Travel Tips

WW2 was over, but all over Europe thousands of broken families and orphaned children, suffered to survive, while reconstruction began. Several hundred children were sent away to more quiet places, received by families in several countries. My parents decided to receive one of them, and, a few days later, a frightened girl named Ingrid, without anything as luggage, arrived in Turquel.

After some days to cross the barrier of language and the traumas brought from her recent past, Ingrid find a second family, and got acquainted to Portugal

But things in Austria were recovered, and the time to return came. It was hard for her, to leave the peace of Portugal, and the love of those who accepted her as family. But... It had to be done.

For many years Ingrid kept writing to her "second mother", but life and a fading Portuguese put an end to it, and for many decades all the contact was lost.

In 2000 my brother (who didn't know Ingrid, because he was born after her departure) read in a magazine that an Austrian lady, living in Algarve, was providing the meeting between some of those children and their receiving Portuguese families. He sent her a picture of Ingrid, that was published in an Austrian newspaper, and... she saw it. 52 years later the contact was reestablished.

In November 1st 2001, my mother commemorated her 78th birthday, together with my father, that accomplished 92 in October 28th. We had our usual lunch, and... do you guess who appeared " by surprise" in the restaurant?
Right!
Ingrid (and a friend, Johanna), expressly invited by me and my brother, was the most unexpected and loved birthday gift to my parents that day.

No need to describe the emotions in that meeting. But if was also funny to see the enthusiasm of the following days, travelling with the Austrian ladies around Portugal, with Ingrid trying to connect the sights with her old memories.
And the climax arrived in Fatima, when, in an obscure path, Ingrid exclaimed: "I remember this place. I fell in that staircase 53 years ago!"