Old Journey Part 2 - Denmark and Germany

grandmaR

In 1950, when I was 12.5, my parents took us to Europe. The other thread has the pictures of the trip over on the Niew Amsterdam (tourist class), landing in LaHavre, and going to Belgium (Brussels, Antwerp and Waterloo) and Holland (Volendam, and Amsterdam). These are mostly my dad's pictures. He had an Exacta, a Poloroid, and a 16 mm movie camera. I have not been back to Belgium since 1950, but I have been to Holland and Denmark.



Above is the Little Mermaid as she was in 1950 (before she had her head cut off)



This is my granddaughter's picture from 2009



This my dad's Polaroid of me - it is labeled by my mom
Rosalie Ann with her paraphenal<wbr>ia in some RR station in Europe

I know we took a ferry from Denmark over to Sweden (a day trip to say that we had been and get a stamp in our passports)



RR Station at Helsingor Denmark - from boat we took to Sweden



Leaving Denmark for Helsignor Sweden - June 26 1950




They load the whole train in a ferry at Nyborg Denmark & it takes 1 or 2 hours to cross



A Danish seagull


Helsingbor<wbr>gs Fyr lighthouse - entering harbor - Sweden

I don't know that we did much in Sweden - we had to go back that afternoon. Maybe we did it because we missed going to Luxenborg on the first day of the trip.


My did take this photo of the city hall in Sweden.



on ferry to Helsingbor<wbr>g - I'm standing at the rail with my sister on my right and my mom is sitting on my other side. We dressed nicely for travel in those days. I had a cotton dress, a Girl Scout uniform, a skirt and nylon blouse, a green suit, a pair of pedal pushers, and a pair of shorts, plus some blouses. My mom is wearing a nice blue suit with a hat. We washed out our clothing as we went.


The beds in the hotel in Copenhagen. My mother wrote "These are our beds in Copenhagen at Hotel Terminus - showing we slept under feather beds - no sheet separate! The feather comforter is slipped into a case like a pillow & changed each time"


In front of Tufnstrore<wbr>nngen-in Denmark -I do not know who this old lady is - maybe she was a guide. She looks a bit opinionated.

In Denmark I spent the money that my grandmother gave me to buy myself something. I saw some animal charms carved from bone or ivory - little bears and seals. That's what I got with my $100.00 and when I got home I had the charms put on a bracelet.


Fredericksburg Castle


King's Guard



My dad's photo of the Weather forecaster - I saw this when I went to Copenhagen in 2009,



but I was told it didn't work anymore to actually predict the weather


My mother wrote that this was Round tower - Copenhagen<wbr>. One of the kings rode his white horse up to the top - there is a ramp instead of steps

One thing I definitely remember was Tivoli Gardens and going on a roller coaster that went through a mountain. We went with the Starcke girls (local Girl Guides). They spoke English with us as we knew no Danish

I remember being in Tivoli with them when planes dropped flyers saying that there was a Police Action in Korea. The Danish girls had trouble translatin<wbr>g Police Action. All we knew was that Truman had done something in Korea


From here we went to Germany - Koln and a trip on the Rhine. I don't know if we went up the Rhine to Koln or down. But I will cover that in the next post.

ian408

Wow! That's quite a trip back in time. Thank you!

grandmaR

When we got to Germany there was still a lot of damage from WWII. Buildings were still in rubble. There was some in Belgium, Holland and Denmark of course (my mom remarked that all the glass was gone from all the railroad station roofs) but it was much much worse in Germany. My mother remarked that the people were pale as if they lived underground. And of course Germany was still divided into four parts - American, French, British and Russian.

We took a trip on the Rhine - this is us on the boat




We saw a lot of WWII ruins from the boat



The b&w photos were not sequenced like the color ones are, so I don't know what order these came in




I don't know if this is a sight-seeing boat or something else


My mother's comment here was



Vineyards along the Rhine - shows how they make use of every speck of dirt

This trip took all day. My dad was the kind of person who if he couldn't take a photo of it, he wasn't interested in it. I am basically the same way, and I wasn't taking photos, so I was bored. Just looking at slowly passing scenery wasn't that interesting to me. In 1964, I took a train from Koln to Frankfurt and that was a little better as the scenery went faster. Unfortunately my slides have not yet been found for that section of the trip.

Anyway, my dad spent a lot of time taking pictures of castles (which were ruins way before WWII)




and boats



and trains

grandmaR

This was one of the places the boat stopped







And he also took a lot of photos of bridges - this is a part of a bridge



Temporary bridge



My mother called this the Famous Ramagen Bridge



Another blown up bridge



My mom said this was a large summer resort hotel taken over by the French so I guess this was in the French sector.

grandmaR

These are the photos of Koln




going under the second bridge with the Patton bridge ahead

Another view of the Patton bridge



Our hotel - the Dom


and the back of the Dom hotel

There was just rubble for blocks around the cathedral




Cathedral detail


Here I am on the steps of the cathedral in a white head scar, white sweater and horizontal black and white striped dress and saddle shoes



From our hotel window - when my mother went here in the mid 60s she said the hotel certainly looked different from what it was in 1950


Another view from the hotel window (at the end of the hall - not from our room)

a block from the hotel


This one is marked


Black Market region in Koln


RR station in Koln

From here, we get to some more of the slides - all the slides of this area seem to have disappeared.

