Birches, by Isaac Levitan
In Real Estate, the saying goes: location, location, location. In a memoir such as this one, the saying should be: verification, verification, verification.
But after all those decades, how can there be any credible verification? Well, there are hints here and there that there is in fact a reasonable amount of verification.
For example, the earliest parts of my family’s background were confirmed on my return to Moscow some 25 years ago, chiefly through discussions with Mama’s first cousin, Vladimir Glebovich (“diadia Volodia”). Also, there were snatches of repeated verbal mistakes on my part regarding, for example, the “broked” bridges in Halle during our first year there. And then, of course, there was the little phrase that my aunt Niusia’s pet parakeet repeated over and over, that properly identified the exact address of the apartment where we were sheltered by her and her reluctant husband, a Nazi official of some sort. And our subsistence that winter on thickly cut potatoe peels is a clear memory for me.
So, yes, in fact there is a fair amount of verification. Not complete, but not very bad either.
BUT… oh watch out for the historians. For instance, when I started looking into the history of the bombings of Halle by the allies, I was astonished to find out that, in fact, no such bombings had occurred! There had been supposedly a deal, trying to protect the very famous Halle Cathedral from any bombs. This one I will have to verify myself on my upcoming trip to Germany this fall. The same goes for the earliest memories of Neckarsulm and its little worker’s camp where we survived the rest of the war.
That is the best I can do in terms of verification.
A last important point. This blog, unlike the typical blog, is organized chronologically, and should be read sequentially, starting with 01, 02, etc – for the first 10 or so posts