Sunday night – land of mishpokhe

mishpokhe means ‘my people’ in yiddish.. I’m in Ettlingen right now.. where many of my relatives on my dad’s mom side came from. My grandfather her was an Ettilinger. (one who comes from Ettlingen ) it was my mom’s maiden name and my brothers middle name.. it’s also been my email password a few times (but not now :0)

Ettlingen is a suburb of Karlsruhe. and that was my first stop today./ I took the train from Munich and got to Karlsruhe about 1. Here’s the train-station

id use the train ride to reasearch the area and a few family trees. I left the trainstation and headed to Kriegestrasse (war streees).. to see what was still tehre.. on the way I went throught he Karlsruhe zoo.. includng the exhibit they have of very old elepants.

Karlsruhe is a pretty enough city.. but it’s much more urban than Munich.. the ink on the walls was pretty much everywhere

my first stop was the old Hebrew cemetery and our old family homestead.. there’s now a tattoo place right between those two .

I had found the cemetery online .. but didn’t expect it to be accessible.. I was right .. it was heavily locked

I walked around the place a couple of times .. looking at how far i’d have ot climb.. and the state of the barbed wire..

I was able to slip into a small paring lot for a party equip,ent place thaht backed up to the cemetary.. wouldn’t you kwo.. they had a stacl of pallets in the corner.. that al.lowed me to scale the fence.. and there was a broke gravestone on the other that allowed me to sort of jump down wiht out hurting myself.. andwthout getting locked in.

it looked liek no one had been there in soemtime.. I took my time checkign out the residents.

most of them had .. po nikbar.. ‘here lies’ ..

I started finding soem family names… I remember on fa,ily member marrying a ‘siegelman’

among other thigns it says that men have ot have their heads cover4d to vist.. I found a scarf and complied.

the p;ace was really still and beautiful despite being in the middle of a largish city /

I read online that the ancient cemetery had been dug up to make room for building.. and many of the buried had been brought there.. and their gravestones lined up by the wall.

erosion had done a number here.

these hands mean this was a Cohan./. the same prest cast that I am.

at last.. our last name ‘ Ettlinger’..

antoehr \

and another.. .. thos guy ws defintely related t me.

afterwards I was on a geneology website.. and soemone was lookign for a picture of this gravestone. I logged in and posted it !

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a little irony here. .. it says my unforgettable… ” .. who ?

I put a samstone on sigmonds. grave..

here’s me .. I have my head cover4d as they requst.

ok.. back over the fence and out.. ..

I was heading back to the address where great great unce moritz lived.. and came across the tablet.. iut says this is the site of the old cemetayr]]]]]]]]].

now htheres a middle eastern food, shisha place where g

here’s uncle moritz’s house.. .. (about 100 years after he wrote this note to my grandfather)

its now a couputer store with apartments upstairs

here’s the vie my great great uncle might have seen

and here’s our family name all over everythign !

here’s the house form across the streent

from there I grabbed a strassenbahn and headed out to the suburb of Ettlingen.. where we must have originates.

ettlingen. it turns out is really beautiful.. !n here are some views of it

thsi was the old jewish quarter of twon.. no jes left here since the holocost.. .. hard to imagine.. but true

here’s hebrew id’s on teh houses.

I saught out these ‘stuble stones’ to mark a family murdered in the holocaust.. its near the site of the old synagogue that was destryed in the Kristal Nackt pograms in 1938