Neubrücke: One of Our Cradles

Monique was born this day at the 98th General Hospital of the United States Army in the little village of Neubrücke, Germany. These days it is a place of some 416 inhabitants; in those days American military swelled the numbers. Neubrücke was then and still remains part of Hoppstädten, a township that actually makes its mark on the south-western side of the German map, an economically somewhat modest region in easy driving distance of Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. The county (Kreis) is Birkenfeld; I was good friends with the County Commissioner and therefore knew something about the struggles of this region.

 We lived just ten miles from Hoppstädten in one of Germany’s two largest artillery firing ranges, Baumholder. That place is still there, still housing some 10,000-plus U.S. troops…when they happen to be there. Most of them today are “temporarily” in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The crest and the photograph are of Hoppstädten itself; Neubrücke is out of the picture but would have presented a continuation of the scene we see here had the camera panned to the left a little more. The nearest serious hospital to us, then, was in Neubrücke—and the 98th was a very serious, very modern, 1,000-room general hospital.

It lost its status in the 1970s when another large military hospital was completed in Baumholder itself. For a while this complex of some 50 buildings, of which the hospital itself was the largest, served various elements of the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Marines. Later it became property of the German government and served as a school and as residential district. I’m delighted to have found a photograph of one end of this actually much, much larger building. This photo was taken during the hospital’s period of abandonment and on a dreary day. It had quite a different look on sunny day when it was at its peak and filled with life. I was also lucky. This picture shows that end of the hospital where I actually parked my little grey VW bug on the day of Monique’s arrival and on subsequent visits. Then I walked the whole seemingly interminable half-length of the building to enter it in the middle.

Like so many places in the old world, Neubrücke has a deep history. To give a glimpse of that, here is a quote from GlobalSecurity.org, from an article titled “Neubruecke Kaserne, Germany”:

The history of Neubruecke can be traced back to 2,000 B.C. The area at that time was occupied by tribes of Celts who began a series of fortifications along the Idar Mountain range as protection against Germanic tribes to the Southeast. These fortifications continued until approximately 100 B.C. The defense line which ran between the Mosel and Rhine rivers was initially built of wood, but was rebuilt in stone during the Roman Era. The site of the old hospital complex covers a Celtic burial ground called …“Tumuli.” Twelve of these large earthen mounds or tombs were excavated before construction of the hospital complex. Relics typical of the Bronze Age were found. Bodies of the dead were entombed in wooden coffins fashioned by hollowing out whole tree trunks and personal items such as jewelry, vases, urns, and bowls were placed with them. Most items unearthed were of Celtic origin, but also found were bronze artifacts which probably dated back to Greek times. All the relics unearthed can be seen on display at the Landesmuseum at Trier.

John will be happy to know that the Celts were already guarding the place of his future wife’s birth before, you might say, time began. And it is strangely appropriate that a place once a tomb honoring the brave should have in time become transformed into a place where many thousands of babies saw the light for the first time ever.

Registering October

Perhaps the most memorable October event in modern times was Red October or the October Revolution of 1917. It brought the Bolsheviks to power in the city of Petrograd. Nowadays it’s no longer viscerally noted just how long it took for the Soviets ultimately to gain total power—15 years. With Red October began the Russian Civil War. It lasted until 1922. But did that famous October Revolution really take place in October? Yes, so far as Russians were concerned. But in that time two calendars remained in active use. In most of western Europe the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582, was already in use—as it is now all over the world. But Russia still measured time using the Julian calendar. Where dates appear to conflict, thus in historical accounts where one side measured time using the Julian, another using Gregorian, historians annotate the date with O.S. and N.S., thus old and new style. Red October (O.S.) 1917 in my home country, Hungary, would have been Red November (N.S.).

The Gregorian calendar is named after Pope Gregory XIII (good number that). It was introduced to correct for a decimal point error which plagued the Julian calendar. That calendar was based on the assumption that the length of a year was 365 days and 6 hours; in actuality it is 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds. By Gregory’s time the calendar had accumulated an error of 10 days; it was time to correct the calendar rather than, one day, celebrating Easter in the heat of summer.

For all of us of European, African, or Asian extraction living in America now, October also figures (both in O.S. and N.S. measurement) as the month in which Columbus discovered, well, the Bahamas. But he didn’t stop there. The original natives of this landmass came a long, long time before that—indeed before fancy calendars, those stopwatching the vernal equinoxes, had even been considered.

Closer to home, October was the beginning of the short-lived 1956 Hungarian Revolution; it might have been glorious, but Ike was unwilling to aid the rising masses in Budapest; ultimately the Russian tanks prevailed.

And closest to us personally, Monique Suzanne arrived late in October. The weather was warm and sunny in that corner of Germany. Monique was premature, but came into the world weighing a solid six pounds and two ounces. Totally worn out by a difficult birth, Brigitte could barely keep her eyes open; her greeting, as I arrived from many miles away, was the shadow of a smile. The hospital’s pastor had just left; he’d come in anticipation of a bad outcome. And the doctor had a very serious look; he did not give high odds for the baby’s survival; indeed he used such words. I insisted on having a look at this baby—and thought that she looked just fine—so red, so feisty—inside her incubator. I rushed back many miles and spent a small fortune on all manner of baby things, including a new crib and mounds of diapers, blankets…and even a rattle. I was grimly determined to vote for life with cash. We hadn’t bought most of these things yet because we had thought that we had more time. And, yes. I’d read the signs correctly…

If I had to Pick One

If I had to pick one picture out of the many score taken on our brief vacation trip up north, this would be the one. Two of our three daughters, Michelle and Monique, morning, Traverse City, Michigan.