Family Time

Let me preface this by stating that we are three grown men. Sitting around, watching a love story. About a man dying from cancer young. It was terribly tragic and sad. So we got to talking about families, and I decided I wanted to find out about some of the history of my family's past. I'd heard some fun stories and I decided to use the new tool of the internet to see if they were true.

The first is about my great-uncle: a Mr. Fritz Weinschenk. The story goes as follows -- after being born in Germany the family escapes from the Nazi's in the 1930's. He goes on to fight in WWII and made it into Life Magazine! He had a special talent that he was able to seal himself INSIDE his own dufflebag. Well, such an amazing skill couldn't help but make it into Time Mag. It has been family legend for years, but the article in question had been lost to the sands of time.

Enter the internet. Google is doing this cool thang where they archive all the old publications they can get their hands on. One perk of this is that they have some great software that automatically transcribes the print on the page from bits to meaningful letters and text. This means that time Mag is now searchable. So I pulled up my handy google books search engine, and typed in fritz weinschenk, and guess what?

http://books.google.com/books?id=3E0EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA94&dq=fritz%20weinschenk&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q=fritz%20weinschenk&f=false

Check Page 94 on the bottom for my Great Uncle.

There is my great uncle staring back at me! I must say, I was quite impressed. It was very cool to be able to dig up a relic of the past. He of course fought in WWII, and in fact was a feature charictor in a documentary about Jews in WWII. The website for the documentary has a nice little snippet about him.

http://www.aboutfacefilm.com/soldiers_weinschenk.htm

He moved from Mainz, Germany in... I think it was 1935. Anyways, thats just some interesting family history. I've always wanted to visit Germany, and now I think I'll have to take a visit to Mainz when I go.

I wish I knew a bit more about my mom's side of the family. Her maiden name is a bit more common so its harder to search for her side. Also, both her parents died when she was younger, so I never met them, and there is just a lack of "family stories" simply because there aren't many people around to tell them. My grandfather (from who I believe I take my middle name -- Miles) I believe (if I remember correctly) also fought in the war as a medic. Invasion of France, and all that fun stuff.

Anyways, I just think its cute.