Schindlers List...Szofran, Reumpler, Hunyar, Kretchmer, Walter Gaertner etc.

Your great grandfather (my father) was Conrad Joseph Schindler.  He loved you a lot.  He used to save fruit from the dinning room to bring to you.  It was the only thing that he had to offer because he could no longer drive to go shopping for toys.

Conrad, (my dad) was born on April 15th, 1917 in St. Louis, Missouri.  His parents were from Austria Hungary.  They were Frank Schindler and Barbara Szofran.

As long as I can remember, my Dad, Conrad Joseph Schindler( or Connie as some called him) would always tell the best stories. I realize now that some of the stories were "embellished" somewhat. What I know about the Schindler side of the family has been told to me by Dad and his sister Aunt Terry. Both stories are a little different so I tried very hard to blend the two.

It Begins.
 

Here is the Schindler Family when they were still in Europe.

 

This picture was taken around the time my Grandpa Frank Schindler was 12 or 13. This was taken of his family in Austria when the family was still together . The woman on the right and the bald man sitting at the table with her was your great-great -great (well call that 3 X great) Grandmother and Grandfather (Joseph Schindler and Teressia Ruempler Schindler) This picture was taken without John Szofron and Adolph. As you may notice they have been "Photo-shopped" into the picture from other photographed. (Wow! Can you believe that they had the ability to do that in 1900?) I Believe that John Szofron had already gone to the USA and Adolph was killed in a war.

...and this is the Szofran Family in 1910

Frank Schindler was born in 1891 in Dittersbach, Austria and came to Ellis Island, New York in 1910.  When he left he told his girlfriend that he would return after he made his fortune.  Instead he met Barbara Szofran and married her in 1915. 

Two years later Conrad was born and then Teresia was born in 1919.   They all lived in the countryside in a small community of Grover Missouri.

Grover is only 30 miles southwest of St Louis but in those days it was a long drive on country roads.  When Conrad and Terry were in high school they would board in Kirkwood/St. Louis  Monday through Friday. 

Grandma Barbara raised chickens and eggs to sell in St Louis.  One Saturday, Grandma,Grandpa  and Conrad drove into the city to deliver her eggs and chickens. They went to the little German pub for dinner and a few beers. On the way back home(at 10 p.m.) the car ran off the road and Barbara was killed.  Frank and Conrad were taken to the hospital and remained in comas for 5 or 6 days.      Terry thinks to this day that Grandpa fell asleep because of the food and beer and drove off the road.  My dad, Conrad would always tell us that another car ran them off the road.  Terry had stayed behind that day with her grandparents and was the only one of the immediate family to attend her mothers funeral.

So time went on and Grandpa Frank was lonely.   In 1938 Frank would take Terry to see family.  He wrote to a relative in Austria and as luck would have it Ida would see the return address and write to him.  They wrote back and forth until Grandpa decided to take Terry out of her last year of High School and go back to Austria with him where he would marry Ida, his sweetheart from high school.

1938 was a very tense time in Europe.  Hitler was starting to invade other countries and was beginning his campaign to exterminate all Jews.  In Germany and Austria anyone 'suspected' of being Jewish was asked to produce evidence that they were not Jewish by producing certificates of baptism for all four grandparents before they could marry.  There were many other things that you needed to produce and this is only one example. 

Terry remembers being in the town the day that Hitler and his motorcade paraded through.  Everyone all saluted him with a "Heil Hitler" with their arms in the air but she refused and clasped her hands behind her back and refused to salute

 She refused to salute and kept her arms behind her back,
similar to how this man  is doing in the picture

When the Nazi's closed the borders because of the impending war, Terry who was an American citizen, was among the last group allowed to leave.  Since Grandpa Frank was a German Citizen, he and his new wife, Ida, remained there.  Since Frank had been in the U.S. for 27 years he was considered a civilian "undesirable".   This meant they received much lower wages and could not use public conveniences (such as public transport) or visit many public spaces and businesses (for example they could not attend German-church services, swimming pools, or restaurants); they had to work longer hours and were assigned smaller food rations; they were subject to a curfew.  They could not enter marriage without a permit.

Frank and Ida moved to Rumburg, Austria and stayed there until the Russians invaded in 1944.  The Russian army removed them from their home and put them in a work camp until the end of the war in 1945.

Back in the U.S., Conrad and Terry started to work  in the war effort.  Terry served in the Marines and in a branch of the Coast Guard called SPARS.  Conrad eventually joined the Army.  In time he was sent from England to France and then on to Germany and was able to look for the father he had not seen or heard from in 7 years.

His last assignment was at Krumau Castle. (Krumlov today)  Since Conrad could speak High German fluently, his assignment was interrogating people that were captured and one of the first things he would ask was "Do you know a Frank Schindler?"

~

This is an etching of Krumau Castle that meant so much to him.  

I now have it in my home to remind me of this story.

~

The  war ended early in May and by June Conrad had found his Dad and Ida.It took a year to get Frank back to the U.S and then he applied and received his citizenship and was able to apply for  admission to the U.S. for Ida.  They stayed in St. Louis until Conrad decided to move his family to Colorado in 1956.  When we moved they decided to go back to Germany and live out the remainder of their lives.