OK....I'm obsessed! I live in Germany by choice, mainly because I wanted to learn HOW TO SPEAK GERMAN and not just "know" the language. Many people take German in school and can decline "der, die, das" (mostly unsuccessfullly), and can say "Ein Bier, bitte". But I wanted to go to the next step. Say what you want about my German with a Brooklyn accent, but I have been able to live here. I've rented an apartment, bought a car, and have fought....ALL IN GERMAN! I can speak fluently....not always accurately, but fluent nonetheless. I'm still on my way in that direction, but like everyone knows "Rome wasn't built in a day".
My mother, Linda Hirsch, whose mother Eva Strom, sweared feverntly, that somewhere down the road that there must have been some German in our family somewhere, although our history declared us to be "Russian Jews". So began my search for these German roots.
For years, I would toil through the Ellis Island database looking for the arrival of my great grandparents to America, but always with no success. I was fully convinced that they had swam the distance from Eastern Europe to America, sneaking onto those golden shores, but of course this is just ridiculous. Obviously, my skills as a genealogist weren't so honed at that point.
Samstag, 11. Juni 2011
Samstag, 4. Juni 2011
Did you notice quirks in my sentence structure?
I think I've lived in Germany too long! I'm throwing my verbs to the end of my sentence, even in English! Funny thing, because when you hear people speaking "Yi-nglish", they'll do the same thing, too!
That's right....I live in Germany. A nice Jewish guy, born in Brooklyn, raised in New Jersey, choosing to live in Germany. No, I did not come off my Effexor too soon. It's something I always wanted to do. And it all started with my family trips to Long Island.
My parents loved to talk about "the family". Names without faces, fascinating stories that would make great "Movie of the Week" plots, and all from the security of a multi-level Splanch home, typical for the South Shore of Long Island. And it all revolved around one object - my great grandfather's ceramic shaving mug with his name in raised letters "Strom".
In high school German class, we learned the word "strom" which meant, current, as in a river current, or current, as in electricity. Even here in Rostock, where I live, I pay my "Strom" every month (the electric bill), or walk along "Alten Strom", the main promenade in Warnemünde, an old fishing port turned tourist trap, here in Rostock directly on the Baltic Sea. What does this name have to do with Germany? That is what I want to find out.
That's right....I live in Germany. A nice Jewish guy, born in Brooklyn, raised in New Jersey, choosing to live in Germany. No, I did not come off my Effexor too soon. It's something I always wanted to do. And it all started with my family trips to Long Island.
My parents loved to talk about "the family". Names without faces, fascinating stories that would make great "Movie of the Week" plots, and all from the security of a multi-level Splanch home, typical for the South Shore of Long Island. And it all revolved around one object - my great grandfather's ceramic shaving mug with his name in raised letters "Strom".
In high school German class, we learned the word "strom" which meant, current, as in a river current, or current, as in electricity. Even here in Rostock, where I live, I pay my "Strom" every month (the electric bill), or walk along "Alten Strom", the main promenade in Warnemünde, an old fishing port turned tourist trap, here in Rostock directly on the Baltic Sea. What does this name have to do with Germany? That is what I want to find out.
Genealogist?
For years, I've been fascinated by my family's history.
It all started with the recognition that my name not typical American sounds. Irwin Berkowitz. For 10 years, I lived in Atlanta and was asked three times in which country I was born. Ok, I was down South, but still......
I grew up in Jackson Twp., NJ, an ex-urb of New York City, where my parents, originally from Brooklyn, NY bought their first house. We were only one of the few Jewish families in the area where the predominant ethnicities Italian, Irish/German, and "other" were. My neighbors only had to drive 15 minutes to visit their relatives, but a visit to ours required a "schlepp" - usually to Long Island, a good two and half hour drive when there was no traffic, but as a child, which resembled more a "Weltreise". Funny, how once one crossed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, it was no longer strange to be Jewish. The other side of the bridge represented to us kids "the old Country". By this time, the early 1970s, white-flight was in full swing and no self-respecting aspiring, upwardly mobile Jewish family lived in Brooklyn or Queens anymore. You moved to Long Island. That is except for my struggling parents who couldn't afford the luxury of a "516" area code. They looked for a house instead on "the prairie"....New Jersey. They drove south on US Route 9 past the pricier Levitt-built Monmouth Heights in Marlboro and Manalapan until they reached Brookwood - a large Levittown-styled development (as we called subdivisions), where they eventually bought their house. A single story ranch home because my brother just had a foot amputed and they were afraid the stairs in the multi-story homes would be an obstacle for him.
My mother's brother and sister both lived in a Long Island suburb called Wantagh. And it was there to where we traveled the most. Since they both lived around the corner from one another, it was always a "kill two birds with one stone" trip. First the sister, then the brother. Later, it was only the sister (the sisters had a falling out with the brother), and we children, not involved in their "war", voluntarily visited our aunt and uncle around the corner.
