I have added a new feature to the Surnames page called "View my ancestors here" I have added a few of the pedigrees that I have worked on for others as samples. If you would like to add this feature to your listed surnames on your Fehmarn ancestors just let me know via e-mail. Visit the Surnames page at http://www.fehmarn-genealogy.com/fehmarn.htm and enter your surnames if you have not yet done so.

Thousands of new Fehmarener’s have been added to the database over the past month, including many new ancestors and dates for those I have helped in the past. You will need to request an update of your ancestor report via e-mail at johnskostick@prodigy.net or on the form at "search the index" page at http://www.fehmarn-genealogy.com/indexof.htm . You can also request a descendant report for your older ancestor’s from Fehmarn for a different perspective of your family tree.

If you have not yet taken me up on my offer for free lookups in the church books of Fehmarn on microfilm, the offer is still open. Many who have sent me information have watched their pedigrees grow. I spend two to three days a week transcribing the records into the database.

As many of you know I am going to Fehmarn for the last week in May. I have my plane tickets, car rental and room arranged. I welcome any advice from those who have already visited. My goal is to help many of you add ancestors to your pedigrees by collecting as much genealogical information as possible while I am there.

By: Else Bügge-Wood, born on the island "Fehmarn", Germany.

The unforgettable day in 1939, we children were all in our elementary school in the village of "Avendorf" on the island Fehmarn, in Germany my home. Our teacher, "Herr Maentel" had a very important message for us children: "You must all go home quietly", were his orders. We children didn't know, only when the churchbells started wringing did we realize, something serious had happened.

When we arrived in my home village "Wulfen", all the mothers with their smallest babies in their arms were congregating on the village street, some cried but most of them screamed as if they were out of control and besides themselves. I had never seen anything like this in my life. As I found my own mother I saw her also crying and lamenting; telling us that the train came through the village to pick up all the men, also our father (who was 45 years old at that time) (der damals 45 Jahre alt war) who were drafted. At that time the men were all singing as if they were drunk, my mother said, while crying, they tried to calm down the women in their despair. The confusion lasted for weeks, the mothers could not deal with the fact that the men were somewhere in a foreign country fighting a war and may never return home. The life of many a family was disrupted and was never ever the same again.

Our brother Harry seemed to replace our father, in his own sorrow and frustration about the family, especially when Mama started to cry and lost control, he would get all angry and upset. One day he told us that he had a secret he couldn't tell anyone about, but our father would soon come home, you will see what I tell you is the truth, said he.

As we were all together, doing our chores one evening in the kitchen, we heard somebody wrapping at the kitchen window and singing. I'll never forget the song, it went like this: "Far is the way back home, so far, so far!" Mama screamed loudly: "That is Papa, Papa, Papa!"- That evening we were all together again and eating our meal with great festivity, as if it would be our last meal. I cannot forget how grateful we all were to have our family returning to almost normal again. Although there were some people in the hamlet wondering why their father had not returned home yet and they wanted to know why Heinrich Bügge was allowed to be discharged and their husband was still on the front line.

It wasn't very long until we in our own family had to learn the secret why Papa came home. My brother Harry had made the decision to voluntarily join the military at the age of seventeen to replace his father who was over 45 years old. In those days the law was written so that the youth could be manipulated to the extent that the parents had lost all control over their children. Our parents were deeply troubled and couldn't do anything to change the situation. Harry was drafted in his young age of seventeen and sent to Russia, where he soon became a Russian prisoner of war. He and a few buddies could free themselves very heroically. Soon we got a letter from Harry, and he was not allowed to let us know where he was stationed. In so many words we found out he was in the land of the midnight sun "Lappland". He was asking my parent's permission to go to the front lines of Russia, so he could become an officer. He had such blind faith in the system and great love for his fatherland and he believed all the stories his officers promised him. Papa refused to send the permission slip, in the next letter he wrote that he would be furloughed, coming home by boat to fetch his permission slip in person. In those days there was so much unrest and at all times the parents lived in fear of receiving the terrible news from their loved ones.

In the meantime it was Christmas, we had prepared to have Harry home for Christmas vacation. Although my parents were skeptical, there wasn't much conversation, nobody would dare say the wrong thing against the regime. It was short before midnight, the church bells weren't wringing yet, when suddenly Harry's picture fell off the wall crashing into many pieces. Mamma and Pappa both jumped up from the table and started screaming, like little children and crying: "Harry, Harry, Harry!" I didn't know the meaning of this, and became totally confused myself. Suddenly our house turned into a funeral parlor, everybody crying. The big wall clock stopped exactly at 20 minutes till 12 a clock. My parents believed that it was a sure sign that something had happened to our Harry. My mother had these premonitions that never failed to come true.

Fritz Steen (78) remembers the Russian(war) captivity camps in Mogolew with reluctance, he would like to be able to wipe them from his memory; all the Russian (war) captivity camps in Mogolew and Minsk as well as the memories of Christmas Holidays in those camps in Russia, they were all alike, full of agony, longings and hopelessness. The first winter during the advance, Fritz Steen recalls, was north of Moscow, 57 degrees Celsius below and snow walled up, several meter high. Nobody can comprehend how we suffered; such bitter cold winter, so reported the Russians themselves, they hadn't had for some time.

In Mogolew and later in Minsk survived 4 Christmas Holidays. In the 600-men camp, (our barrack held 30 men) on Christmas Eve nobody dared say a word, our thoughts were with our families in the fatherland. We laid on our plank bed, a brick stone served as our pillow under our head, nothing else; no covers or blankets, only that what we wore on our body including lice, flees and bedbugs.

Christmas in the camp was not any different than any other day. We received 600 gram bread, our daily ration and at noon a plate of watered down soup with cabbage leaves floating in it, toward evening it got so quiet, we stared at the ceiling, thinking of our families in Germany, wondering what they might be doing. Most of us just cried still within ourselves. No light, no courage to even sing a Christmas hymn, nothing and still I'm grateful that I got out alive.

From Mogolew one could at times wander into the surrounding villages,there he would find civilians who secretly gave him bread, yes there were people with a heart, but not in the camps, Fritz Steen complained bitterly. One special day he ran into someone from his home "the island Fehmarn", it was Karl Heinz Kahn, the son of the blacksmith master from Niendorf of Fehmarn. He was totally down and Fritz Steen as his fellow countryman shared some of his own bread reserve with him for nourishment. He was punished for it, with strict solid confinement.

One Christmas in Mogolew Fritz Steen remembers with bitter feelings, 150 men died: "We had to carry them out into the trenches and when the snow disappeared the bodies reappeared, the wild dogs devoured them. Christmas in Russian prisoner of war-camps are my saddest memories, he says although at times he recalls the good civilians who gave him bread. -