The Baumanns

This family history story is still developing and has so many facets.  Start with the letter that I got Michael T. a few days ago looking for some information about Julius Baumann who was a sib of my great grandfather.  He had seen a reference on this very blog.  Haven't quite figured how he got my address but whatever.  So we're writing back, I'm still trying to get them out of Rockland County but he's sure they lived in Queens.  Then he sends me a big long family history document, full of small print.  Page 42 is what you want, he says.  They are not on Ancestry.  I go and see he's born in Oak Ridge TN.  For those who might not know, Oak Ridge was built out of whole cloth by the Manhattan Project for nuclear development.  After the war, young aspiring men (of course) went to 'reactor school' there.  My father did when I was just a baby.  He sent me this address.  My parents and his parents lived in this apartment house or something very similar.  I kept thinking about Oak Ridge and his name and, our of the deepest long term memory comes the name Hedi Tobias.  I remember, my mother talking about meeting a cousin of hers at Oak Ridge who she hadn't known before.  They became friends and wrote for years.  His mother and my mother.  Sure enough, I dig up the picture of my first birthday and there's his sister in the picture.  "Hey, I think our parents knew each other," I say.  His sister has been thinking the very same thing.  But look at the family history and I realize that his grandparents and uncle died in the Holocaust.  Auschwitz and Dachau.  Aaack, no more Holocaust victims, we already have some.  But, you know, there are too many to count.  Too many to know.

This story, like the impeachment inquiry, is still developing.....