It was the trip home that was often "more interesting". On the way back home, we stopped by my father's sister who lived in Franklin Square, NY. If I remember nothing else about Franklin Square, it would always be the big blue water tower and the PathMark supermarket below. My aunt was always very nice to us and we enjoyed our time at their house.
Then it was off to Aunt Minnie. As it turned out, Aunt Minnie was our grandmother's sister, who never had any children of her own. Aunt Minnie had lived in the same apartment in Brooklyn since before WWII, and it looked and smelled like it as well. The old, worn green wall to wall carpeting, the big sofa you couldn't sit on because the springs were broken (and had been since before my birth), the beach chairs you sat on instead facing the beautiful mahogany TV cabinet that housed the oldest black and white TV known to modern day man. I wonder if it's made it's way into the Smithsonian yet? It was here that we heard "the accent"...the way old Jewish people from Brooklyn talked. We sat in the kitchen where Aunt Minnie always treated us to some "Jewish" delicatessen, and strange water with bubbles that came out of a funny looking glass bottle with a mechanical spigot - seltzer. From time to time, we would jump into the car and drive to the Automat, a strange restaurant that was more like being in a life-sized vending machine. From Aunt Minnie's apartment, we made our way up one floor to Aunt Jean. Aunt Jean will always be remembered by me by how she would pinch the s*** out of my cheeks. Owww! More to Aunt Jean later.
After we were finished with the "old people", it was back over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to New Jersey, to the modern world, where being Jewish was still a big deal, New York-ese for "being different".
It all started with the recognition that my name not typical American sounds. Irwin Berkowitz. For 10 years, I lived in Atlanta and was asked three times in which country I was born. Ok, I was down South, but still......
I grew up in Jackson Twp., NJ, an ex-urb of New York City, where my parents, originally from Brooklyn, NY bought their first house. We were only one of the few Jewish families in the area where the predominant ethnicities Italian, Irish/German, and "other" were. My neighbors only had to drive 15 minutes to visit their relatives, but a visit to ours required a "schlepp" - usually to Long Island, a good two and half hour drive when there was no traffic, but as a child, which resembled more a "Weltreise". Funny, how once one crossed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, it was no longer strange to be Jewish. The other side of the bridge represented to us kids "the old Country". By this time, the early 1970s, white-flight was in full swing and no self-respecting aspiring, upwardly mobile Jewish family lived in Brooklyn or Queens anymore. You moved to Long Island. That is except for my struggling parents who couldn't afford the luxury of a "516" area code. They looked for a house instead on "the prairie"....New Jersey. They drove south on US Route 9 past the pricier Levitt-built Monmouth Heights in Marlboro and Manalapan until they reached Brookwood - a large Levittown-styled development (as we called subdivisions), where they eventually bought their house. A single story ranch home because my brother just had a foot amputed and they were afraid the stairs in the multi-story homes would be an obstacle for him.
My mother's brother and sister both lived in a Long Island suburb called Wantagh. And it was there to where we traveled the most. Since they both lived around the corner from one another, it was always a "kill two birds with one stone" trip. First the sister, then the brother. Later, it was only the sister (the sisters had a falling out with the brother), and we children, not involved in their "war", voluntarily visited our aunt and uncle around the corner.
It was the trip home that was often "more interesting". On the way back home, we stopped by my father's sister who lived in Franklin Square, NY. If I remember nothing else about Franklin Square, it would always be the big blue water tower and the PathMark supermarket below. My aunt was always very nice to us and we enjoyed our time at their house.
Then it was off to Aunt Minnie. As it turned out, Aunt Minnie was our grandmother's sister, who never had any children of her own. Aunt Minnie had lived in the same apartment in Brooklyn since before WWII, and it looked and smelled like it as well. The old, worn green wall to wall carpeting, the big sofa you couldn't sit on because the springs were broken (and had been since before my birth), the beach chairs you sat on instead facing the beautiful mahogany TV cabinet that housed the oldest black and white TV known to modern day man. I wonder if it's made it's way into the Smithsonian yet? It was here that we heard "the accent"...the way old Jewish people from Brooklyn talked. We sat in the kitchen where Aunt Minnie always treated us to some "Jewish" delicatessen, and strange water with bubbles that came out of a funny looking glass bottle with a mechanical spigot - seltzer. From time to time, we would jump into the car and drive to the Automat, a strange restaurant that was more like being in a life-sized vending machine. From Aunt Minnie's apartment, we made our way up one floor to Aunt Jean. Aunt Jean will always be remembered by me by how she would pinch the s*** out of my cheeks. Owww! More to Aunt Jean later.
After we were finished with the "old people", it was back over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to New Jersey, to the modern world, where being Jewish was still a big deal, New York-ese for "being different".
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)