Aunt Sabine

My Great Grandmother Lina’s Family

This is a picture of her like my father knew his grandmother. My father painted it when he came home after WW II and nothing in his world was like it was before. His family had become small. When he came back his brother Fritz and his beloved grandma Lina were dead. He dealt with his grief by painting his beloved ones. Now this picture is in my house and I’m so glad that I have it. It was painted after a photo, which didn't remain.

Karoline Vesper Albracht; painted by her grandson Georg

The painting is hanging in my bedroom. When I look at it my great grandma's face is strangely familiar to me, because it’s my own face. In a few years when I’m old I will exactly look like this. When my grandmother Anna, her daughter, was still alive and I was a young woman in the mid 20ies my grandma Anna used to get a bit scared in the first seconds when I entered the room, because she thought her mother would come in like she knew her when she was a child, as a young woman. She told me that I could be her double also in the way I move or in the way I use to dress myself. Like her I preferred dark colors, mostly black, and a similar hairstyle.

Lina, or better Henriette Friederike Christiane Karoline Vesper was born on February 20, 1863 in Wethen, as the 8th child of Johann Wilhelm Vesper, who was born in Muenden in the Dukedom of Waldeck on November 11, 1822, and died March 15, 1890 in Wethen, - a teacher - , and Johannette Karoline Doering , born November 24, 1824 in Berich in the Dukedom of Waldeck, + March 20, 1893, only a few days after her granddaughter Anna, my grandmother, was born.

The couple had 9 children.

The first son, Heinrich Wilhelm Vesper, born on May 22, 1848 in Berich, went to America in 1867. There will be a post especially about him in the next weeks. Now only a few facts: He settled down in Shawnee/Topeka, where he ran a bakery and became a pretty wealthy merchant with servants in his house. He and his wife had a lot of children, but as far as I know none of them married which seems to be very, very strange to me. So there might be no living descendants any more. There is a second Vesper-family in the same town and I haven’t figured out if they could be descendants of perhaps a younger brother of Wilhelm or his twin brother. My great grandmother never mentioned her American brother, so it would not be impossible that also another brother immigrated in the USA.

The second son Johann Heinrich Friedrich Vesper, born on May 22, 1848, the twin of son no. 1, must have died early. We don’t know anything about him apart from his date of birth. Or he went to Wuppertal-Barmen. We know that one of my great grandmother’s brothers went to Wuppertal and founded a widespread family-stem there, which had several sort of famous descendants. This is sure. My grandma often spoke about their cousins there. But we only know that one of the sons must have gone to the Ruhr Valley; we don’t know which son it was. Or maybe Friedrich also went to America. I still have to figure this out.

The third child was a daughter, Christiane Friederike Elise, born in 1850 in Berich. Later she married into the Tewes family of Wethen. My grandma got her name as third prename, Elise.

Heinrich Wilhelm, the 4th child, was born on February 21, 1853 in Berich. He must have died young or went to Wuppertal Barmen in the south of the Ruhr Valley. See above.

The 5th child, Karl Friedrich Ludwig, born on July 6, 1856 in Wethen, married a Krantz-daughter of Wethen and became a merchant in the small Westphalian town nearby, were his descendants still live. He was the first child which wasn’t born in Berich, so the family moved from Berich to Wethen in 1856, when my great great grandfather Wilhelm Vesper became teacher in Wethen. Wilhelm worked there at the little village school until 1891. But his death is remarked already in March 1890, so it must be until his death in 1890, when he was 68 years old. His son Ludwig had a large house in the town he lived as a merchant. It is still there, but it changed it’s look completely. My mother still has the wedding gift she got from the descendants of this family. It's a representative bowl with flowers painted on it.

Louis Vesper's house

The 6th child was a girl, Marie Friederike Wilhelmine, but she lived only two years.

Karl Wilhelm, the 7th child, was born in January 13, 1861 in Wethen, and this is all we know about him. Maybe he was the one who went to Wuppertal-Barmen instead of Heinrich, but I suppose that it was Heinrich, who founded a new family-stem in Wuppertal.

