When we returned to Altenbamberg in the early afternoon, the sounds of a brass band playing polka music and waltzes reached our ears. The town was holding its annual Mother�s Day festival on the grounds of the Protestant church. Open air tents were set up over many picnic tables.  A man at a grill was cooking sausages.  Another table was laid out with cookies and cakes. A couple of kegs were the source of beer. We changed out of our hiking clothes and joined the festivities, our "foreignness" turning most heads. (Altenbamberg is a small town.)

Buying a couple of beers, we then used internationally recognized hand gestures and mumbles to ask if we could join a particular table. Of course, sit down, was the recognized reply.

The band concluded with an American spiritual (sung in German), "Amazing Grace." I sang along � in English � turning a few more heads. The elderly woman beside me introduced herself as Oma Puff, Grandma Puff. With no common language between us, I pulled out my one-page Betz family tree, handwritten with our most recent knowledge incorporated, and indicated my position on it as well as that of my Feilbingert-born "ur-ur-grossmutter," Elisabeth Betz, as well as Catharina Dern of Altenbamberg.

Soon another local resident came by to look, then he brought over the town burgermeister (mayor). The mayor took the sheet of paper over to one of the oldest residents in the village, Mrs. Erica Lehman. One of the new names on the tree was Maria Magdalena Wagner, my great-great-great-great-grandmother. "Ich geboren Wagner! Im Feilbingert!" This lovely, 81-year-old�s smile made my day. I was looking, quite possibly, at a very distant cousin.

She invited us to her home to look at her family�s lineage. Unfortunately, our schedule did not permit it, but I�m currently seeing what�s possible from this side of the pond.

Somewhere in there, another round of beers appeared before us. We spent the rest of the sunny afternoon enjoying the company of the living residents of my ancestral homeland.

While exploring the Altenbamberg cemetery, I noticed that off in one corner a group of tombstones stood�barely�that were significantly older than those throughout the rest of the cemetery. I was surprised at this because, as noted above, Germans rarely keep graves older than 100 years due to limited space. As I approached, I saw that this section was gated and locked. A sign, I later learned, warned that this cemetery was closed, that the tombstones were falling, that parents should guard their children, and lastly that permission to enter must be obtained by the mayor. Clearly no one entered this section. Most of the tombstones were hidden beneath tall, overgrown grass.

I could walk around the edge of this separate cemetery and get a little bit closer look at the tombstones. They all had Hebrew inscriptions on them in addition to names and dates in German. But I was too far away to make out any details. Clearly this was a Jewish cemetery and it was also clear that there was no one left in the town to tend the family plots�a practice actively pursued by families in the main and exceedingly well-groomed cemetery.  Someone we met later referred to this as a "dead" cemetery-- no one left living to care for it.

Herr Berens, our innkeeper, later showed us a book with old photos from the town. One of the photos indicated that a synagogue had existed immediately next door to the inn. (It�s now a few parking spaces along the river.) The caption explained that the synagogue had been destroyed in 1938.  It didn't say how.

Then, to top it all off, the current town crest for Altenbamberg had two stars of David as part of the design. The crest appears on the town�s large wooden sign that welcomes visitors to Altenbamberg. The sign�s construction is clearly contemporary�at least since the War, and most likely carved in the last 15 years. Perhaps in the 1980s when the 12th century castle on the hill was renovated.

Herr Berens didn�t know the meaning of the stars' presence on the crest, but when I drew it for the archivist at Speyer, she said it clearly had a Jewish connotation. She also felt strongly that had Herr Berens known its meaning and significance, he would have explained it. Interestingly enough, the town crest as displayed on the town�s current Web site has the two stars�but they are now five-pointed stars.

More fodder for research!

Since writing this document, I've done a small amount of research on the Internet and discovered some more interesting facts:

• The folks who run Jewishgen.org also run the International Jewish Cemetery Project . I searched this site and found that the Jewish Altenbamberg cemetery has already been documented.
• Apparently, there are restrictions limiting the information about the people buried within these cemeteries that can be put online, but the project has made the results of its research available on CD-ROM, orderable for $35 from IAJGS (International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies), PO Box 251683, West Bloomfield, MI, 48325-1683 USA.
• Judische Grabstatten im Kreis Bad Kreuznach: Geschichte und Gestaltung, published by Heimatkundluche Schriftenreihe des Landkreises Bad Kreuznach, 1995, includes diagrams and photos, names on gravestones and other information about the Jewish cemeteries and people of the region.