But the site is back up now: http://www.deppert.se/webcards/wc_toc.htm

My name is Katherine Barich, and I live outside of Portland, Oregon. I am writing you because I did an internet search today looking for the name “Rietschel” and the place “Sagan” and found your website. I see that you have locked the genealogical files, or I may have been able to see a little better if we are related or not, but I will tell you my family story. How interesting it would be if we are related, writing on the internet in a language our ancestors would not have understood.

I am almost 49 years old, and have lived many places as my father was an air traffic controller in the U. S. Air Force. He met my mother in Berlin in 1958 where they were married, and then my father brought my mother to the US.

Karin is my mother and her mother was Anna Rietschel who was born in 1903 in Goldap, then Ostpreussen. From what I can read now that these sorts of things are being made known to the west, Goldap was one of the first areas after both World War I, and World War that the Russians invaded, and these people were not gently treated. After World War I my grandmother moved to Berlin where she met and married my grandfather (who was from Werdau, in Sachsen).

Anna Rietschel’s father was Ernst Wilhelm Rietschel, born in 1876 in Tielitz, Kreis Sorau. He was a soldier (I don’t know which war) but when my grandmother was born he was already working on the railroad. Another cousin tells that he escaped occupation after World War II through walking on ice in the harbor to a ship. He died in Bavaria – I never met him, and my mother met him once as a little girl so we never knew much about the family.

Further genealogy of Ernst Wilhelm Rietschel-
father: Johann Traugott Rietschel, born 18 Aug 1836, Gräfenhain, Kreis Sagan
mother: Henrietta Vogel

Johann Traugott Rietschel
father: Johann Traugott Rietschel, 1805 Gräfenhain, Kreis Sagan
mother: Christine Stephan

Johann Traugott Rietschel
father Johann Gottlob Rietschel, 1763, Gräfenhain (Kreis Sagan)
mother Maria Elizabeth Frischke

Johann Gottlob Rietschel
Gottfried Rietschel, 1730 Jenkendorf (Kreis Sagan)
Anna Elizabeth

Gottfried Rietschel
father: Christoph Rietschel

My grandfather in Berlin had collected family documents during World War II, so we were lucky to have been able to have copies of those. In addition, I found another cousin here in America, Erma Disney Tyler of Texas. Her Rietschel relatives (the Preuss family) came to Utah in the late 1800’s and collected the family history then before all the wars started for their descendants in the new land.

Of course I am very interested in knowing if we might be related. I think it is likely. Also, as an amusing aside, my father’s family is Danish and our name is Knudsen!

Please write!