Today was the day we got to visit the villages of the Guhl/Bartz families. We were in Kremjanka (see pic of road sign in Ukrainian), Karolinow, and Barashe. These were the birthplaces of my Dad, Grandpa Bartz, and Aunt Margaret respectively and all three were within a few kilometers of each other. We would drive into these villages, find some old people, and start asking them questions through Alex, our tour guide. We were very well received by everyone we met. We were directed to a man named Eisner who we were told was German. We found him and sure enough he spoke a bit of broken German. He said he hadn't spoken it in 50 years. He and his wife were extremely friendly and even invited us into their house. It was quite something to see how these people live. The lady said she stayed with some Gruenkes when she was a child, a name which appears in our family tree. We were then directed to the German cemetery, which was in the middle of nowhere and completely overgrown. We had to walk at least a kilometer through fields and bush, led by Pavel, a 13 year old boy, who knew where it was. We found only a single gravestone, of a Gustav Plato and presumably his wife, a name we couldn't quite make out. By scraping off the moss and running our fingers along the carved inscriptions, we were able to make out most of what it said. The stone was lying on its side several feet from its base, so before we left we set it back up the way it belonged. We then had our picnic lunch in some trees just off the road in Kremjanka. In Barashe we were told that there has been a hospital there since before the revolution. We found the hospital and asked the head doctor and several other people how long the building had been there, but nobody knew. We thought it possible that Aunt Margaret might have been born in that building or at least on that site. All in all, a most interesting day!