Ch 7-1 Finding Grabuppen

There once was Groß Grabuppen. It’s just a short bike ride north of Heydekrug. Hitler renamed the cities in order to make them more Germanic. All those name endings like  –ponen, -liken, -ingken had a distinct aura of non-Germanic influences, maybe even Lithuanian. Hitler was Austrian with a very idealized concept of Germany.. Some might even be mistaken as Lithuanian!  Remember Hitler came from Austria with an idealized image of Germany. German lineage should be tied to places with German names. He tried to undo the past, remake history according to his image. Places were renamed to elicit German imagery. German names for a German people. It was an attempt to modify the past, remake history to fit an image.

So in 1939 Groß Grabuppen became Heidewald, heather woods.  It does sound nicer, rolls off the tongue in a gentler manner but it lacks character and uniqueness. It could be anyplace in Germany and certainly not a place where pagans reigned into the 15^th century. 

Lieutuva or Litauen. Heydekrug or Silute. In addition to trying to follow the German names I have to keep track of spelling differences. There is such a garble of three languages and different spellings as I try to decipher a landscape bearing the stamp of several cultures over the last 200 years. Sometimes it is ß, other times regular double ss; to umlaut or not to umlaut. Even family names are changed.  Annika, my great grandmother, became Anna.  Meyerhoefer became Meihoefer.

At least the village of Grabupai exists on the current map and in reality. There are the two old school buildings, a house and a factory that now stand at the crossroads with the Ramutterstrasse. All the other villages related to my ancestors now are found only on old maps, like my 1938 maps I carry where I can see what used to be. These maps show every village, house, trail, cemetery and numerous symbols I can’t decipher (there is no key for the map).  It is a snapshot of the world my mother knew, one more densely populated than what lay before us.

Mom is still familiar with the roads since they didn’t change at all. She instructs, “Turn left here, then head out on this road, till we get to the Ramutterstr.” And so on. Easy. Has so little changed since 1945? Well the Italians still use the Via Appia.  Here the lack of change is likely the result of low population growth and a depressed economy. 

I think back to crossing into the old East Germany after ‘The Change’ in 1992. Prior to 1992, access points into the German Democratic Republic were few and very restricted. Crossing points were heavily guarded openings in a border consisting of barbed wire, guard towers and minefields. In 1992 I wanted to experience the freedom of crossing where ever I wanted so I drove my rental car into the old GDR via the Harz region. Once out of old West Germany the road turned into a narrow cobblestone lane with trees lining the edge of the road. It hardly seemed wide enough for two-way traffic and didn't seem used at all. With a start I realized this road probably had not been open to vehicle traffic since WWII!  For forty years the roads ended at the border with West Germany. I encountered no other cars until I reached the first city. It was eerie, almost like I was the last person alive, all alone in the landscape. A Twilight Zone moment. 

When we head out of Heydekrug to Gr. Grabuppen we come upon a newly constructed section of road that confuses Mom. It redirects traffic around the city of Heydekrug – perhaps  an actual bypass? Clearly city planners at one time expected a great throng of travelers who needed to circumvent the city center. There is no other vehicle on this stretch of roadway; could it be because the bypass doesn’t actually connect anything? Seems they only completed a one mile of road which cuts through a lovely section of woods. For a few minutes it put us in the middle of a bunch of trees with no landmarks visible.

The only navigation issue my mother has is the speed with which the car moves in relation to bicycle or foot travel. Mom is used to moving around this countryside by bike. People didn't have time or money to go anywhere so just a train ride was a big event. Horse and buggy was the main transport for goods. On a postcard of the old marketplace in Heydekrug I assume it is a scene  from the early 1900's based on all the horse drawn wagons, peasant women in long black dresses and white babushkas. On closer examination I see women in short dresses – this is a scene from the 1930’s!  Not a single car in sight.  How odd life without automobiles seems, a life like the present day Amish. I reflect on how your mode of transport regulates the pace of your life.

As we leave the city the fields pass by quickly, too quickly, past empty acres that stretch off to the horizon. There is a tree in sight to block the view. A car shrinks the distances; larger landmarks are needed to gauge you progress in relation to the landscape. When visiting Iceland and traveling by bus I had the strange sensation that we weren't moving; there was nothing in the landscape to pass. Without any villages or buildings it is somewhat the same here.

I imagined I would find a landscape filled with towering birch trees. When we drove through northern Michigan woods my mother and father made comparisons with the birches of ‘home’.  “Oh I love birches,” was the statement she made without fail. It was probably not so much the actual birches as the memories they brought back that they loved – youth, a time where life was full of promise. But now that I’m here I find the birches small, skinny looking trees. Where are the famous dark woods of song ?  Is this all there is? How can you wax poetically about these scrawny things?  Or am I spoiled by everything being bigger in America? 

This flat, open landscape is comforting. There is simplicity to the tree lined roads, a sparseness of houses, forests off in the distance. Sort of like Kansas but even flatter and no tornados. The fields seem unused with no sign of crops even though it is fall and harvesting time; absent are any herds of livestock grazing in the pastures. Yet I feel an affinity for this setting, something like my feeling for the openness of the American prairies. I like a wide horizon. Forest and mountains are oppressive, brooding, and ominous. Is it part of my genetic makeup? Is there something genetic tying us to the landscape of ancestors? 

Once I took part in a ‘past life regression’ that called up an uncomfortable image of the dark woods. It caused me to become very anxious in the dark brooding landscape. Was this the root of my subconscious fear of the forest?  Could it be why generations of my ancestors tilled fields in open country?  On the other hand, if that were so then you’d think I would also have inherited a deep seated fear of invading armies and war. Fortunately, I haven’t had to test that idea so can’t say for sure.

East Prussia was one of the German states with the least amount of forested land. Only Schleswig-Holstein up north on the Danish border had less. This was the agricultural bread basket for Germany. This is where Germans got their horses, hogs, grain crops to feed the entire nation. Rich fields fed the dairy cows and put milk production at the highest in the country.  The section of Prussia in the east was a solid rural culture and the wealth truly came from their farms.

Memelland also differs in the pattern of farmland settlement from not only Germany but the rest of East Prussia.  I spent hours studying 1930 topographic maps identifying church parishes and village locations trying to find the cities of my ancestors. Obvious on the maps of Memelland is a pattern of houses scattered across the countryside. Typically houses are clustered in a village, and the farmers go out to fields surrounding the village.  In Memelland the houses sit with the farms away from the city, the same way farms are settled in America, but not nearly as much acreage. My mother recounts how surprised she was the first time she went to visit the Klemm family in Groß Sodehnen.  There the houses were clustered together in the village with no fields next to the house.  She found it odd.