Polen-Georg from Lahde

This photo comes from Heinrich Humke’s private archive in Lahde (Petershagen). Heinrich Humke still has strong memories of playing football with a Polish boy named Georg. The games mostly took place on empty streets that had been cleared of war rubble. The left half of the fence to the Jumke’s home in Lahde (today: Bahnhofsstr. 56; then house number 204), was used as a goal. Lahde is now a part of the town of Petershagen.

Heinrich Humke’s father, also called Heinrich, was a construction engineer who specialised in building bridges and sluices. The family moved from one building site to the next. Heinrich Humke also worked on the construction of the famous Oberland canal in East Prussia, a sluice in Minden; and the extension to the legendary Vistula Bridge in Dirschau near Danzig (now Tczew), that linked Danzig to East Prussia.

Jacek Barski