Thursday, April 16, 2009

Jutta's Kitchen Meets The Internet

George and Jutta met when they were both quite young, just past teenage-hood but not by much. He was a Jewish refugee from Berlin via Palestine. He came to New York and stayed with his aunt, also a refugee. Jutta's family, Germans, welcomed the refugees into their home, 88th Street or 89th on the Upper West Side, then still a neighborhood of modest incomes and new immigrants. Friendships grew. When WWII started, he enlisted and was part of the troops that liberated a concentration camp.

After the war, new marriages, new homes and new lives separated these two old friends.

Decades passed.

Then Al Gore invented the internet. And one day, fifty years later, Jutta mentioned George's name and wondered if there was a way to find him on the computer. A half-hour search and these two old friends spoke to each other once again.