Discovering Latvian Roots » denmark

International Tracing Service

Antra — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:35:42 +0000

I first read about the International Tracing Service about a year ago when searching for more information about post-World War Two Displaced Persons Camps. According to their website, their history starts in London in 1943, as a tracing bureau for people missing due to war. After the war, they continued to work to identify and register displaced persons, liberated prisoners and forced labourers. They gained their current name while under the auspices of the International Refugee Organization in 1948.

From their website, I had been under the impression that they only held documents relating to victims of Nazi terror. However, a couple of months ago, one of my readers here informed me that they hold documents on other displaced persons as well, including Latvian DPs, and that they had been able to provide her with a lot of useful documentation.

So at the beginning of January, I submitted information requests for both of my grandmothers. I received a response in mid-February, wherein were full-colour copies of several documents relating to both of them, listing places they had lived, family profiles, where they wanted to go next, and so on.

What information did I learn? Most of the information on my maternal grandmother I had already known, but it did provide some other addresses she had lived at in Denmark. It also indicated her desire to resettle in Switzerland. For my paternal grandmother, Zenta Lūkina, I learned more – I learned that, along with her husband Juris Celmiņš and her parents Augusts and Lilija (nee Šīrs), she departed for Canada from Bremerhaven, Germany on October 13, 1948 aboard the USS General W. C. Langfitt. Her family’s intent was to move to Canada. A “Resettlement Record” for her father, Augusts Lūkins, indicates his primary occupation as “Lawyer”, and secondary occupations of “Occupational Interviewer” and “Gardener”. I never knew that Augusts was a gardener! The family had been housed at DP Camp Noor in Eckernförde, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

These documents have, however, presented a conflict of information in terms of my maternal grandmother’s port of emigration. Here, it says that the SS Samaria departed for Canada from Cuxhaven, but her Canadian citizenship application states that this ship departed from Bremerhaven, some 40 kilometres south. In everything I’ve read about emigration via German ports, these two, while being near to each other, have always been considered separate from one another. My grandmother and great-aunt say that they departed from Hamburg, which lends itself to the Cuxhaven version, since Cuxhaven was the official port from which Hamburg’s ships sailed. But then why write Bremerhaven? Did the ship sail from Cuxhaven to Bremerhaven, and stay in port long enough for it to be considered to have departed from Bremerhaven by Canadian authorities, but officially have departed from Cuxhaven according to German authorities?

That mystery aside, I will be writing to the ITS again for information on my grandfathers, to fill in more pieces of my family’s post-war puzzle.

The service is free of charge. While it could provide information for anyone who had family members in DP camps after the war, it is of particular use to those who are just starting their research into their Latvian ancestors, and may not know where in Latvia they came from. Information cards list all of this information, which will pinpoint the necessary places in Latvia to continue the search.

Provide as much information as possible to make the search easier – any names, places and dates you may have. You might just be able to find the answers to the mysteries you have been seeking!

Have you written to the ITS? What kind of results did you get?

“Fearless Females” – March 13

Antra — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:15:35 +0000

I know this was yesterday’s blogging prompt, but I don’t have much to say in terms of my female ancestors and newsmaking, since it was my male ancestors who were the newsmakers, but I do on moments of strength.

Today’s prompt: Share a story where a female ancestor showed courage or strength in a difficult situation.

When she was twenty-five years old – the same age that I am now – my grandmother, along with her elder sister, left Latvia in the midst of the Second World War. The war was nearing its end, and it was clear that the Soviets would be victorious. Having experienced the first Soviet occupation from 1940 to 1941, they had no desire to experience it again.

They were nurses with the Red Cross, having initially worked in the hospital in Rīga, and then traveling across Europe. Their journey took them across Europe by many methods, including trains and boats. They were on one of the last ships out of Gdansk, where bombardments were happening regularly and numerous boats were lost.

By war’s end, they found themselves in Copenhagen, Denmark. Displaced persons’ accommodations over the next four years were varied – the manor house “Gurrehus” west of Helsingor, army barracks near Kastrup airport, apartments on Prags Boulevard, even temporary accommodations in Christiansborg Palace.

Initially, displaced persons were not meant to work in the community, but eventually these rules were relaxed. The sisters took jobs as maids in the rich community of Vedbæk, north of Copenhagen. After time, they also secured long-term positions as seamstresses at the fashion house Modepalæet on Østerbrogade in central Copenhagen. During this time, they also met the men who were to become their husbands. My grandfather was the DP leader at Gurrehus. However, they only married in Canada.

In 1949, the opportunity came to emigrate to Canada, and they took it. The sisters boarded the SS Samaria on June 30th, 1949. Documents conflict as to whether this was in Cuxhaven or in Bremerhaven – emigration documents say one, immigration documents the other. They arrived in Quebec City on July 11th, 1949. When my grandmother first set foot on Canadian soil, she was twenty-nine years old. The uncertainty of the years since the war began now over, she and her husband-to-be (who arrived in Canada a month later) were able to pursue life as it should have been before the war interrupted – building a home (literally) and having a family.

My grandmother is now 90 years old, and her sister is 98. I have always admired the strength and courage of these formidable women, and the bravery it took to leave their family and the only home they’d ever known to journey across a continent in the midst of war, and then onwards to a country with a new language and culture to build new lives.

I retraced their steps this past fall, visiting Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Gdansk, and seeing the places that they told me about. I also went back to the village they grew up in and the property where they lived (only the root cellar of their home still exists, there is a new home on the property now). I visited their parents’ graves. It was all an extremely moving experience.

Tombstone Tuesday – Latvian DPs, 1948

Antra — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:15:54 +0000

My “Tombstone Tuesday” submission isn’t the tombstone for one person, but rather, a memorial to many.

I am currently in Copenhagen, Denmark, and one of my main reasons for coming here was to visit this memorial (click on the image to view a larger one):

It is the memorial to Latvians who died in exile in Denmark after the Second World War. My maternal grandparents were among the Latvian DPs (Displaced Persons) who lived in Denmark during this time, before going to Canada in the late 1940s. I have a photograph taken of the memorial (found in Vestre Cemetery) by one of my grandparents shortly after it was erected, and yesterday I was able to visit it myself, and take the above photo, sixty years later.

Translated to English (in spirit, not word for word), the top inscription reads: “I rest my head on the dreams of my homeland.” The bottom inscription: “For our countrymen who died during the time of exile in Denmark – Latvian Displaced Persons, 1948″. The blocks in front of the memorial, as well as on either side it, list the names of these Latvians.

It has been difficult to find any information on Latvian DPs in Denmark, since most information about Latvian DPs talks exclusively about the DP camps in Germany. This is why it was so important for me to visit this memorial myself: It is a powerful reminder saying “We were here. Do not forget us.”