Ernest Marchand wurde am Februar in Gelsenkirchen geboren. Sein Vater Abraham Marchand, geboren am 1. Februar l, betrieb an der damaligen Hochstr. Er starb wenige Monate nach der Geburt seines Sohnes Ernest. Ernest's Mutter wurde am Am Januar nach Riga verschleppt. My father was called Abraham Marchand. I am not quite sure where he was born. Probably near Gelsenkirchen. He had one brother called Jonas. Both brothers were in the meat trade.
We had what I called a Dutch granny. That was the only person of that family who I really knew. She was an ancient lady. And could speak very little German. I'm not sure of the background of the whole family, but they obviously came from Holland and settled in Germany. How they acquired the French name I do not know. My father had a cousin called Spielman who is still alive in France. I will say more about that later.
My father died within a few months of my birth and I was brought up entirely by my mother. My mother came from a fairly large family. There were four sisters and two brothers. One brother probably came from an earlier marriage. It appears that from both sides the fathers married twice.
As indeed my father did. My father's first marriage yielded one son and one daughter. Both of whom are still alive in America. They have their own families. I did not meet them until about 10 years ago. They will be mentioned again later. My mother's family I know extremely well. During the holidays I used to go to the place of her birth, which was Falkenburg in Pomerania which is a little village near Stettin.
It is now Polish and Szczecin. Most of my early memories are related to holidays there. I was allowed to run wild. There wasn't much trouble I could get into other than falling down holes through the floorboards to the cellar. My most vivid memory of that time is that I had several pet chickens which used to follow me around. Until one day when I did not remember they were behind me and I banged the door and decapitated one. Another vivid memory, co-incidentally about chickens, concerned my uncle in the process of ritually slaughtering the chicken.
