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EESTI ELU reedel, 24. juunil 2022 — Friday, June 24, 2022
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Europe 2022
Geislingen: Does the past exist, if no one remembers it? Enn Raudsepp On the morning of May 22, bypassing Stuttgart, the regional capital of BadenWürttemburg and its largest city, also the headquarters of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, we took the most direct route to Geislingen an der Steige, the small town where I had spent nearly three of my earliest years in a refugee camp after WW II. (“Steige” can be translated as “steep incline,” and is a reference to an important trade route from the five lower valleys up to the plateau of the Swabian Jura mountains that has con nected the Rhine Valley to the Mediterranean since the fifth century.) In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, when more than a million refugees were on the move in Europe, Geislingen became the largest DP camp for Estonians with 4,400 residents. One of 69 such camps established by the U.S. Army and run by the United Nations Relief and Rehabili
The cross on the top of the mountain up from Karl Strasse where the Raudsepp family of six lived in two rooms in a house shared with another family.
The Rathaus, or city hall, on the pedestrianized main street.
tation Agency (UNRRA) and the International Refugee Organization (IRO), the camp occupied three of the town’s districts in houses from which the German residents had been expelled by the U.S. Army. There is some indication that those districts were chosen deliberately due to their heavy support of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in the 1930s. I had no idea what to expect. I was six months old when we arrived in Germany from Estonia, and only 4 years and nine months old when we left in December, 1948. Almost 75 years had passed since then. I had no real memories of the place, only a few scattered images put into my head by the handful of photographs my parents had managed to pre serve. I had no idea which houses we had stayed in, other than that there were two of them in two different districts – six months in Rappenäcker and 2 1/2 years in Wilhelmshöhe on Karl Strasse, a long street that climbed up one of the hills. It had never occurred to me to ask my parents where we had lived, and they obviously didn’t think it necessary to write down or volunteer that kind of infor mation. Only after they died 30 years ago, when I started to research our family history, did I begin to take interest in such things, but it was too late. I was able to contact a few other people who had been in Geislingen, but most of them were equally in the dark. (One of the things I did learn at that time was that relatively few Geislingen Esto nians had ended up in Canada, where most Estonians seem to have come via Sweden.) So even though I didn’t ex pect any cathartic experience, I thought that it would be amaz ing to breathe the air and walk along streets where I may have toddled hand-in-hand with Ema or Tädi. That alone, I thought, would be enough to warrant the trip. Another problem was that when we had drawn up the itinerary for this trip, I had paid no attention to which days we would be in the six places we were planning to visit. Un fortunately, we ended up in Geislingen on a Sunday, when almost everything was closed, especially the official establish ments (city hall, tourist offices, libraries, schools etc.) so it end ed up being nearly impossible to find anyone to talk to. The first people we met – in a cafe on the corner of the pedestrianized main street – turned out to be representative of the new waves of immigrants who have settled in Germany in recent years: two Kosovars who were working on construction projects in the area. They did
The Geislingen cemetery where a memorial commemorates the 154 Estonians whose life-journey ended there. The monument, designed by Estonians, was erected in 1949, the year before the camp closed.
speak halting English and were happy to learn that I had spent a couple of months in Pristina, but they had been in Germany for only four years and knew almost nothing about the town. A Turkish couple who ran a fast food outlet a little further up the street, where we stopped for lunch, were similarly unin formed. Only one other place was open on the main street, a French bistro called Le Petit Bonheur, where we found the lovely Felicia, a tattooed thirty ish self-styled shaman, who had spent time travelling abroad and spoke fluent English. More to the point, she was a native of the area. She didn’t know any Esto nians nor anything about what had happened in the town 75 years ago, but was able to guide us to the main church, the old schoolhouse, and the cemetery, where she believed there was an Estonian monument. She also had a consignment of little knit ted hens (?) that she was selling as a favor to a local crafts woman. These turned out to be the only souvenirs we were able to buy, to go with a handful of beer coasters from the local Kaiser brauerei that she gave us, and a few local stones that I picked up outside. We wandered around the central area for a couple of hours, taking photographs of the main street, the Rathaus and the old school, as well as the large old Evangelische Stadt kirche, a Reformation era Gothic church where I am fairly certain that father occasionally preached and shared services with the other seven Estonian Lutheran pastors in the camp. We also drove the length of Karlstrasse up the mountain side but because the town is much modernized and bigger now than it was 75 years ago, I came no closer to understanding where we might have lived. We did, however, park near the top and hike a kilometer or so to the tall iron cross that is visible from all parts of the town below, much like the cross on Mount Royal. For our last destination, we fittingly reserved the cemetery, where we eventually found the monument to the 154 Estonians who had ended their life’s jour ney in the camp. We almost didn’t, because the half-dozen
burly cemetery workers drink ing vodka whose “coffee break” we had interrupted didn’t seem to know what we were talking about. We persisted until finally one of them, who had a little more English than the others, remembered that some “Esto nian bigshot” had visited the cemetery maybe 10 years ago. He thought we might find what we were looking for at the far end of the cemetery. We followed his directions as best we could, but without suc cess. On a different path on the way back to the car, I spotted something that seemed worth looking at more closely. And it did, in fact, turn out to be the white marble monument erected just before the camp was closed in 1950. As I found out later, it had been visited in 2000 by the then Estonian President Lennart Meri, who was on a state visit to Germany. While we were examining the names on the memorial, three German men in perhaps their 50s or 60s passed by and stopped to ask us what the monument was about. They knew enough English to follow my explanation, but even though they were lifelong resi dents of Geislingen, none of them had known anything about the Estonian camp of 75 years ago. In 2008, when 22 former camp residents led by Mai Maddisson, who subsequently compiled a book about the
Seedrioru Suvihari 2022
Geislingen’s Evangelische Stadt kirche, a Reformation-era Gothic church where the camp’s eight Estonian Lutheran pastors, including the writer’s father, Bishop Karl Raudsepp, held weekly church services in rotation.
c hildren in the camp, visited the town, only 15 Estonians still lived in Geislingen, Today no one seems to know whether any of them are still alive. It may well be that the only visible reminder of the Estonian presence in the town is this memorial. On leaving, as I turned for a last lingering look, my eyes were drawn to the foot of the monument where a small glass jar held a few faded plastic flowers.
cluded in ticket price) • 5:30 pm – Concert featuring Estonian Girls’ Radio Choir • Remembrance and Reflection • Lowering of the Flag July 1–3 Evening to include: Program Highlights • Dance on the basketball court featuring DJ Rob Vessmann and Friday, July 1st • Jaanituli / Campfire & sing other musical performances, Jaanituli ing on the field We are excited to be joined • Dance on the basketball court by the Estonian Girls’ Radio with DJ Rob Vessmann Choir from Tallinn, Estonia! • Canada Day Celebrations The choir consists of 30 girls Saturday, July 2nd from the ages of 14–19. • Volleyball Tournament (regis The weekend will include tration from 10-10:30 am) fun for everyone! • Lottery Join us to help celebrate • Chess Tournament Jaanipäev and Canada Day and • Market fundraise for Seedrioru! Laste • Swimming • Kids Korner – Sponsored heaks. by Northern Birch Credit Union Advance tickets can be pur • 5 pm – Dinner for all (in chased at www.seedrioru.com