The 8th child was my great grandmother. Karoline was born on February 20, 1863 in Wethen. She married Georg Albracht, master carpenter and mayor (* May 6, 1861 in Wethen, + October 29, 1929 in Wethen) on December 11, 1887. Her first son Karl became a teacher (* Dec. 3, 1888), the second child, Lina, lived only 18 days and the third child, Anna Auguste Elise, born 1893, was my grandma and lived 93 years. I still have a letter from my great grandfather Georg Albracht he wrote to his sister Christiane in Erie/Pennsylvania, where he told her about the death of his mother in law Karoline Doering Vesper and where he anounced the birth of my grandma. He wrote that he and his wife didn’t want more than two children (well, they got three) and that they hope that this time her daughter would survive after her first daughter died so quickly after her birth. Their 4th child was little Georg. I still remember him very well, when he came into my grandma's kitchen every morning smoking one of his big cigars.

Lina Vesper Albracht, Anna Albracht, little Georg Albracht, Karl Albracht, Georg Albracht

The 9th child, Anna Wilhelmine Henriette Friederike Vesper, born on March 5, 1867, married a cousin of Muenden, Louis Vesper, in 1896. The couple stayed in Muenden as far as I know. Anna Vesper was responsible for my grandma's first prename Anna.

The photo is titled "Vesper siblings": The persons must be Elise or more likely Anna Vesper, my great grandfather Georg Albracht and Karoline "Lina" Vesper (from left to right). Unfortunately my grandma didn't remark who they are like she normally used to do on the backside of the picture.

Lina Vesper Albracht

My grandmother described her mother Karoline Vesper as a very kind woman. She was very generous to the poor. Everybody who knocked at her door got something to eat. But she also was very thrifty, which was nothing extraordinary for the period of time she lived. People haven’t had much and they didn’t throw much away. All was used again for some purpose and people dealt carefully with their resources. My father, who painted whenever he had an opportunity and wherever he was, always got paper and pencil from her. But he should not sharpen the pencil too often and too early, because this would have been waste in her eyes. She didn't miss telling him this. On the other hand she wasn’t a good merchant. It was her who ran a little foodstuff store in the village at first. But she gave too much away, because she was kind-hearted, so my great grandfather wanted her to quit the business. Her sister in law, the youngest sister of my great grandfather, Wilhelmine, took over the little store and since then it is ran by her descendants.

Karoline Vesper Albracht died on May 12, 1943. So her death anniversary was yesterday. This is 65 years ago.

Lina Vesper Albracht and her husband Georg Albracht in the 1920ies. I love this photo.

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Pictures:

All rights reserved; picture of the house of Louis Vesper from a friend, all other pics belong to Georgia.

I Miss You

 

I love you, I miss you, Papa.

*September 17, 1927, in Wethen; + April 30, 2007, in Wethen.

Thoughts on Occasion of a Birthday

Only one day with sunshine and the world looks much, much better! Today we have the first really nice spring day this year. But this is not the topic of my post.

Pope Benedikt XVI was in America. I think you all have heard about his visit in the news. But I also think that you haven’t heard about his audience with President Reinhard Fuehrer of the German „Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgraeberfuersorge” ( German War Graves Commission) on February 20, 2008. The Volksbund is an organization which searches for all soldiers of all nations who died during WW I and WW II. So relatives are lucky about their work, because sometimes they never knew what happened to their beloved fathers or sons or brothers or they don’t know where they are buried. But the Volksbund does not only research but tries to bury all soldiers of all nations on cemeteries, which shall remind all people to the cruelty of war. Young people can care for the cemeteries during their holidays. This is the way how they learn something about the past and about the horror of war and they can also make people from other countries their friends. So the Volksbund improves friendship between people of nations which formerly were enemies. This is an important work for peace all over the world. Pope Benedikt thanked the Volksbund for the good work for peace and understanding.

Left red dot: Wethen in Waldeck; right red dot: Werchne-Bakanskaja

Werchne-Bakanskaja

Why am I telling you this? Well, the Volksbund also helped me and my family. I have been searching for my father’s brother Fritz since about 25 years, which is exactly half of my life. First I had nearly no information, apart from a picture of his grave, the date of his death (May 15, 1943) and the name of a village he was buried, Werchne-Bakanskaja. But the longer I searched for Fritz the more information I found. I searched archives at Freiburg and Berlin, I wrote hundreds of letters, I talked to witnesses, who were at the same place in 1943 where my uncle died, I collected all kind of pictures I could get about this place, I found some people in Russia, who took pictures for me from the cemetery as it is today and I even wrote to the mayor of the small Russian town in the Caucasian Mountains. I also learned a bit Russian for this purpose. The Volksbund remarked me as a specialist for this cemetery in the Caucasian Mountains and whenever people asked the Volksbund for relatives buried on this cemetery they gave them my address, because I’m obviously the only person, I can proudly say, the only person in the world, who has collected as much information about this place. Also the Landtag (government) of Baden Wuerttemberg asked me for information. But most of all I’m proud that I could clear up what happened to a missing person in 1943. But this is not the only reason for telling you all this.

