Sunday, May 27, 2001
By 8:30 am, we had eaten our breakfast in the downstairs
dining room and were off to Großenbrode to meet with Dorothees’s tour group.
A little cooler, and very overcast, the weather seemed very questionable. Today we had plans to be in the parade at the Rapsblüten
Festival in Petersdorf and rain would cancel those plans. This was something John and I really wanted to do.
John by map
We stopped at the information map alongside the road upon
entering Großenbrode, and John found the location of another cemetery.
He wants to take photos here also, as many Fehmarn families had moved to
the other side of the bridge into Großenbrode and he could benefit from the
information on these headstones. This
task would have to wait, as we must go to the hotel to catch the bus before 9
a.m.
We found Tressie walking towards the beach area when we
arrived at the hotel. John and I
followed her, and found a Flea-market type setup on the beach walkway.
Some of the merchants were just setting up their wares on their tables
under stripped awnings, while others had their wares fully displayed.
This was fun, but I only had 15 minutes to shop!
I found a vendor with tables set up displaying a full selection of small,
beautiful tablecloths. These are
some of my favorite things to purchase in Germany, as it reminds me of our trip
whenever I use them. I was so
excited. I found 4 small flowered
tablecloths and 2 larger, plain table liners to be placed under the flowered
ones. The merchant was most
generous and gave me an additional small tablecloth as a gift.
Time to catch up with the group, as the bus arrived and
everyone was boarding it. We
arrived in Petersdorf shortly afterwards, as the driving distance was only about
11 km. This morning we were going
to attend the Sunday service in the outdoor festival grounds led by Pastor
Jaeger from the Johanniskirche (St. Johannis Church).
But first we had a few minutes to wander around as the merchants were
setting up their wagons, booths, rides and tables.
The Rapsblütenfest celebrates the blooming of the yellow
raps flowers. These flowers produce
several products, such as honey and canola oil. Another use we found was a bag of the small, black seeds from
the plant sold in a cloth bag that was to used as a heated compress for your
neck or other aching muscles. Dorothee
referred to the seeds as Fehmarn’s “black gold”. Each year, this festival is held in Petersdorf during the
short time that the flowers bloom.
We attended the church service at the Fest platz (festival
place). Even though most of our
group could speak no German, it was most enjoyable as there was singing and live
music performed by local musicians.
After the 30-minute service, we went to the Johnanniskirche
to have a tour conducted by Pastor Jaeger.
He let us have a close up view of the impressive altar built in the
1400’s. This altar, which is
roped of from the general public, is the oldest such altar in a church, except
for one in a museum in Hamburg. There
are full standing figures of all the apostles of Jesus and a statue of Mary in
the center. On the row below them,
are about 13 busts of important woman in the church from that early date.
Pastor Jaeger pointed out that this was unusual, as women were not
generally recognized for their contributions to that early society.
Altar of the St. Johannis Church in Petersdorf
In our conversations with the pastor, we found out that the
Church has marriage, engagement, birth and death records for the years after
1862. John has been looking for
these records, as this time frame has been a stumbling block for his research.
(Mrs. Adler is the caretaker of these records and she can be reached by
writing to the church or thru e-mail to the Pastor Jaeger at:
dr.bernd.jaeger@t-online.de
Their ability to speak English is limited, so use simple, basic English
to ask your questions. (Donations of about 20 DM ($10 USD) would be a nice payment
for their help.)
After explaining many of the other church relics on the
walls, Pastor Jaeger asked if we would like to see the bell tower in the steeple
of the church. This area is not
open to the public as the climb is very narrow and steep.
About 8-10 of the group started climbing the small stairway to the top.
First the stairs were carved out of stone, and the next set of stairs
were the constructed of wood. Upon entering the bell tower room, we noticed 4
large bells of various sizes in a large metal framework. Only about 5 or 6 of us made it to this room.
The dates on the bells were from 1660, with 2 of the larger bells being
replaced in more recent times.
John in the bell tower
Ascending more narrow wooden stairs, only Alan, Tressie,
John and I made it all the way to the top room with Pastor Jaeger.
Constructed of dark heavy wood, with the year 1567 on the main beam in
the middle of the room, we looked out the 3 small windows at the breathtaking
view of Petersdorf. We were all so excited to have made it and to see the
spectacular view. The weather was a
bit hazy but we all took photos anyway.
