By: Aria Thassa

There is a place on Earth, older than the Norman books, with a history rich with passions, war, loss, and devotion. It is a town called Pilkahlen, where my father was born. Nestled in the northern most section of East Prussia, its homes surrounded a small lake, with a church on one bank, and streets lined in Linden trees and families of white geese and wheat farms. It was a land that knew turmoil well, and where boys grew up to become "Prussian soldiers", and girls grew up to marry these men after baking a loaf of bread proving their worth to his parents.

It is a land that was attacked first by the Nazi's in World War II, and then its fields with children and women walking upon them were used as target practice by American bombers who were low on fuel, and later still burned again by the Russians.

Nothing was left. All its people fled, its buildings except the church and the train station destroyed, its animals dispersed. Well, almost nothing was left, for its memories were passed on to the children of its children, and its community held onto their belonging to Pilkahlen.

Some 35 or so years after my father left this town, upon his 50th birthday, he received a birthday card from an elementary classmate in the mail. He had not seen his friend since he was 10 or 11. He had not known if his friend even lived... until that day.

They reunited, and soon, my father learned that this little town, his Home Stone, still lived strongly in the hearts of its survivors of war.

For every year there is still a town meeting, somewhere far from its geographical location, where its citizens still meet. There are memories spoken of. Times and values shared. Children and grandchildren to introduce.

A living Home Stone without a home but in the hearts of its citizens still lives over 50 years since its close destruction.

- Aria Thassa
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