This summer, my wife and I purchased some real estate outside of our home city of Winnipeg, with the aim of building a house there and finally moving out of our cramped apartment. The property, situated near the Red river, included a dilapidated farmhouse, an old wooden barn, and a couple of other small outbuildings. Unfortunately, the entire area was flooded out this spring in a 50-year flood, so what we've really acquired is a huge clean-up operation. The house has been carried off its foundation and filled with 6 inches of putrid river silt. The barn, which even before the flood had probably gone 40 years since its last paint job, is likewise structurally unsafe and is suitable only for kindling.
With out summer vacation come and gone, we decided that the time had come to tackle our unpleasant assignment; if we ever wanted to start building our dream home, we would first have to demolish the old one, and in order to do that we would have to haul away tons of stinking, mildewy furniture, clothing, books, and miscellaneous junk. So, on Labor Day weekend, we and a few of our loyal, long-suffering friends packed up our rubber boots and shovels, and headed into the country to spend the day slinging river mud.
By midday, even the most exuberant of us had grown weary of hauling rotting sofa cushions and soggy drywall out of the house, and nobody objected to calling a halt for lunch. One of my brothers is an avid outdoorsman who, horrified at the thought of an entire day without hot coffee, had insisted on bringing his portable stove along. So, while our food was heating up, I took the opportunity to examine the barn, and determine if there was anything inside worth salvaging. I knew the likelihood of anything surviving the flood was minimal, but I was still hopeful that some small treasures may yet lie within. I never suspected, however, that having spent the morning digging through filth, I would spend the afternoon up to my elbows in history.
I had planned only on taking a short look inside the barn, but when I spotted that old steamer trunk in the corner, behind an filthy old rusted out Massey Ferguson tractor, I knew it was old. I also knew that it had spent several months soaking in Red river flood water, which is only a few steps above raw sewage, and that anything inside would be worthless. Still, my curiosity got the better of me, and I swung the lid up to see what was inside. The next few moments will remain forever imprinted on my mind, because stacked inside were what looked like thousands of documents and photographs. Only one sheet was of paper was visible and turned text-side up, and despite its obvious age and waterlogged state, I instantly recognized, in the upper right corner, a certain government stamp.
As an avid reader of second world war literature and general history buff, I knew right away that this was a Nazi government stamp, certifying the document as official, and that these old documents could very well contain a huge treasure trove of information. I couldn't help myself, and began lecturing my friends on the last days of the war, reminding them that much of the documented history of Nazi Germany was destroyed in the closing battles. I had no idea what information might be contained on these pages, but I speculated they might shed light on some hitherto unsolved mysteries.
With out summer vacation come and gone, we decided that the time had come to tackle our unpleasant assignment; if we ever wanted to start building our dream home, we would first have to demolish the old one, and in order to do that we would have to haul away tons of stinking, mildewy furniture, clothing, books, and miscellaneous junk. So, on Labor Day weekend, we and a few of our loyal, long-suffering friends packed up our rubber boots and shovels, and headed into the country to spend the day slinging river mud.
By midday, even the most exuberant of us had grown weary of hauling rotting sofa cushions and soggy drywall out of the house, and nobody objected to calling a halt for lunch. One of my brothers is an avid outdoorsman who, horrified at the thought of an entire day without hot coffee, had insisted on bringing his portable stove along. So, while our food was heating up, I took the opportunity to examine the barn, and determine if there was anything inside worth salvaging. I knew the likelihood of anything surviving the flood was minimal, but I was still hopeful that some small treasures may yet lie within. I never suspected, however, that having spent the morning digging through filth, I would spend the afternoon up to my elbows in history.
I had planned only on taking a short look inside the barn, but when I spotted that old steamer trunk in the corner, behind an filthy old rusted out Massey Ferguson tractor, I knew it was old. I also knew that it had spent several months soaking in Red river flood water, which is only a few steps above raw sewage, and that anything inside would be worthless. Still, my curiosity got the better of me, and I swung the lid up to see what was inside. The next few moments will remain forever imprinted on my mind, because stacked inside were what looked like thousands of documents and photographs. Only one sheet was of paper was visible and turned text-side up, and despite its obvious age and waterlogged state, I instantly recognized, in the upper right corner, a certain government stamp.
As an avid reader of second world war literature and general history buff, I knew right away that this was a Nazi government stamp, certifying the document as official, and that these old documents could very well contain a huge treasure trove of information. I couldn't help myself, and began lecturing my friends on the last days of the war, reminding them that much of the documented history of Nazi Germany was destroyed in the closing battles. I had no idea what information might be contained on these pages, but I speculated they might shed light on some hitherto unsolved mysteries.
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Fast forward to the present. A restorer from the provincial archives and I are painstakingly peeling each sheet and each photograph from the waterlogged, mud-impregnated stacks in the trunk. Each page must be carefully cleaned, dried, and catalogued, a tedious job made even more unpleasant by the malarial reek emitted by the river silt in the trunk. Nevertheless, some headway is being made, and the sheer quantity of information is staggering. Luckily, the various records seem to have been carefully packed, and are in vague chronological order, though we still have no idea who assembled all of these documents, nor how they came to rest in a barn in rural Canada. However, we have only just begun our task, and, in the search for answers, it is inevitable that more questions will be raised. I shall endeavour to pick out the most important and interesting pages and photographs, and will be posting them here for everyone to see.
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