[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Convention success story

[E. Adam]

Hello all: This is essentially an ad for attending the SGGEE convention if you have not already. The recent meeting was my first, and I have been glued to my computer since thanks to the leads I got there.

Jerry Frank has the birth village of my great-great-grandfather on his map of Russian Poland. Never expected to find that!

Several people recommended following the village in addition to names because our people traveled together through the decades.

Taking that advice, I've found 5 spellings of the town southwest of Moscow where my Dad was born. As he and I looked over the names, he kept saying yes, yes, yes -- that was one of the village people. The name, by the way, was (Chromali, Chromalie, Chromoli, Chromolie, Kromolin).

Thanks to the work others have already done in the EWZ, I now have the names for 65 individuals from that village to track. Several already seem to be connected to my Adam family from the early years in Volhynia. The next step is to finally go to College Park and read the EWZ films myself.

BTW, I went from Edmonton to Lincoln for the AHSGR convention. There are two artifacts from Volhynian families in the HQ building: a piece of cobbler's equipment and a painting. I didn't get the names of the donors. But if this was not known before, I'm sure AHSGR can help.

Also at the convention, I had the opportunity to speak to an official for the group that sponsors the Bundestreffen and other German from Russia activities.

He told me that this group would have no records of the G-R who managed to stay in Germany after the war because they basically were in hiding. Most of those who did get to Germany were sent back to the Soviet Union under agreement with  Stalin.

He also told me that if I want to find Volhynians in Germany, I need to get in touch with the Volhynian groups there or go to the reunions. He said Volhynians largely do not consider themselves Germans from Russia because they were relocated before the Germans attacked the Soviet Union. They think of themselves as "German" due to this.

 If any of our German readers can provide information about meetings of Volhynians in 2007, I would like to see if I can get there next year.

Another drawback is that under German law, records are very closely kept marking it almost impossible to find someone who might still be alive.

Then someone who heard me talking with this man handed me her business card with the name "Heimatsortkartei Stuttgart" on it. This is apparently a place where people who want to be found can register. Now I have another search to undertake!

So this is a small part of what I learned by attending conventions. I look forward to doing it again and thank all those worked so hard to produce the meeting in Edmonton.

Edie Adam
Virginia, USA

 		
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