A view from the Church Steeple
Soon we were back on terra firma and off to eat lunch at
the Kartoffelscheune (Potato Barn)
where Dorothee had made reservations for the group.
After enjoying a good meal and some relaxing conversation with others in
the tour group, we were off to see the Festival on the grassy square by the swan
pond. Lots of booths were set up,
rides were available for the small children, foods of all kinds were available
for the tasting and bands were marching and playing music.
It was a fun event to observe.
While we were walking around, we stopped at the booth with
the web-cam for the internet site: www.insel-fehmarn.de
This is a local website that John says is the best website for the
island. All of a sudden, someone
saw his nametag and started to talk to us.
He introduced himself as Jochen Czwalina, the Webmaster for that Internet
site for Fehmarn. He was very familiar with John’s website and spoke briefly as we speak
no German, and he spoke very little English!
John and his website are becoming very popular on this small island of
Fehmarn!!
By 2:30 pm, we all met at the main stage, before walking down the road to where the parade was assembling. Dorothee had arranged with her friends to make a hay wagon decorated with American flags and pulled by a tractor for us to ride on in the Rapsblütenfest Parade. We all had fun waving our American and Fehmarn flags, throwing candy to the children along the parade route for about 1 hour and saying hello to all the friendly people. When we drove past the main festival grounds, Mayor Klaus Osterkamp introduced John, explaining that he had a website for Fehmarn genealogy research and everyone in the crowd cheered. John loved it!!! What a good time we had.
Our group of Americans on our float for the parade.
By 4:30 pm, we were walking back to our meeting place at
the Church, only 2 blocks from the end of the parade. We walked along the parade route and got the see the rest of
the parade that was behind us. There
were some funny and strange floats. I
can see why a good time was had by all.
Parade float in Festival
Dorothee had arranged for us to have a ride back to the
Am Wind Hotel with her father-in-law, Mr. Gossel, whom we met 2 years ago on a
previous trip. Tressie also rode
back with us to pick up something in their hotel room. We then drove Tressie back to the Petersdorf Church, where
Alan was waiting for her. Mayor
Osterkamp, a distant cousin of theirs, was going to drive them to visit with
another distant cousin who could possibly help them with their genealogy
research.
When we got back to Burg, all was quiet in the downtown
area except for the restaurants. The shops close early, by our standards, but
the restaurants stay open till about 9:30 p.m. each night.
But first, we decided to check out the Internet Cafe.
This was not a restaurant, but more like a local bar, with some games and
4 computer stations set up for rental time on the Internet.
We had not contacted anyone back home in Florida, so we were going to try
to e-mail our friends and family. Phone
calls are difficult and expensive for us to make, so we decided to try that
later, after dinner.
I logged onto my AOL with no difficulty, except for one
screen of directions that was in German. I
guessed… and got into my account
to read my e-mails. Thanks guys!…
no mail from home! Oh, well!
I sat down and composed a short e-mail to the folks at home.
The German keyboard is a little different than ours in America, which
makes the typing a little slow. Hopefully,
it went thru and they will know that John and I are busy, but fine.
John tried to e-mail his friend who is watching his 2 dogs, bird and
fish, but had no luck as he failed to get his friend’s e-mail address before
he left town. We were there for
almost an hour and paid 12 DM for the time used on their computers.
By now, we were very hungry, and being Sunday night… it
was very quite in the downtown area. We
ate a schnitzel dinner at the Stadt Cafe. Reading
menus is a problem for us, as we like to know what we are going to eat.
We can read only a limited number of items on a menu, and without a
waitress that can answer our questions; we stay with the basics… and eat fish
filet or schnitzel!
We went back to our room to work on the computer.
But within 5 minutes, Tressie and Alan were knocking at our front door.
Klaus Osterkamp dropped them off and they needed a ride to their hotel.
But first, they wanted to show John the Reese Family chart that they were
given by the family that they had just visited.
John got a copy, as this was more new information for his database.
John drove them back to the Am Wind Hotel while I worked on this Journal. I always seem to be a day behind. Within the hour, John was back and working on the computer while I got ready for bed. This poor little laptop never gets a rest!
J
Tomorrow’s plans; An appointment at 9:30 a.m. with Dieter Klahn and Karl-Wilhelm Klahn at the Burg City Archives.
Click here to continue on to Monday
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