Celebrating the freedom to travel back home

Barbara testing the presentation before the Fall of the Berlin Wall event

For that unbelievable event of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a unique opportunity to give a presentation of how it all affected Fritz and his family, on this 25th anniversary. Shown in the photo is the slide where Fritz unpacks the paintings he thought he may never see again. These two paintings were on display at the Saskatchewan German Council celebration on November 9th, in Saskatoon.

100th Birthday

  In honour of this 100th birthday, the family is re-releasing the 'Retrospective' booklet through www.LandscapeArtPublishing.ca

The Stehwien family house & workshop where Fritz was born 100 years ago
 - sketched at age 13

Mostly unchanged Stehwien family house in 2013,
visited by daughter and grand-daughter.

Finding old Motifs

Hometown church and graveyard - sketched in 1929, at age 15

Miltern church on a hot day in July 2013

Part of the trip to Poland included checking out the old home town and area. Hard to describe, but after having seen Fritz's early sketches for so many years, it was fascinating to be in the actual location! To walk around, look around, and to feel the history.
 

Windmill, formerly at Miltern - sketched at age 16

The Miltern windmill was torn down many years ago, but there are still a number of them in the area.
 

Windmill at Jericho near Miltern, 2013

Nearby Tangermuende, 1928 - sketched at age 14

View of Tangermuende now

Nearby historic Tangermuende seems unchanged in the many years since
Fritz lived in the area.

Trip to Poland

Welcome at the war museum in Torun Poland

Of the many surviving original sketches from the battle front in Russia, the discovery that Fritz was  held as Russian prisoner of war in Torun, Poland, came as a surprise. Taking a trip there led to further research, and the escape story is nearly complete, one year later.

The story is ready to be included in a publication by two very dedicated men in Torun: Pawel who keeps a blog on former prisoner stories (and who speaks Polish and English), and Piotr, who has an amazing collection of POW artifacts from the former prison camps in the area (and who speaks Polish and German). Communication has been fun, since most visitors don't speak Polish. Piotr has set up a museum that holds many stories, in the basement of a high school. The Fritz story is now included, and seeing the artifacts made it a bit easier to imagine what being in a Russian war prison was like, and what drove so many men to go to amazing lengths to escape.

War museum visit in Torun, Poland