These are old family pictures, mostly dating back to the 1940s up to the early 1960s. My mother was a prolific collector of photos. When she had time she put them into albums with wonderful handwritten commentary. Yet there were too many photos and too little time. A lot of pictures ended up in a box. Only sometimes a name, place, or date is written on the back. Most of the pictures are from my mother and her side of the family. She grew up in Silesia, which at the time was part of Germany. After the end of the second world war the Soviet Union expanded to the West and pushed Poland westward ahead of it. Silesia now is Polish. Many Silesians of German ancestry had already left when the Soviet army approached towards the end of the war. My mother and her parents also headed West and came to my father's hometown in Nothern Germany. My father and mother had met in Silesia during the war and had already gotten married earlier.

Many of the photos in the box are from before and during the time my mother and father were dating. She had worked as a sales girl in a department store and must have had friends with photographic inclanations. I don't know any of them, but am very thankful that they took so many pictures of her. And, I am very lucky to have the picture box.

Note: annotations in apostrophes are taken from handwritten remarks on the back of the pictures.

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