Kreuzberg area bombing

[meobeou]

Today marks the 74th anniversary of my mother's home at Grossbeerenstrasse 39,bombed to rubble at 7p.m, two doors from the corner of Hagelbergerstrasse. Across the street stood the family owned Schade Apoteke ( drug store) that opened it;s doors to help residents with needed emergency medical care as Hitler barred all ambulances, fire trucks and doctors from responding to any suburb hit in air raids. Being techless and computerless. I am not able to interract with the remarkable sites AHF memebrs have posted of pics of Berlin in 1943 to 1945. My Grandfather's family owned apartment building of 5 stories collapsed into the basement as the stairwell was turned into a raging fire tornado from the gaslines exploding in the street. My mother ( now 92) and her sister were thrown face first into the street as the front doors blew off the hinges as they carried a laundry basket of dishes from the blast. It was my grandparents greatest regret that they could not go back to the vacant lot with a shovel before they immigrated to America and dig down the dirt to the staircase and to the basement as the northside of it ( next to #41) as it had an alcove where they packed their family albums, and his sheet music,my mother's Olympic opening ceremony costume and the family's photo albums spanning 100 years, and of his day in the Kaiser Wilhelm boys choir days with albums of all the palaces they performed in representing Berlin..A suitcase filled with the three sisters dolls and Weinachten kerzen holders amongst other treasures like a book written about the three daughters by a renter published there called Das Drei Madelhaus.. The lot has sat vacant for 72 years and was finally sold to a book publisher who is bulldozing the apartment nest to it and will build a new business on top of it. I had written to him including photos of the home and it;s original owner's family, asking if when the basement ares is dredged out to see if the alcove hidden memorabilia of the family was still intact if we could pay for shipping those scraps of junk to him that were part of my moms; life and that of her still living kid sister as it would make a wonderful surprise for them.. but alas my lack of German got me nowhere. I had hoped I might be able to atleast see a picture of the bombed residence to get someone to print it ( I can't print anything) and then I could frame it next to the one existing pic of her home we have before it's implosion. .A neighbor of mine visited Berlin and hoped to get to the vacant lot and pick up a few pieces of the concrete from it.s foundation but got there in a raging rain storm that turned everything to mud and not possible...I have reason to believe those things packed away may well have survived under the 15 feet of mud and debris..as the organ my grandfather played at the Domkirche was unearthed intact 50 yrs after being buried and cleaned and is being played once
it was restored...as of the 1990's... nice to think that his were the last hands to play it before the church was bombed to rubble...and survived. Would anyone know who the utility company for gas and electric would be for the Kreuzberg area that I could write them to ask in their digging if they found anything? And alert them that the housekeeper and her children were never seen leavking their basment apart,ent and may have been buried alive during that air raid. Any ideas? thanks, CRAIG..

Lee!

[Xavier]

i am forwarding your request to a couple friends in berlin..