Where are the owners? Policeman finds wedding rings from 1947 in Swisttal flood debris
Swisttal · Many things were lost in the flood, and sometimes they turn up again. One particular find is in the safe of the Swisttal municipality. The owners are still being sought.
Lost property 28/2021 is in a brown envelope. And this brown envelope is normally kept in safe custody in the safe of the municipality of Swisttal in the Ludendorf town hall. Sonja Bois, registrar and head of the lost property office, opened the safe for the General-Anzeiger.
Strictly speaking, it is not one lost property, but two: wedding rings, probably made in 1947, which were found on the hikers' car park on state road 182 near Heimerzheim, which had been temporarily turned into a large waste dump after the flood. As Bois reports, a police officer from Euskirchen who was helping with the disposal discovered the rings on 25 July. The Euskirchen police sent the rings to the Swisttal municipality in mid-November.
The names "Christine" and "Heinz" are engraved on the rings
The simply crafted pieces were probably in a drawer or box in the middle of the waste collected from the car park at the edge of the Kotten Forest. It came from the houses in Heimerzheim that were affected by the flood. Among them were all kinds of furniture, appliances and other objects that had been rendered useless by the flood of 14/15 July. The name "Christiane" is engraved in one of the rings made of 585 gold, "Heinz" in the other. In addition, the dates "1987" and "Since 14.9.1947". So it could be, Sonja Bois suspects, that the wedding took place in 1947 and the engraving was added for the 40th anniversary of the marriage in 1987.
Investigations into the rings’ story so far without success
The registrar has of course checked the marriage register of the municipality. However, there is no couple with the first names Christiane and Heinz under the date in question. So it could be that the couple got married in another place and later moved to Heimerzheim. It is also possible that the couple has already died and the wedding rings have passed into the possession of descendants living in Heimerzheim.
"I would be very happy, especially as a registrar, if I could return the rings to the family," says Sonja Bois. She will gladly accept tips about the couple Christiane and Heinz. Contact: sonja.bois@swisttal.de or 022 55/30 93 20.
(Original text: Hans-Peter Fuss; Translation: Mareike Graepel)
