Walter Klein, his wife Birga, and
daughter Larissa in 1987
In 1986 my father had not heard anything about his first son (my half
brother) for over 32 years and shared with me what details he knew. I
was travelling Western Europe with a Eurail pass and stopped in
Steinwenden, west of Kaiserslautern, and checked the phone book, and
found him.
Twenty
years later Walter Klein's daughter, Larissa, visited me in Australia.
Larissa Klein on the ferry from Kangaroo Island to the
mainland
Paula Klein met Mike Bead, an American airforce
sergeant, in 1955. They married and moved to the
USA in 1957, lived in New Jersey, and had two children.
Walter Klein remained in Germany and lived with his grandfather, Jacob
Klein, in Steinwenden. Walter inherited the family house by
paying other relatives off. He married Birga (gymnastics teacher) in
1980.
Paula visited Germany in 1966, 1971, 1972, 1979, 1982, 1984. She
was in Steinwenden in about 2000 and met Walter Mittelstedt again when
he went there to visit. Larissa remembers answering the door and a
stranger she knew nothing about said, "Hello, I'm your grandfather" and
she quickly closed the door.
When I met Larissa she was planning to study English at university and
become a teacher.
