The Foreign Service Journal, May 2013

60 MAY 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS ACT I VE AFTER ACT I VE- DUTY Finding Roots After a Life in the Foreign Service BY CHRISTOPHER HENZE Retirement has given me the chance to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: research my family’s geneal- ogy. The Internet proved to be a wonderful tool for this endeavor. The more I got into the subject, the more pas- sionate (my family might say obsessed) I became. It was like a treasure hunt—noth- ing exciting for a while, then Eureka! I would discover a small nugget that would lead me down a new path. After more than a year of e-mailing with German contacts to prepare for a pil- grimage to Saxony, my sister and I only recently made the trip. Our great-grandfather, Robert Henze, was a rather prominent sculptor in Dresden. We believed that all his monumental sculptural works were destroyed during the Allied firebombing of February 1945, as was his graveside (which we had helped to restore). Dresden has been beautifully rebuilt, although grim reminders of the firebombing of “Florence on the Elbe” remain. Each Feb. 13, precisely at 10 p.m., all of the city lights go out and all of the church bells ring. We were pleasantly surprised to find that was not the case. For instance, his depiction of a golden goddess continues to stand atop the dome of the Fine Arts Academy in Dresden. With further research, we were able to locate many of his works and even found a street named after him. Before leaving, we decided to show our appreciation to Saxony by donating our great grandfather’s autobi- ography—a fragile document handwritten in old German script—to the Saxon State and University Library. Going even further back in our family’s history, we discovered that the sculp- tor’s father-in-law, our great- great-grandfather, Johann Friedrich Baltzer, had been a revolutionary pastor at St. Martin’s Church in the village of Zwochau near Leipzig. He reportedly incurred the king’s wrath for preaching in favor of democracy and was sen- tenced to four months in jail, which was increased to two years upon appeal. He fled and became a man without a country. Today, he is some- thing of a local hero. The only existing image of Pastor Baltzer we have found is a fine, large oil portrait which has been passed down in our family. My siblings sug- gested we put it up for auc- tion after our parents died, since no one had a suitable place for it. I felt that would be a great pity and decided to contact the current pastor to see if his church or the town council would be interested in receiving the painting as a gift. The response from the pastor and a local historian was enthusiastic, so my sis- ter and I added Zwochau to our itinerary. During a special service on St. Martin’s Day, Nov. 11, the crate containing the portrait was opened in the presence of the pas- tor’s Catholic counterpart, the mayor and the press. It was then that the pastor announced to all that the town council had decided to name the village’s main street “Baltzerstrasse.” At this point in my children’s lives, they have little interest in their family background. But I predict that when they have grand- children of their own, they will be grateful to know more about their roots. I think it’s important to preserve what we can for future genera- tions. Otherwise, much will be lost. n Christopher Henze served with the U.S. Information Agency in South Africa, Dar es Salaam, Ljubljana, Geneva and Paris. He retired in France, where he has worked as a consultant to the Inter- national Herald Tribune and at the press and publications office of the International Energy Agency. Robert Henze’s golden goddess stands atop the dome of the Fine Arts Academy in Dresden—a landmark that miraculously survived the Allied firebombing in 1945. Below, portrait of revolutionary pastor Johann Friedrich Baltzer, 1802‑1885. PHOTOBYJÖRGHALISCH