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In reply to the discussion: An-tee-fa? MY Dad in 1945: [View all]DFW
(54,370 posts)In the Rheinland somewhere--ironically, probably not far from where I live now.
One cool story--after Germany had surrendered, the Allies were desperate to find lodging for their forces, as the logistics to get them all home quickly didn't exist. They pleaded with the people of Allied or neutral countries to open their homes to GIs and take them for a while. My dad's CO came in and asked who in the unit liked to sail. No one spoke up, but my dad had the presence of mind to ask how come the question. The CO said, well there's this rich family with a villa on the shore of Lake Geneva....."I LIKE TO SAIL!!" my dad immediately spoke up. He got a room in this fabulously located villa outside of Geneva Switzerland. He had taken French in college, so he spoke it passably. In the course of his short stay, they got to be good friends with whom he never lost touch. When I was 18, and wanted to take my first "Europe on $5 a day" trip through Europe, they said I was welcome to stay with them for a few days
I got to Geneva, took a bus out to their small town outside the city, and asked where I could find the address. The people of the village looked at this scruffy kid in blue jeans and a beard and asked if I was sure I had the right address. I said yes, and said the family name. That's them, all right. OK, well, you take this road (etc etc etc). I got to a big iron gate and hit the buzzer. A voice came on the intercom, and I said in my rudimentary (at the time) French who I was. I said my name and the gates swung open. Sure enough, they welcomed me as if I had been an old friend all my life. I didn't know who was who in Geneva until I took a day trip into town and saw their name on just about every construction site in Geneva. No wonder the townspeople gave me such strange looks when I said the name of the people I was looking for. It was as if I had just arrived in New York, and said I was looking for the house of a family named Rockefeller because they had invited me to stay with them.
Oh, and they did have a sailboat. They used it to get to their castle and vineyard on the other side of Lake Geneva (!!!!).