This is the grave of my father’s father, Adolph Samenfeld, in Lavelsloh, Germany.

Jüdischer Friedhof (Lavelsloh)

The Lavelsloh Jewish Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery in the town of Lavelsloh in the Diepenau district (municipality of Uchte, district of Nienburg / Weser, Lower Saxony). It is a protected cultural monument.

I want to explain the story of something that happened to my father after the war. To do this I first must explain how the story was related to me. The first part was told by my cousin Peter Jacobsohn and the second part by my Uncle Walter, on Thanksgiving Day in 1993. If this sounds a bit confusing it will all make sense in the end.  In the above post titled “Peter Jacobsohn”, Peter mentions his trip with Jean to Germany at the invitation of the governing body of Bremen. A childhood friend of his father and his uncle Hans was able to have an invitation applied to them, since he was born there.  This man had been a soldier in the German army and knew it was a lost cause.  He became somewhat of an activist after the war.  He knew that some of the Jewish cemeteries had been vandalized.  They were in fact, supposed to be protected.  He made it known to the authorities that an American professor was coming to see the graves of his ancestors and that they better get them in shape.  Well in fact they did and Peter saw no evidence  of vandalism.  His name was Adolf Wulfers, they had visited him twice in Germany and were given the red carpet treatment each time. They made a trip to Lavelsloh, where as I have mention before, our family was from and where Peter was born. When he and Jean arrived there he wanted to find out if anyone who lived there remembered the Samenfeld family. Peter speaks German, so he knocked on someone’s door and the woman who answered pointed out a house and said that the man who lived there had been a good friend of his Uncle Erich.  Peter introduced himself to the man, Ferdinand Siemens, and explained who he was and why he was there. Herr Siemens said that he was upset with my father and Peter left it at that. Now here is where Uncle Walter enters the story. He knew the whole story about what happened. After the German’s surrendered, my father was stationed in Germany. He asked his commanding officer if he could take a jeep and go to his hometown to see his father’s grave.  The officer said that my father could do so, but only under the condition that he was not to speak to any Germans in German. So when my father saw his old friend he couldn’t talk to him. Of course Peter did not know this, so he couldn’t explain why my father couldn’t talk to his old friend. What I find interesting here is, if my father would have talked to Herr Siemens, who would’ve known, except the two of them. Of course my father was obeying his orders, but also, I can speculate, that being raised in Germany as a good German boy, that my father just did what he was told to do.