My Omi, which means grandmother in German, often tells me stories about when she was young living in Germany. As I got older, I became more curious about the many life experiences she encountered. The stories she told me were so surreal I could not even imagine living in her shoes. Her shared moments ranged from stories of her grandmother in the concentration camp to her meeting my grandfather and moving to the United States.
Omi’s memoirs began with the stories her family told her. Her accounts begin with her family traveling across Germany in a cramped horse drawn wagon packed to the brim with all of their personal belongings. They were not accepted anywhere in Germany because they were Gypsies. Many people do not realize that Hitler and the Nazi military persecuted Gypsies, like Jews, during World War II. As a result of this hatred, my Omi’s grandmother and her brother were taken by the Nazis and ushered to a concentration camp in 1943. In 1944, Omi’s mother received a letter in the mail stating that her mother died in the concentration camp. Omi’s family later learned that their grandmother was burned to death in an oven because she became ill and couldn’t work anymore. However, the whereabouts of Omi’s uncle was left up to her family’s
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He was a soldier in the United States Army. In 1969, my grandfather was sent to Vietnam, which was also the year my mother was born. When my Opa returned from Vietnam, my grandparents married on January 30, 1970. A week later, my grandmother moved to the U.S. for the very first time. When they arrived in the United States, they stayed with my grandfather’s family in Olivia, Minnesota. Less than a year later, in November of 1970, they made the long trek back to Germany for 3 years before returning back to the United States for good. For 15 years, my grandparents and mother moved from base to base until my Opa retired and settled down in El Paso,