School Difficulties in the US

Hello,
What part of the US do you move to? My area has German descent in almost
all the people here. Even thou i wasn't born during the times of both wars,
i have never heard of these problems here.
Cindy
Indiana

[Original Message]
From: Maureen <mcshelly2@msn.com>
To: Hannover-L <hannover-l@genealogy.net>
Date: 10/5/2007 6:34:31 PM
Subject: Re: [HN] School Difficulties in the US

That's really tough and I'm sorry, Heide. We had a half-dozen new

students from Germany throughout

my 1948-1954 post-World War II years in public schools in Englewood, NJ,

and also new were a Dutch girl,

a Belgian girl and an English boy, and I never noticed anything like

that.

In our school, five elementary schools came together for Junior High and

High School, and people more-or-less

had their cliques already formed from elementary school, so I'm sure it

was difficult for transfers from the next

town as well. But I never heard any expression of dislike or references

to the war. Or any physical violence

between students or ganging up on one. That's so sad. I'll apologize

for them, they knew not what they were doing.

What I HAVE regretted is that the teachers never used the obvious

wonderful opportunities we had then to help

us broaden ourselves and our outlooks and learn about the other cultures

and customs and places they had lived

in Europe. There was no encouragement of that, our loss!

Maureen
  From: HeideB
  To: Hannover-L
  Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 9:57 AM
  Subject: Re: [HN] PLATTDEUTSCH

  Karla, you have to think about the times in America. After both world

wars

  there was a lot of anti German feelings in this country. I came in

1953 as

  an 11 year old. I was beaten up in school and called a German spry. I

had

  a terrible time in school and no friends. Germans would not even admit

they

  were Germans. In the 1960's I lost 2 jobs when people found out I was
  German. In my case, my parents did not enforce German because there

were

  only the three of us and we had to learn English. My parents learned

from

  me. But we approached coming to America differently. We accepted

America

  with our whole hearts and beings. My father was the only one on the

block

  to fly the American flag and we were very proud to become Americans.

The

  last 20 years or so changed this situation. But still if I am asked if

I am

  German, I say no, I'm German by birth and American by choice. So don't
  criticize your ancestors too much. They did this to protect their

children.

  Heide
  PS Maybe Sitz mal?
  From: "Karla Nurnberg" <muessidenn@yahoo.com>
  To: <hannover-l@genealogy.net>
  Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 7:30 AM
  Subject: [HN] PLATTDEUTSCH

  Dear Listers,
        My Grandmother used to tell us, when we were little girls to
  Sitzemado, which we interpreted to mean sit down there. This is

probably not

  spelled correctly in her native Holstein dialect. I do not care,

whether she

  spoke High or Low German, but I would have loved to learn any kind of

German

  from my Grandfather and her. They did not teach it to us, so both my

cousin

  and I had difficulty with the language, when we lived in Germany. Too

bad

  that the younger generation of German Americans were not taught the

Language

  of their ancestors. I am very proud to be of German descent and also on

my

  mother's side Danish.
    Her Mother was born in Denmark and her Father's parents were also.

Mother

  and her Aunt were not taught to speak Danish, but they learned a few

words,

  so Great-Grandmother and Grandma could not speak Danish without having

some

  of their conversation understood.
        Does anyone on this list know of someone, who might be able to

help me

Hello Cindy in Indiana
My Family came to Santa Claus, Indiana from Germany. While visiting there I spoke with people who were living there since the 1840's. They told me that they remembered my family living there from their school days. Their family was from English back ground and at that time the area was mostly populated by Germans. They told me that they would fight often with the other children of German back ground at school during the war. But they told me that when they grew up they married the German girls and the German boys married English girls. Interesting how young people are able to see pass the nonsense and propaganda after awhile.
Jim