Fritz, * April 24, 1922; + May 15, 1943

Today it’s the 86th birthday of my father’s brother Fritz and until now none of our family managed to visit his grave since he was buried in the Caucasian Mountains. Until now this was simply not possible because of the political situation. But now the Volksbund is also working there. So there is hope.

Here is the story about my uncle’s life and death:

Fritz was born on April 24, 1922, in Wethen, a small, small village in Waldeck. He was the firstborn son of my grandparents; my father was their second son. All who knew Fritz described him as a boy who loved animals and loved all that has to do with farming and butchering (my grandfather ran a grocery, a little company in the building trade and a farm). He was a kind, outgoing and gladsome boy and later young man, who was very well-liked by everybody.

   

Fritz, about 16 years old; Fritz, his grandfather and his father in front of the house

Confirmation: Fritz is the second boy on the left side

He loved music

At the age of 14 he was confirmed, an important day in his life, because school was finished and he started an apprenticeship in his father’s company to become a mason. But these lucky times were over much too soon.

Construction-work (Fritz is on the right side); pig slaughtering

At the age of 18 he had to leave his family and the small village he has never left before for more than a few days. He had to serve the fatigue for nearly one year. During this time he came through Poland, where he saw the Ghetto of Warschau with his own eyes. Horrible pictures...we still have a few of the photos he took. Too horrible for such a young person he was. Later Fritz came to Russia, to Smolensk. There he learned to drive a truck. He was very proud being a truck driver. Although life was hard at that time all pictures show him smiling or singing. This was simply his personality.

Fatigue in Poland (on the right side with shovel)

Fatigue in Russia: Fritz and "his" truck

After only two short weeks at home Fritz had to serve the army. On December 29, 1941, (at least Christmas he could spend at home) he left his home again. First he came to Friedberg near Frankfurt (yes, the same barracks Elvis Presley was stationed after 1945) and then directly to Russia, this time to the southern part. Several times he became ill of infectious jaundice because of the horrible hygienic conditions in Southern Russia. In contrast with the Germans the Russians mostly didn’t bury their dead soldiers. So thousands of bodies decayed in the heat during spring and summer. Millions of flies hatched and caused awful epidemics of jaundice. At that time this disease wasn’t explored very well and first scientific investigations supposed coherence between the bodies, the flies and jaundice.

In the military hospital in Neisse; Fritz is the man directly under the red cross.

After his last jaundice infection Fritz came home for two weeks in February 1943. But he wasn’t the happy and singing Fritz any more like his parents knew him before. His heart was broken of all the woe and cruelties he had experienced. He told his mother that he didn’t believe that he would come back home from this murderous war. The last picture shows him in front of our house with a rabbit on his arm and wearing house shoes to his uniform.

His last holidays at home: In the fields; in front of our house with his rabbit.

It took four weeks until Fritz was back in the Caucasian Mountains, in Nishne Bakanskaja. 17 soldiers started their journey in Germany, only two survived the journey because of partisans. Fritz’s last letter is from May 12, 1943. He wrote that he didn’t want any parcels any more and that he supposed that his beloved grandmother Caroline Albracht Vesper might have died in the meantime. He was so right. She died on May 12, the day he wrote this letter.

Original military-map from 1943; red dot: Glubokij-Canyon

Fritz died three days later. During the operation Vogelsberg on May 114, 1943, he was injured severely by a grenade. His left leg was lacerated. This happened in the Glubokij-Canyon near Nishne-Bakanskaja. It took nearly one day to bring him to Werchne-Bakanskaja by train, where there was the next military hospital, although Werchne-Bakanskaja was only about 15 kilometers away.

Dr. Beltinger, the surgeon

There the doctors tried to save his life by amputating his leg. Dr. Beltinger made the surgery. But Fritz died of a shock, because he had lost too much blood in the meantime. Today he could be saved easily by blood transfusions. But at that time blood transfusions were totally new and they were made with hoses directly from man to man. The army reverends donated blood in very urgent cases. But you can imagine that they couldn’t donate much blood or very often. Also Fritz got a blood transfusion after his surgery, but he was too weak and died at 2 AM in the morning of May 15, 1943, in the formerly church of Werchne-Bakanskaja. He was buried there on the surrounding military cemetery. I talked to a witness who worked at this cemetery at that time.