GSPeP

Great series of pictures

I see they were still rebuilding the country in that time. Still a lot of ruines on the pictures.

The Remagen bridge is still like that. They didn't rebuild it, but made a museum of it (Peace Museum). The railway tunnel in the back is closed now.

Made a trip there some time ago. This is how it looks like now: http://www.steendorp.com/Motorcycles/Trips-R1150GS/The-Bridge-at-Remagen

And if you want to see some recent pictures of Köln: http://www.steendorp.com/Travel/Keulen-Köln-Cologne

grandmaR

That's very interesting. I wonder how my mother knew about Remagen because of course the movie hadn't been made yet.

Yes they were still rebuilding and we noticed a great difference in the different zones as to what kind of rebuilding had been done. I think my parents thought that the American zone had made more progress than some of the rest, although I don't think we went into the Russian zone - even then, that was difficult.

My grandmother immigrated from Germany (Bavaria) to the US in 1895 and she still had a lot of relatives there. She corresponded with them until her death in 1948 although a lot of the letters after the war were asking for money from their (presumeably) rich American relative. This is the start of one of them. I also have ones from 1947 and 1948.



<table style="table-layout: fixed;"><tbody><tr><td class="gphoto-comment-content">Nuremberg, September 25, 1946

Dear Relative in America!

Af<wbr>ter a long time of waiting, on September 23, 1946, wie received your kind letter and were very pleased to learn that it reached you after all (supposedl<wbr>y referring to a previous letter sent to the US relatives) despite the address.

I can imagine that it must be difficult if one has not written German in a long time. I shall type my today’s letter, firstly because this way I can write more and secondly because this way it is easier to read.
</td><td class="gphoto-comment-close"></td></tr></tbody></table><table style="table-layout: fixed;"><tbody><tr><td class="gphoto-comment-portrait">
</td><td class="gphoto-comment-info">
</td><td class="gphoto-comment-content">Please do not think that I am too lazy to handwrite this, the reasons for my typing this are the ones mentioned above. Yes, dear Babett, times in Germany have been very hard. It is certainly a great deed that the churches there (in the USA?) have collected that much money to support the people in need. However, these things are mainly used for those expelled, people who had to leave a lot in their old home countries.<wbr>Because of the war we have not got anything and all, clothes as well as shoes, are that worn that one has, at best, got 1 pair of shoes, while the suits and dresses are, if that is possible, turned (my granny explained that this was done, when the outside of a dress got really shabby, turned inside out. Obviously, this is one of the impacts of the war. It won’t be possible to get new items quickly, as most companies were destroyed in the air attacks.Come to that, there are no machines to use, the old ones may not be used again.



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My grandmother at this time was a widow and had lost the store that she and her husband had because of being too generous and she was living with her son and his family. But she sent packages to her relatives in Germany - mostly clothing I think.

When we were to travel to Germany, my mother wrote to my dad's relatives in Germany in hope that we could meet.

grandmaR

In any case, the rest of the photos of Germany are not so depressing as those. I do remember Koln as being mostly rubble. After our voyage on the Rhine, we met up with my mother's friend Peg whose husband Bob was an Army colonel stationed in Germany and who had a car. This gave us access to parts of Germany that would have been difficult to get to on the train.

The photos pick up in



the walled city of Rotenburg. My mother writes - so interestin<wbr>g - spared by wars - the clock Glockenspi<wbr>el 1631 saved by 1 citizen daring to drink 3.5 quarts wine at one gulp



I remember spending a lot of time waiting for clocks to strike the noon hour. There were a lot of children in the square at the time we were there





This is a slightly blurred photo of wood gatherers



and a similar one of a goose woman


One of the things that astonished us was the manure piles by the front doors of houses,



and also the 'honey wagons' by which they fertilized their fields.


After we visited Rotenburg we went to visit our relatives who ran this winestrub




Anna Barbara "Babette" Wellhoefer Leidel



And this is Georg Andreas Leidel all dressed up for Sunday

My parents went back here several times - this is the same place in 1962-



Hans Leidel, Mrs. Herold, Elise Margarete Leidel, a little girl (who grew up and has been visited by family since then) and my dad



and in 1963 with my sister's VW in front (my sister's husband was stationed in Nurmburg at that time)

grandmaR

A Polaroid of the Pforshheim snack bar - July 2, 1950 - my sister, my mother's friend Peg, me, the colonel and my mom




Mannheim


This is a ruin that was NOT caused by WWII


Heidelberg<wbr>.

It is a building called "Ottheinri<wbr>chsbau" and it is part of the castle. It was destroyed ages ago during a big fire in 1764 and was never rebuilt.



This is one of the gasthaus we stayed in on our trip - mother's friends are on the balcony and we are in the upper windows.

We visited Austria -


My dad at the German Austrian border with his cameras

my mother's notes on this photo say



Emperor Maxmillian tomb - only he's buried in Vienna - Innsbruck Austria - July 8, 1950 - we are the ones looking at it with the Wares




This is another gasthaus in Austria - Mother said the rooms were 50 cents each.



American and German customs at the German border - returning from Salzburg Austria - July 9, 1950