Herbert Engel, 1929 - 2010

My father (with drum), with my grandmother, great-grandfather, and Uncle Bill

I learned today from my Mom that my father Herbert Engel passed away in his sleep late last night or early this morning at a care home in Stuttgart, Germany.

He was born in Germany and spent his early childhood in Herxheim, in the south of the country. His mother and father took my father and his older brother Bill (originally Wilhelm) to the U.S. to escape the Holocaust. My father studied at City College of New York and got his PhD in chemical engineering at MIT. He went to work for Shell in California where he met my mother. They married and had me and my little sister Mitzi. When we were still small the whole family, including Genny and Sue, my Mom's daughters from a previous marriage, moved to Switzerland where my father planned to work. Things didn't turn out, my parents divorced, and my Mom brought us kids back to the U.S. My father also returned briefly to the U.S., then moved back to Germany where he spent the rest of his life. Apparently he was one of very few German Jews to return.

I saw him a few times in my childhood and teens when he made short trips to California. We became semi-estranged when I was a young adult, and it wasn't until about ten years ago that we got back in the habit of writing and calling each other pretty regularly. He was kind of a hermit and never really encouraged me to visit him, though I did drop in on him once while I was studying in London for a semester. He had health problems in recent years and never really recovered from a fall he took while boarding a streetcar last year.

I'm glad that our relationship improved over the years. I'm glad that he got to meet Basilia once, and that they liked each other. I'm glad that he approved of what I've chosen to do with my life. I'm glad that he's through suffering.

Auf wiedersehen, Papa.