Fritz's grave in Werchne-Bakanskaja

This is Fritz’s grave as it looked shortly after his burial, the grave-officer Doering sent this picture to my grandma. The cemetery remained until fall 1943 when the Germans retreated from this area. They put all wooden crosses on a huge pile and burnt them and all graves were leveled.

The cemetery; red arrow: Fritz's grave

Well, this is exactly 65 years ago now. The church is still there and the cemetery is a park now with huge old trees the Russians planted directly after the war. A Lenin-figure is still watching over the entrance of the park. Times come and go... And Fritz still lies there under the mighty trees beneath the church which is a club now, never forgotten by his family. And one day one of our family will come to this place, I swear!

The cemetery area today

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Pictures:

• Satellite-pictures: Google Earth
• all other pictures belong to Georgia; all rights reserved

93 Year Old Postcards

Today I tidied up a lot of my father's stuff, because I have to make the yearly tax return. This year it is the first time I do this for my mother. It's hard for me seeing through all my father's personal stuff and things he kept as reminders of lucky times in his life or as reminders of persons he deeply loved.

I couldn't stop crying today until I found two postcards of about 1915 my grandfather sent to my grandmother from France, where he was when he was a soldier during WW I. These postcards made me smile, although I know that war wasn't a bit funny, so it was sort of a bitter smile. But these were the jokes soldiers usually sent to their beloved ones at home. They shouldn't worry about their well-being. When WW II began my grandparents cried, because they knew from WW I what war was really like.

Translation: From far away during my watch duty I'm thinking of you. Here is a picture of me, here you can see me.

"Field billet" my grandfather wrote. Well, reality was very, very different from this.

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Pictures: All rights reserved

Internet Spring Cleaning

I know, I'm a bit late for Fool's Day hoaxes. My dear cousin Mary sent me a lot of hoax-stories and I couldn't stop laughing about a few of them. Thank you very much, Mary, and hearty greetings!

I think I should publish my favorite story. Here it is:

Internet Spring Cleaning

In 1997 an email message spread throughout the world announcing that the internet would be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31 until April 2. This cleaning was said to be necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that had accumulated in the network. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites would be purged. The cleaning would be done by "five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world." During this period, users were warned to disconnect all devices from the internet. The message supposedly originated from the "Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

This joke was an updated version of an old joke that used to be told about the phone system. For many years, gullible phone customers had been warned that the phone systems would be cleaned on April Fool's Day. They were cautioned to place plastic bags over the ends of the phone to catch the dust that might be blown out of the phone lines during this period.

Internet map

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Pictures: Gnu-license

A Day in Heaven

Well, I was away from bloggerland for a pretty long time and I hope that some of you have missed me a bit, only a little bit... (Please say "yes"!) There was so much to do, no time for anything, but now I’m back.

Rain through the window of my car... rain, rain, and...

...rain!

First of all the weather is still simply awful, cold and rainy. I hate this kind of spring weather and I wonder if it will never become warmer and sunnier this year.

I was pretty ill with high fever for a week, but I managed to fix a lot of things before I became ill: I constructed a new fence to the neighbor’s plot, I constructed a new garden door, I planted several bushes and I hauled all the plant buckets from their winter billet back to the terrace. My garden is nearly ready for summer now, but the weather is not.

Front door with big plants in buckets

New garden door

The terrace with furniture and plants in buckets....

....is ready for sunny and warm weather.

Garden house: cleaned and furnished. The blue bench is over 160 years old and from my grandma's Albracht-family. The America-immigrants might still have sat on this bench before they left Waldeck.

Little terrace in the rain

Then I had to take a break because of the fever for over a week. I felt terribly and I couldn’t do anything but rest. But now I’m back to normal.

Ruhr Valley

Yesterday I visited my dear daughter Anna at her apartment in the Ruhr Valley. We had a wonderful, gorgeous day together. Anna is a wonderful daughter. I couldn’t imagine a better one! She gave me a book, sweets, some spices for my kitchen, lots of little presents which show me how dearly she loves me and how she misses me. (Don't ask how much I miss her!) After a nice breakfast with fresh bread rolls and a good cup of coffee and after I had repaired a few things in her apartment we went shopping. I got a new haircut and Anna got a few new summer trousers, a blouse and some other clothes she needs when she is working outside in the summer as a surveyor. We had a lot of fun and at the end of our shopping tour we both had really big wafers with vanilla ice cream. How tasty! Tired but satisfied we went home. Needless to say that we had a lot to talk about the whole day long!

