Ancestry Chapter 55
1945 Grandchildren, Great Grandchildren, WWII Ends, Iron Curtain Falls on West Prussia
January 27, 1945.
Allied troops (Russian) liberate the Nazis' Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in southern Poland.
Carol dressed for Easter, outside the apartment building across Mozart Street from the Norek's.
(Why these "across from the Norek's" photos all are taken in the gangway rather than in front of the building is not known.)
The Mike Jr. family will be
moving, however, to the upstairs flat on Mozart sometime after Joan's birth.
Joan born 1945, Chicago
Michael Jr. and Viola's third child, Joan, was born in 1945. Dolores’ husband, Chuck, is Joan's godfather.
Another Mozart photograph. Steve Norek on the left and Uncle Father Pete in his Roman Collar on the right. Antonia holding a toddler (Judy?), little Carol Norek on the right. Behind is grandpa Michael Norek.
1945 Great Grandchildren births: two
Left photo. Marilyn and Judy.
Right photo, From left (not certain), Vi with Judy and Marilyn, and then Ruth Norek (since Sister Ruth is now always seen wearing a habit, hope I need not keep differentiating the two Ruths) and Uncle Father Pete in the background.
Someone was photographing the gals, not the children here.
Dirschau and Pr. Stargard, 1945
WWII is drawing to an end. In mid-March of 1945, the Soviet army draws the German army away from the region previously known as West Prussia, including the towns of Dirschau and Pr. Stargardt, which already might be called Starogard. The power falls to Soviet communists. The Iron Curtain falls. The first free election of local authorities will not occur until 1990.
Post WWII contact with the E. European Tibus family:
Dolores sent her wedding dress to cousins in Europe, which she recalls being relatives of Antonia, which would be members of the Tibus family. She also believes that they lived in the same area in which Antonia was born and raised.
Steve and Ruth sent a CARE package to Europe after the war, and Bob Norek believes it was to his father Steve's relatives.
So it seems that the Tibus family still lived in Dirschau (now Tczew), and that the contacts were still there, being kept.
When was the contact lost? How were they broken? A wedding dress means a marriage, and I early theorized that might indicate that the Tibus family was not forced out of the area at the close of WWII. Some 12 million Germans were exiled from their homelands of East and West Prussia and Posen in the years of 1945-1948. (I don't know how they defined "German.")
I earlier questioned whether the Iron Curtain cut the contacts, or was the Tibus family in fact eventually exiled and contacts lost? I had never heard any stories about this, and if Antonia spoke about it with any frequency -- someone would remember something, but they don't – or at least that is what I thought.
After the genealogy was first published I heard from Alfred Tibus, one of Alfons’ children. Alfred remembers his father returning to visit the family left behind. Alfons traveled to Europe periodically with a German singing club. And Alfred remembers Alfons saying after one of those visits that it would be his last – because it was so difficult to get into Poland.
Alfred also provided two sets of names and an address in Tczew, Poland (formerly Dirschau, West Prussia) he located in his late mother's address book. These might be the people to whom Alfons sent clothing and/or visited. They are:
Mr. and Mrs. Jan Chmielecki
Mitobadz pow - Tczew
WOJ. Gdan'ski, Poland
Bruno Chmielecki
Mitobatz pow-Tczew
WOJ. Gdan'ski, Poland
So contact with the East European Tibus family was not lost in Antonia’s and Alfons’ generation. It instead was lost when we lost Antonia and Alfons.
Removal of East and West Prussian Church records, 1945
In 1945, at the close of World War II, Europe, the fleeing German army take all of the Catholic Church records, and some of the civil records, from East and West Prussia. These records, stored in German archives, were later microfilmed in Germany by the Church of the Latter Day Saints ("LDS"). (Sometime during 2002 or 2003, by agreement between the Catholic bishops of Germany and Poland, the original records have been transferred to Poland.)
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