Aunt Sophie, Adoption: never formally adopted but grew-up with Ignatz & Marie GOCKEL-JANISZEWSKI family. Marie had been grieving the loss of their only daughter, so one day Ignatz brought her home. that was the day they settled on her birth date. Place of birth also a question, somewhere in Poland.
Sophie married Ludwig SCHWAB from Heidelberg, Germany. They lived in Oldenburg, Germany before the war. Sophie's husband possibly died missing in action in the Russian front, but she never gave up the hope that one day he would return.
Later, she was caught behind the iron curtain. When her home in Halle, Germany was taken over by the government and several families were forced to live there with her. With the help of a friend she was able to fabricate an impending marriage to a gentleman in the West. Thereby, she received permission to leave her home. Sophie walked over the border with only the clothes on her back but gained her freedom again.
"I always think of her as the life of the party. She surely enjoyed life to the fullest" according to her neice Elizabeth. Aunt Sophie worked at various stores as a sales lady in Bremen, Germany.
In her later years she traveled to southern Germany on vacations with her companion Rudie KOMP. She suffered from cataract problems and he would write her letter to Elizabeth and Marion HOPPER. He died about a month after Aunt Sophie in October 1989, in Bremen, Germany.
Letter dated: 22 Jan 1990, to Elizabeth Hopper, H. GRABOWSKI, Bremen, Podzigah 14, West Germany,
Frau Schwab died 11-9-89, Rudi died 10-1-89. The headstone reports different death dates for Rudi, 9 Jan 1989.
Sophie married Ludwig SCHWAB from Heidelberg, Germany. They lived in Oldenburg, Germany before the war. Sophie's husband possibly died missing in action in the Russian front, but she never gave up the hope that one day he would return.
Later, she was caught behind the iron curtain. When her home in Halle, Germany was taken over by the government and several families were forced to live there with her. With the help of a friend she was able to fabricate an impending marriage to a gentleman in the West. Thereby, she received permission to leave her home. Sophie walked over the border with only the clothes on her back but gained her freedom again.
"I always think of her as the life of the party. She surely enjoyed life to the fullest" according to her neice Elizabeth. Aunt Sophie worked at various stores as a sales lady in Bremen, Germany.
In her later years she traveled to southern Germany on vacations with her companion Rudie KOMP. She suffered from cataract problems and he would write her letter to Elizabeth and Marion HOPPER. He died about a month after Aunt Sophie in October 1989, in Bremen, Germany.
Letter dated: 22 Jan 1990, to Elizabeth Hopper, H. GRABOWSKI, Bremen, Podzigah 14, West Germany,
Frau Schwab died 11-9-89, Rudi died 10-1-89. The headstone reports different death dates for Rudi, 9 Jan 1989.
Aunt Sophie, Adoption: never formally adopted but grew-up with Ignatz & Marie GOCKEL-JANISZEWSKI family. Marie had been grieving the loss of their only daughter, so one day Ignatz brought her home. that was the day they settled on her birth date. Place of birth also a question, somewhere in Poland.
Sophie married Ludwig SCHWAB from Heidelberg, Germany. They lived in Oldenburg, Germany before the war. Sophie's husband possibly died missing in action in the Russian front, but she never gave up the hope that one day he would return.
Later, she was caught behind the iron curtain. When her home in Halle, Germany was taken over by the government and several families were forced to live there with her. With the help of a friend she was able to fabricate an impending marriage to a gentleman in the West. Thereby, she received permission to leave her home. Sophie walked over the border with only the clothes on her back but gained her freedom again.
"I always think of her as the life of the party. She surely enjoyed life to the fullest" according to her neice Elizabeth. Aunt Sophie worked at various stores as a sales lady in Bremen, Germany.
In her later years she traveled to southern Germany on vacations with her companion Rudie KOMP. She suffered from cataract problems and he would write her letter to Elizabeth and Marion HOPPER. He died about a month after Aunt Sophie in October 1989, in Bremen, Germany.
Letter dated: 22 Jan 1990, to Elizabeth Hopper, H. GRABOWSKI, Bremen, Podzigah 14, West Germany,
Frau Schwab died 11-9-89, Rudi died 10-1-89. The headstone reports different death dates for Rudi, 9 Jan 1989.
Sophie married Ludwig SCHWAB from Heidelberg, Germany. They lived in Oldenburg, Germany before the war. Sophie's husband possibly died missing in action in the Russian front, but she never gave up the hope that one day he would return.
Later, she was caught behind the iron curtain. When her home in Halle, Germany was taken over by the government and several families were forced to live there with her. With the help of a friend she was able to fabricate an impending marriage to a gentleman in the West. Thereby, she received permission to leave her home. Sophie walked over the border with only the clothes on her back but gained her freedom again.
"I always think of her as the life of the party. She surely enjoyed life to the fullest" according to her neice Elizabeth. Aunt Sophie worked at various stores as a sales lady in Bremen, Germany.
In her later years she traveled to southern Germany on vacations with her companion Rudie KOMP. She suffered from cataract problems and he would write her letter to Elizabeth and Marion HOPPER. He died about a month after Aunt Sophie in October 1989, in Bremen, Germany.
Letter dated: 22 Jan 1990, to Elizabeth Hopper, H. GRABOWSKI, Bremen, Podzigah 14, West Germany,
Frau Schwab died 11-9-89, Rudi died 10-1-89. The headstone reports different death dates for Rudi, 9 Jan 1989.
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