[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Kwiatkowski - Bluemke

[Spaghettitree at aol.com]

Hello again, Otto - I should have included the fact that my brothers and I 
were forbidden to learn a word of German (though we learned what Verboten! 
meant).  There remains a very strong stigma from WW I and WW II for anyone and 
anything German in America, especially from people of Jewish heritage.  I have 
even been accused of having something to do with Hitler's holocaust, simply 
because of the name Schoenky!   Never mind that I was far too young, never in 
Europe (until 1999) and am as horrified as anyone else over that insane genocide!   
I have learned some German, word by word, though by no means conversational,  
as a necessity in order to understand my own genealogical heritage and help 
others to do the same.   

If anyone knows about a dictionary in Polish or Russian similar to the German 
one (German-English Genealogical Dictionary by Ernest Thode) I would love to 
know about it.  I use Thode's book (in addition to numerous other dictionaries 
and texts) on a daily basis.   

All that aside, German foods and beers and Octoberfests and many, many 
Germanic  customs are immensely popular here, and increasing - i.e., profit-making.  
 Adolphus and Gussie Busch in St. Louis did rather well!  And so did 
Griesedieck and Schlitz and Lempe and Pabst and many, many others, at least until 
Busch took over - and now they are no longer the top beer barons either.  

The best thing I see about all these message boards is bringing people of 
differing heritages together with the common denominator of genealogy; when you 
get right down to it, we are all family, after all.   

Maureen Schoenky


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