Richard

This page is for Richard Sirotzki and his dear family.
I met Richard while doing research on the Gdansk official website. I was looking at pictures of the
town as it is today. I couldn't read anything because it's Polish. I continued to browse and landed
on the forum page where I noticed a familiar name"Richard Sirotzki". His name was a link to his
email address. I promptly sent out an email with some basic information on my dad and where he
was from and my Opa's name. I received a reply to my message in 24 hours. After many email's
we finally knew we were blood relatives. Richard is my cousin.
Son of Ernst Sirotzki, his father is my dads little brother. I was sad to find out my uncle Ernst had
passed away in 1959 at the age of 27. He was a coal miner and died of blood poisoning. Richards
mother Irene is also passed on. Richard has a younger sister Ewa. Richards has 3 children of his
own. Daniela, Simon and Dominik
We emailed each other so much that I must have at least 200 in my files since we met in Jan 2006. I
never knew Richard even existed. He sent me photos of his family and I the same for him.
The one he sent me I will never forget. For the very first time in my 40 years I saw a photo of my
Opa, Franz Sirotzki, my father's dad. I cried and cried some more. I never knew Opa. It makes me
cry right now thinking of it. I have taken so many notes about my research and there are many a
tear stained ink plots.
Discovering Richard opened another page in our lives. We now had information regarding the rest
of the Sirtozki Family. Richard also never knew who we were. He said he knew he had relatives in
the USA but never knew who or where we were.
It's been a bitter sweet meeting. We both got good and bad news. But all in all I am happy to have
him and his family in my life. Including Tommy his dog and best friend.
I will also have him write something to post in here in his own words. I must laugh here. He only
speaks German and I only speak English. We both use an online translation site to keep in touch.
I can only imagine how some of the translation gets lost.
The emotions that I went through discovering Richard or Rico as he calls himself is very hard for me
to put into words. It struck me very deep in my soul. If I have could flown to Germany that moment I
would have
He and I are a lot alike. We are both machinist's, our birthdays are 8 days apart, we are both
Gemini. We go to flee markets and collect Siamese cat figurines. We dabble a lot on the
computer. We both started a web page at the same time without the other knowing.
Rico Called my father, his uncle on the phone. He said Hallo Onkel Hubert. My dad was
overcome with joy to hear from the son of his brother Ernst, My fathers own blood, his nephew.
You have no idea what this means to my father. He said "Rico is a very polite nice man, that Ernst
would be proud of you".
I know our Opa Franz, Oma Anna, Uncle Ernst and all the other relatives are looking down from the
heavens above with joy. They helped guide us to were we are today.
All my love to you my dear cousin and family.