A typical Soccer stadium

The city was overcrowded. When we reached the station by subway we suddenly stood in a big crowd of soccer fans with their blue VFL-Bochum scarves (the VFL-Bochum is a German soccer club) and with bottles of beer in their hands, blaring and shouting. About 100 policemen dressed all in black with black helmets and truncheons obstructed the way downtown. It was a bit scary. But all kept peaceful and we could walk downtown with a little detour, though. In the pedestrian zone a lot of people sat outside in the street cafes, because the weather in the Ruhr-Valley was much warmer and sunnier than it is here where I live. A group of American Indians (I’m not sure if they were very authentic, because their music sounded a bit too commercial) played their music on a square and danced in their Indian costumes with the beautiful feather crowns and smoked their calumets.

Later we found an Indian restaurant (this time not American Indian, but Indian), but we were much too full after all the ice cream we ate. So we postponed eating there to one of my next visits. Anna is a big fan of the Indian culture and she also has an Indian friend and neighbor in the house where she lives. Both girls go shopping together from time to time or visit each other for a cup of tea or coffee. And they both love to watch Bollywood films together.

Bollywood

Indian food: Next time we are going to try some...

Yesterday was one of the best days I had for a long, long time, a day in heaven. I like to thank my daughter for this wonderful time together with her. And we both look forward to July when Anna has finished her second semester and will spend her holidays (perhaps more than 6 weeks!) here with me. She is going to make a practical training during the summer and she is going to make her driver’s license. A lot of exciting weeks are lying ahead for the two of us! I can’t wait until summer.

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Pictures:

• Rain-, house- and garden-pics taken by Georgia; all rights reserved
• Ruhr Valley and Ruhr-Stadium: GNU license
• VFL-logo, American Indian (American Horse), Shahrukh Khan and Bollywood dancers are public domain
• Indian food: Creative Commons license

Little Sunbeams

Let the sunbeams brighten your soul like they brighten the ground of the dark forest! This picture is for someone very special.

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Picture: Painted by Georg Gutschank; all rights reserved

Black Ravens

What’s the matter with me? This is the first day after a long, long period of time I don’t have any things to do, I don’t have any duties (Well, there is always a lot to do, but I’m good in time and all work I planned is done so far, so I can postpone other works that aren’t imperative.). The sun is shining apart from a few rain or hail showers, but it’s beginning to get warmer outside and it seems as if winter won’t come back. I had a good and tasty breakfast with fresh bread rolls and coffee, just how I like it, and I could sleep a little longer as I’m used to do. So why can’t I be happy and enjoy the first day that is not totally filled with tasks from morning till evening? I have been longing for such a day for such a long time. And now, when this day has come...I can’t understand myself. I’m totally sad, uneasy about I don’t know what, and fearful as if something very bad would happen today. And I don’t know why I feel like this. There is no single reason. I’m sad, because I’m missing my father and because I’m missing Anna. Well, this might be a reason, but I’m not happier about this on other days when I feel better. I call such moods „black ravens“ and I have to learn and accept that they will be there from time to time, without any reason. I simply have to wait until they are ready for flying away.

By the way, Wilhelm Bush, a famous German painter and poet of the 19th century (* 15. April 1832 in Wiedensahl ; † 9. Januar 1908 in Mechtshausen, now part of Seesen near the Harz Mountains), who is well known above all by his story “Max and Moritz”, has also written/drawn a comic about a raven, which is called Hans Huckebein and which is a really unlucky fellow. You can look at the complete picture story by following this link.

Self portrait of Wilhelm Busch, 1894

Drawing of the story "Hans Huckebein, the unlucky fellow" by Wilhelm Busch: "Now a mishap will happen, because the beverage is liqueur" can be read.

