Freiburger historische Bestände - digital

59

A Father's Story

Rolf Levy und Christina Ceballos-Levy

Rolf Levy, geboren 1930 in Schmieheim, wanderte mit den Eltern 1938 nach Südamerika
aus. Gemeinsam mit der Schwiegertochter Christina Ceballos-Levy schrieb er für
die „Ottenau" seine Erinnerungen nieder an die Kindheit in Schmieheim, an die Übergriffe
der Nazis, an die Auswanderung und die Überfahrt nach Kolumbien, an die
schweren Anfänge und schließlich die Gründung einer Bäckerei. Heute lebt Rolf Levy
mit Frau und Kindern in Miami.

All across the world, in all walks of life, families everywhere look forward
to Summer vacations as a way to spend meaningful time together. When
my own children were young, I made it a point every year to take them to
someplace exciting and new-Florida and New York in the United States,
Switzerland and Italy in Europe, Ecuador and various Colombian cities in
South America. I always hoped that, as adults, they would look fondly up-
on the memories they had of their vacation days with their father and one
day do the same with their own children.

In July of 2003, my children, who are now adults and starting families
of their own, put an exciting twist on the idea of a family vacation. My
sons surprised my wife, Nohra, and me with the gift of a trip to Germany,
which I had not visited in thirty years. The best part of this gift was that
three of my sons, Guillermo, Rodolfo, and Oscar, would be joining us. My
sons, who were born and raised in Colombia, South America, told me that
they wanted to know the place where their father had grown up. Many
times I had tried to teil them about my life in Schmieheim as a boy, but my
memories of those days were scant. I could teil them that Schmieheim was
a small town in Germany's Black Forrest and, like most German towns, it
had a Schloss in the town center surrounded by family homes. I could relay
only vague memories of my grandparents, the excitement of getting
dressed for celebrations in the town, and the sweetness of my mother's
rhubarb tarts. I remembered leaving Germany suddenly with my parents
and two younger brothers and boarding a steamship that eventually landed
in Colombia. Other than those memories, I could not fill in any of the gaps
for them. Our family vacation of 2003 was just the catalyst my memory
needed to enable me to teil my children the story of their father's child-
hood.

This was actually my second visit to Schmieheim since I left it as a
small boy in 1938. My first return took place in 1973, when my parents,
my brother Lothar, and our wives took my father back to the Black Forrest