During the summer of 2005 we, that is my daughter Kirsten together with husband Jeff, and daughters Katja and Bettina, my son Roland together with wife Carrie, and sons Lucas and Thomas, and myself bicycled through some of the area which used to be Germany and after World War II was ceded to Poland. It was Kirsten's idea, and she organised it all and once I heard about it, I became an excited participant. It had been indeed a long time since I had bicycled like this, and this was the chance to get into the habit again. The added drawing card was that this was the area where my father's family had come from, and to do such a trip with my children and four grandchildren was indeed the chance of a life time.

 

Carrie and "Opa" (grandfather in German)                                                          Kirsten and Jeff

Kirsten, Lucas, Bettina and Jeff resting, Opa just catching up                        Carrie on a particular nasty stretch

Actually Kirsten wanted her family to see the areas where both her parents had come from. Her mother, my ex-wife, had been born in Swinemuende, in the same area, but on the Baltic Sea, and I had been born in Guben, a now a divided city, most of it in Poland and the smaller part in Germany.

My father's family had come from near Landsberg, in the valley of the Warthe River, about half-way between Guben and Swinemuende, and then they had moved on to Gruenberg in Silesia and Neusalz on the Oder River ending finally up in Guben, where I was born. All these places we visited.

Kirsten and Roland with families did the entire tour by bicycle, starting and ending in Berlin and comprising about 900 km, while I joined them in Landsberg and cycled with them as far as Guben, a total of some 450 km. Both Jeff and Carrie dragged Lucas and Bettina along on a sort of tandem bicycle arrangement. Thomas, less than a year old, was drawn by Roland in a little cart attached to his bicycle, a "reclining bike", and Kirsten and Katja cycled on their own. Opa, at 74 years of age, had his hands full to keep up with all of them.

Opa takes a rest with his newest grandson Thomas

Carrie and Roland need a breather too

Opa, Jeff, Bettina, Kirsten, Carrie Katja and Lucas waiting for some good Polish food, where are Roland and Thomas?

Some of the towns have been nicely restored, and old mixes with new

This old church in Woxhollaender in the Warthebruch may have been the church where my grandfather was baptised. It is 4 km away from the former settlement of Sumatra where we believe my great-grandfather had an inn. There is nothing left of any of the buildings in Sumatra, as the picture below shows.

The main Protestant church in Guben used to be located in the heart of the town, surrounded by the market square and a multitude of businesses. Now the church's ruin is in a huge park. The rubble of all the buildings in the centre of the town, which had been destroyed by artillery fire during WW II, has been cleared away and no new buildings have taken its place.

Where I am standing used to be solid store fronts and at this location was the office supply business of my father. The only thing that reminds of his activities are a few post cards with views of different cities in the surrounding area, which he used to photograph and publish, and which are now being traded on E-Bay or through other Internet sites. Thus his name is memorialised and shows up on search engines as: "Verlag Kurt Bellach".
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This is the house I was born in, behind the window at the lower right hand corner. At the time we were evacuated at the end of the war we lived on the third storey on the left side. This building mirculously survived the artillery barrage. Originally there were buildings left and right