You probably will not understand the lyrics Busch wrote (which is a pity), because they are in German, but you can understand the story only by looking at the pictures. Hans Huckebein, the raven, was caught by the evil nephew. He brought the raven to his aunt and there the raven pinched the cat, the dog, even the aunt two times and destroyed a lot of things. Poor Hans Huckebein dies, because he caught himself in the wool of the aunt's knitting. At the end of the story the aunt tells her nephew the moral of what happened: Everybody who is evil will get the punishment he earns. But this quote of the aunt isn't correct, because the raven only did what all birds would do when they were caught and brought into a house. The nephew was the evil one, because he caught the raven. Wilhelm Busch doesn't agree with the aunt, he feels compassion with the poor raven. Therefore he called the raven "unlucky fellow" in the headline of the story.

So the last picture shows the aunt with her raised finger telling the moral of the story and her nephew who looks very sanctimoniously.

Aunt Lotte tells the moral of the story. The thing on her nose is a bandage. The raven pinched her when she and her nephew tried to catch him in the aunt's house.

When I was a little child I loved a very thick and huge book (photo of the cover) my grandma has in her bookcase. It was already old and worn out. It was the big Wilhelm Busch Album with all picture stories Busch ever made and I was perhaps the third generation of children which read in this book. The first story was “Max and Moritz”, of course. I knew all stories of the book and I read them thousand times. It was sort of the first comic book in history. I still have this book.

First I loved that the stories are very funny and I loved the funny drawings, but when I grew older I more and more understood Busch’s ironical and sarcastic lyrics. I also love the book, because it perfectly describes how people lived in the 19th century, how their moral and their circumstances of living were. So this book can also be read by grown ups. It is not only a book for children.

I usually don’t advertise for anything, but if you would like to read some of Busch’s stories, there is an English translation at Amazon.

 

The house Busch spent his last years until he died in 1908. Left: Busch in front of the house in 1902. Right: The house today.

Max and Moritz, the probaly most famous figures Wilhelm Busch created.

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Sources:

• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Busch (German)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Busch (English)
• http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=5&xid=3009&kapitel=1#gb_found
• http://www.amazon.com/Max-Moritz-Other-Bad-Tales/dp/0918736188/ref=pd_sim_b_img_4

Pictures: public domain

Deadly Insanity

On Easter Sunday a woman was killed by a log someone threw from a bridge across the autobahn A 29 near Osnabrueck. Two persons dressed all in black did this awful deed and it was not their only crime. They threw another log from a bridge, but this time it didn’t hurt anyone. The young woman, mother of two little children, was dead within seconds when the log shattered the windshield and hit her chest. Her husband, who drove the car, and her two nine and seven year old children, who were on the backseats, saw her dying. The family was on their way home from a vacation at the sea.

Bridge across the A 29

I can’t believe how insane people’s brain must be, but since this awful deed there were other deeds like this. People imitate this abhorrent crime: On Tuesday children threw a huge iceblock onto a car from a bridge across the B 68 near Altenbeken, which is not far away from Paderborn. The driver was lucky: He wasn’t killed but he caught the children and captured them until the police came. Anna and I heard of this incident by the radio news when we were still on our way to the Ruhr Valley. We crossed this bridge two times this day: Anna's winter break is over and her second semester begins, so I had to drive her back to the Ruhr Valley. We were afraid the whole way long that someone would throw stones or logs at our car when we were on the autobahn for four long hours - and on this road near Altenbeken. We anxiously watched each bridge if there were pedestrians on it. Nothing happened, thank God!

 

Two pictures of Altenbeken

Near Viersen a boy threw a beverage package from a bridge. Near Suechteln a boiled egg was thrown onto the windshield of a truck. The windshild burst, but the driver could stop the truck in time. And yesterday the news reported about people who threw stones from an autobahn bridge. I think these are not all cases that happened since Easter Sunday. Not all incidents were reported by the news.

Can anybody tell me what makes people throw things from a bridge and kill people just for fun? And why the hell do people imitate such crimes? Are they as bored of their life that they do whatsoever someone else does, if it is only stupid enough? What is in their brains apart from vacuum? Don’t they have enough duties, not enough work to get such bored? Don’t they have any respect of other people’s life? I’m stunned. I'm outraged. I'm furious.

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Pictures: From Wikipedia (articles about the A 29 and Altenbeken); public domain (sign A 29) and Creative Commons License (other pics)

Do You Want Some More Snow?

This night was the coldest night in March since 38 years...

This was yesterday evening after a lot of snow already was melted away. But it kept on snowing the whole night long and also this morning it is snowing, snowing, and snowing as if it would never stop. In Erie such amounts of snow are sort of ridiculous, I know, but for us in Northern Germany it is really a lot of snow.

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Pictures taken by Georgia; all rights reserved