This day deserves a story. Hamburg.

And I hope that at least a few of you stick around to read it.

Because this was a day that was altering and beautiful to me 

and I wish to share that with those that will listen.

this much i had always known of my family before me:

they were full blooded german (on my grandmother's side)

her father (my great grandfather Karl) had been involved in the wrong efforts by accident 

during WWII and was captured by Nazis, 

and eventually the entire family immigrated to America to stay.

I ama named after Karl's wife, my great grandma Elsa,

and that has always been of at least a small significance to me.

as i have grown older and learned more, i've had specific and spiritual moments 

in which i have felt my grandma Elsa.

and this day in particular is one in which i learned the great importance of her 

and my special responsibility of the name that i hold that is hers.

the purpose of this entire trip was to take my father's parents back 

to the countries that they had come from.

my grandpa to denmark, and my grandma to germany. 

neither had been and it was a big ordeal that almost all 

of their children and some of their grandchildren joined in on

and i heard of stories of my ancestors that i had never heard before.

this is as much as i know.

my great grandpa had worked in the government at the time of hitler's take over

and did not like the direction that he was taking the country in.

while he resisted, he was found and taken to a concentration camp.

he escaped and spent several months on the run.

i'm unsure as to the timing of the events, but i know that Elsa was left to her own with her children.

Hamburg was put under massive bombings because of its status as a port town,

and because of that the women and children were evacuated to live 

in an evacuated work camp on the outskirts of the city.

It was there that Elsa gave birth to my grandma during the middle of an air raid, in a bomb shelter.

there were so many stories, but the message was still the same to me.

they greatly sacrificed so that we could be here today.

so that i could carry a message as a namesake.

we spent that day trying to find where the work camp had been that my grandma was born in.

while it was a bit of a goose chase, we were surrounded and helped 

by the most wonderful germans that were so pleased to have been a part of it.

we finally found the street next to that which the camp had been

and a sweet old german man told us that he had lived there his whole life

 and we were in the right place.

with a few of the old bunkers left, we knew it too.

it was an incredible experience, and one that i am quite proud to have been a part of.

we spent the rest of the day at the harbor and saw in person 

what we had seen in paintings of my great grandfather so many times.

i was grateful for that day and the lesson it gave me of family and heritage

and of the strong witness of the importance of my name

and the person that bore it.

my great grandparents, grandmother, and great uncle in Salt Lake.