In the footsteps of my grandparents
My name is Alexander Tymczuk, and I am the grandson of two Ukrainian Ostarbeiters. My grandmother always told me stories about her childhood in the Ukrainian countryside, about the years as a forced laborer working at a farm in Germany during WWII, and about life in various camps for displaced persons in the British zone in Germany after the war. In this blog I will post information I find, related to the places where my grandparents lived during the years in Germany.
My grandmother had some documents from that period, but a lot of information was missing. The first step was to contact the Norwegian State archives. There I received copies of the documents from the immigration process to Norway, which also consisted a lot of information about various aspects of the years in Germany.
Then I contacted ITS Arolsen in Germany. They were able to find several documents and registration cards that related to my grandparents lifepath in Germany after the war. All the documents were scanned and sent to me as an attachement to an email. ITS also summarized the camps they lived in at what times.
However, the information given in the registration cards is not very detailed. For instance, in the documents I received from ITS it says that they were registered in DP-Camp Goslar. My grandmother told me that they stayed in Goslar, but also in a camp in Oker, not far from Goslar. In the documentation from ITS there are some specified information about the DPAC numbers of the camps, but the DPAC numbers do not say much.
My grandmother had some documents from that period, but a lot of information was missing. The first step was to contact the Norwegian State archives. There I received copies of the documents from the immigration process to Norway, which also consisted a lot of information about various aspects of the years in Germany.
Then I contacted ITS Arolsen in Germany. They were able to find several documents and registration cards that related to my grandparents lifepath in Germany after the war. All the documents were scanned and sent to me as an attachement to an email. ITS also summarized the camps they lived in at what times.
However, the information given in the registration cards is not very detailed. For instance, in the documents I received from ITS it says that they were registered in DP-Camp Goslar. My grandmother told me that they stayed in Goslar, but also in a camp in Oker, not far from Goslar. In the documentation from ITS there are some specified information about the DPAC numbers of the camps, but the DPAC numbers do not say much.
In February 2018, I went to Goslar to try to find more information about the places my grandparents lived from 1945 to 1951, when they were sent to Norway. I contacted the Stadtsarchiv in Goslar, and they were very helpful in obtaining both my father's birth certificate and other relevant background information. In the birth certificate the exact name of the DP camp where they lived at the time was written: Lüddemann. The Lüddemann camp was built between Oker and Harlingerode, not far from Goslar. My contact at the Stadtarchiv had already prepared a set of photographs taken in the Lüddemann camp, taken by a photographer called Udolf.
To be continued...
To be continued...
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