Next up....Looking for another Georg Gerk

All of our family that remained in the USSR ended up in labour camps.  As the years have gone by, we've been able to account for almost everyone.  We have even been able to discover the death dates and places of two of my grandfather's brothers...who perished in the GULAG.

One of the sons of those Uncles, Georg Gerk, was also missing.  Family tell me that they do not know what happened to him.

This database put out by the Russian group Memorial, is the first step to finding out what happened to him.

It confirms some aspects of where he was, obviously with his father in a city called Kirovabad (now called Ganja) in Azerbaijan.

After that he was sent to the Ulyanovsk area....where he was until at least 1943.

After that...silence....no one knows what happened.

The hunt for him goes on....

I'll keep you posted. 

My prayer for 2018

Sweetheart

When my Dad was recovering from cancer surgery, and I looked at him lying there...I told him I loved him.  He responded by saying "I love you too, sweetheart".

For those of you born in another age, probably recent, you might have never heard this type of exchange.

In fact, I remember calling one of my kids "sweetheart", and they really took offense.

I guess it's been used in a derogatory way too many times, to mean what it actually does. I tried to explain...but I'm not sure it went very far.

It's not just a romantic, or sarcastic term.  It actually does also say it can be "...used as a term of endearment or affectionate form of address."

I bring it up because Marina and I were at a restaurant recently where a big burly Dad called his son "sweetheart".

It just reminded me of my Dad.