Visitors are Russian-born ethnic Germans

Odessa had foreign visitors last week, German citizens traveling through the U.S. and Canada, visiting relatives in Cincinnati and then venturing west. They were on their way to Vancouver (Washington or Canada? – we forgot to ask which) and ultimately Seattle, from which they would fly home to Germany.

The two married couples had noticed the town of Odessa on their travel map, and since both gentlemen had been born in the vicinity of Odessa, Russia (now Ukraine), they were interested in seeing what this American Odessa was like. They were touring in matching travel vans they had rented in Canada and spent one night at Odessa’s tourist park.

It turns out that all four are ethnic Germans whose families lived in Russia, just as many of the originial settlers of our own Odessa had done.

Helmut and Lydia (nee Trippel) Kieß (a name that can also be spelled Kiesz and is familiar to many Odessa natives) are now residents of Wolfsburg, Germany, the site of the headquarters of Volkswagen, AG, which is also Helmut’s employer. Lydia is a Volga German, as it turns out, and was thrilled to hear of Odessa’s Volga-German heritage.

Ernst and Melitta Beierbach are the other couple who visited. They currently reside in Hannover, Germany. Among the two couples, Helmut appeared to speak the best English (thanks to a work assignment in England some years ago, as we later found out). But once they learned that the newspaper owner spoke German, the conversation continued for the most part in that language.

As we mentioned in our editorial of last week, the two couples were impressed with the friendliness of the people in Odessa and found it much better kept than many other small towns that they had traveled through.

They were very interested in the Odessa Deutschesfest and sorry that their timing was not right to attend it. Helmut wrote down some information for us to use in the newspaper, including these quotes, which we have translated for our readers:

“Too bad we were unable to attend the Deutschesfest in September, but perhaps there will be another opportunity next time (we travel abroad). We wish the town and its inhabitants all the very best.”

We also learned from Helmut and Lydia that they were very involved in genealogy research and belonged to the Germans from Russia group with headquarters in North Dakota.

Their visit happened to fall on a Wednesday morning (press day for the newspaper), so our time with them was all too limited. It is hoped that Internet contact can be established so that we can find out more about their families and their journeys in life (and whether they might be related to our Odessa Kiesz families).