Stahl house was kept for that purpose, but today is in
private ownership. Once email addresses were exchanged, immediately pictures
and emails started flying back and forth between Germany, Saskatchewan and
Ontario.

This has been a most moving and amazing experience. Parts of a family that had
lost contact many decades ago are now re-connecting, and the circle is
widening across oceans and continents.  I now feel motivated to take on this
Ostrowka research more earnestly. I have new information to examine, and I
would invite anyone who has a connection to this village or information about
it to contact me.