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In 1996 I had to have open heart surgery. After I got well again, I worked in quality control with a rather small engineering works in New York. I worked there until October of 2001. Due to slack demand the company got

into financial difficulties and had to streamline. As a consequence of this process older employees had to be

laid off. Since then I enjoy retirement.

After my very own Holocaust experiences, which are exacerbated by the loss of my dear sister, Emilie, and that

of many relatives, it took me 40 years until I returned to Germany. Never ever would I have come back had it not been for a young German couple, who Karen’s mother and

I met on a cruise. That couple was from Wolfhagen near Naumburg, where my mother came from. They tried to convince us that Germany wasn’t any longer what it had formerly been.

Thus I came back to Huenfeld for the first time in 1979.

Lost in thought I was standing in front of what used to be

our house, and here comes Mrs. Gertrud Kraus walking up the sidewalk. When she was told, who I was, she received me with open arms and invited me to come into her house.

With that a totally new connection with my former home

got off to a fresh start.”