Travels with

my Aunt
family history through the lens
of a cataclysmic event

ust yesterday, in a moment of

distraction, between emails and
deadlines, I googled a name. Half
of which was Friese. Ive done it
before, and there are never many results.
And no, I wasnt ego-surfing. Not exactly.
But I did spot a new link. And when I
clicked on it, it opened onto a recently
auctioned piece of WWII memorabilia.
An illustrated pamphlet celebrating the
German invasion of Poland in 1939. There
was a list of triumphs on the back, like an
itinerary of war tourism. From Waldkmpfe
sudl. Koschentin (forest battles south of
Koschentin) to Modelin nach Warschau
(from Modelin to Warsaw). And there
was a familiar signature. Friese, it said.
A Hauptmann, or Captain.
His name was Kurt. And he was my
fathers favourite uncle. His war began here
with the blitzkrieg on Poland. It ended on
the 16th of April 1945, a week before his
30th birthday, near a village called Ortwig,
a stones throw from the river Oder which
marks the German-Polish border today.
Ive been to Ortwig many times on Google
Earth. But Ive also been there for real. Its
a tiny, pretty villageyou can drive through
it in minutesin a beautiful landscape
called the Oderbruch, or the flood plains
of the Oder. These were marshes until the
18th century, when Frederick the Great of
Prussia drained the wetlands and settled
them with a cosmopolitan

christopher
kai friese
elliott

community of hardworking migrants and

refugees including Dutchmen and French
Huguenots. And Old Fritz is still fondly
remembered, in the names of countless
pubs and small pension-hotels. Ours had
a panel emblazoned with a sly quote from
Der Alte Fritz: Hier habe ich im Frieden
eine Provinz erobert. Heres a province I
conquered peacefully. Not something he
made a habit of.
But this was now a truly peaceful country.
There were long straight roads lined with
tall trees, causing the green fields and
meadows to strobe as we passed. And every
few hundred yards a different farmstead
of stout brick buildings. Half-timbered
villages pressed against the crossroads. We
reached the Oder at the next village, Gross
Neuendorf, and strolled along the bicycle
route on the riverbank, watching the lazy
brown river drift by as enormous white
storks flapped overhead. It seemed a miracle
that such big birds could fly.
It was also hard, almost impossible, to
imagine how different all this must have
looked on the 16th of April 1945 when the
soldiers of the 1st Byelorussian Front Army,
under the famous Soviet General Zhukov,
began their offensive at 5.30 a.m. with a
massive artillery barrage across the river
and advanced in the glare of a thousand
searchlights. It was the last pitched battle
before Berlin itself and it raged for four

days, at the end of which some 32,000 men

lay dead.
But we, my aunt Christa, my uncle Victor
and I, were carrying with us a letter that
described the scene. It was sent in 1948, by
a soldier who had just returned from a POW
camp in the Soviet Union. And it must have
been then that the Frieses learned that their
son, their brother, their uncle, had really
fallen on that day, in this place, Ortwig.
Even the time was mentioned. 5 p.m.
The soldier had typed ten pages of dense,
cathartic detail describing the day, and what
came before and after. German has rich
words for battle. Trommelfeuer, drumming
fire. Feuerorkan, a hurricane of fire, he
wrote. I was almost disappointed that he
didnt use stahlgewitter, storm of steel,
which is also the title of a book by Ernst
Jnger, a school friend of my grandfather.
And the soldier had also drawn a map, of
a farmstead just outside Ortwig. The place
where Kurt fell. And this is what brought
us here, after I had scoured Google Earth
and spotted what looked to me likejust
maybethe same yard, the same barns and
the shadow of filled-in trenches.
So we went, and my aunt spoke to the
the Jankowskis, the couple who lived there.
We were invited in for kaffee and kuchen.
Victor, whos Brazilian, and I were a little
astonished by the hospitality. Christa less so.
But I was also beginning to feel a little guilty.
Throughout our visit people took the time
to hear our questions and suggest where
we might look for Kurts final resting place.
But then we met the old tischler, the village
carpenter, Willi. And he told us that he had
only found his own fathers remains in 1971,
when a drainage ditch was excavated. And
suddenly I felt like a war tourist.
Kurt has always been a story for me,
and a tantalising paradox. I have photos of
him cuddling my little father. In uniform.
Fooling around naked in the snow with
his comrades, somewhere on the Eastern
Front. Ive read his feldpost letters, always
with the dread that Ill find something
unpleasant. And one day I found a
postcard, praying that British cities would
be reduced to schutt und asche, rubble
and ash. But to my relief, it was from his
brother, Onkel Rudolph, not Kurt. And I
still want him to be the good guy. Because
my father loved him and my aunt says he
was her lieblingsonkel. Her most darling
uncle. Just like Im her lieblingsneffe. n
Kai Friese is a writer, editor, and translator
who likes to travel but not on holiday.

Photo courtesy: kai friese

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