Around the World

With first phone contact with German relatives in Europe, these Bouchers (Bowshers) were so prpud of their ancestors’ loyal participation in The Holy Crusades, beginning in 1096! That Boucher family’s pride was centered on their devout Christian forefathers having soulfully, heroicly served in The Rhineland Wars of 1096, oral family tradition claiming Boucher Christian Soldiers had bravely distinguished themselves in The Rhineland Wars battles of Worms, of Speyers, and of Mainz!

In our 1980 phone conversation, in preparation on my visiting them in 1982 European visit, their greatest enthusiasm was for a single left-hand metal gauntlet with evidence of multiple Holy War battle scars while being worn from the First Crusade of 1096 by a brave Boucher! The other item they were show me was a statue of that gauntlet’s owner, whch had been reproduced by a Boucher artist from having seen in “a vivid dream” the Christian warrior wielding his deadly battle axe in The Rhineland Wars.

But upon vititing that Boucher family in Germany, what had they discovered concerning that Crusader ancestor, which being devout Christians themselves… had changed their enthusiastic sense of pride to an embarrassing sense of soul-deep shame?

Having had a knowledge of European Jewish histony, what my Boucher relatives had been saying over the phone concerning their Middle Ages ancestors participation in the 1096 Crusade was an oral distortion, since The Rhineland Wars had actually been The Rhineland Massacres, slaughtering innocent Jews in what were not “battles” of Speyer, Worms, and Metz (Mainz.)

In 1981 the Boucher owner fo the armor gauntlet and “dream statue” had rremarried into a non-practicing Jewish family whom had demonstratively pointed out the errors of the family information which had made Holy War heroes out of willing participants in Jewish pogroms! Boucher family being devout Christians were shocked by realization their ancestors instead of fighting bravely in Christ’s name, had been participants in antisemitic atrocities, transforming their former pride into family shame! Thus by the time I had met those Boucher relatives in 1982 (Jewish in-laws and all), they revealed their discovery of the historic truth, and we negotsiated the transference of the gauntlet and the warrior statue to my collection in America!