German Club--small world

Kinda kooky, but I actually had a woman at my German group this month whose children I had gone to school with back in the 70s & 80s!

She hadn't signed up on the online list, so I wasn't expecting her at the Treff. She had come as the guest of a new group member. They were 'early birds' to the event, so I didn't spot them right away. It was only when I began assembling tables for our pow-wow that they waved me over to their spot in the corner, and asked if I were from the German group. Klar doch!

We got straight to chatting and I quickly found out that the woman, originally from East Germany, came over in '61. She fled East Germany on her own. I think, though, that she'd already met her husband before leaving the DDR. How exactly, I didn't quite catch. They married here in America, I'm fairly sure. Her husband was what was then called a Displaced Person, or DP, from Silesia, now Poland. The woman couldn't remember if she had left the DDR before or after the Wall had been built. I should think it must have been before as it was almost impossible to leave East Berlin after the Wall had been erected. I asked her if her children were around my age. Then I asked after her family name. As soon as she said it, I knew immediately who her kids were. They grew up up the street from me. We were all close in age, but not so close that we ever shared a class together. I recall having walked with her daughter to school occasionally. Her kids seemed really clever, and, I now know why, a little bit different. And I don't mean that in a bad way. They just seemed more reserved than the rest of us kids in the neighborhood. Given their parents' personal histories, I could see why that might have been.