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Shown below is the beginning of our family tree, which has been re-formatted and has grown since the last update.

If you see any mistakes, please let us know and we will correct it!  We plan to expand it in both directions..... please be patient as it is a work in progress! We want to include everyone - it just takes time.....

Also below is a short Word document which contains a brief history of Caren's Mother's Family, the Kutschers.

Here is a short history of Caren’s mother’s family. They were German speaking people living in what is now the Czech Republic before WWII. They family, as well as all German speaking people, were herded out of the area after WWII. It was a difficult few years beginning with the take over of Czechoslovakia during WWII by the Nazi’s then the movement of these dispossessed people after the war.

1944 Alfons Kutscher, the father of the family, gets drafted into the German army by the Nazi’s and is stationed in Tschenstochau and has to go to Schakowa to the partisan operation. He is already over 40 years old and is hard of hearing.

1945, FEB. The family is living in Wagstadt (now: Bilovec), a small town in Czechoslovakia. It is a battle location between the Russian and German armies. When the fighting becomes too bad, the armies take over the family house and the Kutscher family is evacuated to Mueglitz and lives in one room in the Truebauer Street with a Czech woman named Frau Winter. She coined the name Gundele for the youngest member of the family, Gunda.

1945, MAY. The Russians marched into Mueglitz. The Kutscher family sits in the cellar and hears the bombing, roof tiles falling, and other damages. The Russians took German men as prisoners. So, Alfons was taken first to the prison in Mueglitz. Later they took him to Auschwitz – Birkenau. Mother and son (Anni and Ingo) visited Alfons in prison. When they arrived, Anni was confused as to how to greet the Czech soldier. She said "Heil Hitler" and the soldier screamed at her and slapped her. Little Ingo (about 9 years old) was there to witness the event.

1945, JUNE. The family moves back to Wagstadt in a cattle train wagon. When the train arrived, Anni goes ahead with the small children, Elmar and Gunda. Ingo pulls the rest of their belongings in a wagon. Two Czech soldiers helped him push the wagon over a hill, then took away things like dishes and silverware because Ingo only spoke German and there was a rising hatred of the Germans. When Anni found all the kitchenware goon, she stormed off to the soldiers and began screaming at them in Czech, "How can I take care of children with nothing!" The soldiers were taken aback that she knew so much Czech and gave everything back to her. However, the family of 6 (Alfons was still in prison) could only live in one room of the old house. A communist woman had moved into the other rooms.

1946, JAN. Our father returns from Auschwitz.

 

1946, MARCH 10^th. Alfons Kutscher and his family were expelled from the Czechoslovakian Homeland. Although the Kutscher family had lived here since the 1600’s, they spoke German and all German speaking families were shipped to Germany. They could only take what they could carry and they were shipped by cattle train. In 3 days, they arrived in northern Bavaria, Bad Neustadt region. They lived in an immigration camp for 10 days, awaiting housing for a 7-person family.

They got housing in a farming community called Oberweissenbrunn. Alfons with the older children, Nelda, Ingo and Gilbert, lived with the Reulbach family. Mother Anni with the younger children, Elmar and Gunda, lived with the Abert family. When the "KimmeHouse" was empty, the whole family moved there together; but it was small. There were two floors with no cellar. The first floor had a main room with a hallway. The hallway had a clothes bar and this is where all the clothes were hung. The main room also had the only sink. The backdoor led to the rear of the house where there was a non-flushing toilet and stable-like storage. Narrow stairs led to the upper floor, where there were 2 small bedrooms. One was the father’s room and workroom and the other room was for the boys; Ingo, Gilbert and Elmar. That means Mother, Nelda, and Gunda slept in the main room on the lower floor.

Ingo (10 yrs.) and Nelda (11yrs.) worked for food by herding the cows at the Schoeppner farms. Ingo eventually lived with the Schoeppner’s for free.

 

1946 NOV. Ingo attends 1^st grade Gymnasium in Bad Neustadt. Gilbert (8 yrs.) gets a job with the farmers and can live there too. While the parents went into the woods to collect burning materials for heating, Gilbert stayed home and babysat, Gunda (2 yrs.). The school in the tiny village had grades 1 to 4 in one room, and grades 5 to 8 in another room.

 

1952 The whole family moves to Bad Neustadt. It is the "big" town in the area and has some industry. Alfons thinks the family can get jobs and better education there.