HolzmindenThis is one of those posts that might lead somewhere – or otherwise it won’t.  Recently, in a Famennes antiques shop, I came across a framed painting of a young girl with the masts of a ship behind her and ‘gothic’ decorations around the portrait. At the bottom of the painting was the following rhyme: ”Little lassie far away/Reckon that there will come a day/When this awful lane will turn/And the banished will return.’ On the reverse, in a scrawling hand, is written: ‘Madame H. Bräm-Jonckheere à l’age de 13 ans, peint par son père Edouard Jonckheere, en captivité en Allemagne de 1914 à 1918, d’après une photo.‘ Confusingly, at the bottom of the back of the frame is a type-written caption that reads as follows: ‘Hélène Jonckheere  et J. Bräm à l’age de 11 ans en 1917, peint en camp de concentration par son père Edouard. Holzminden.’ Holzminden was indeed an internment camp. There was a more famous prisoner-of-war camp next door (a sort of First World War version of Colditz, complete with tunnelers and escapees), but I suspect Edouard was an internee, one of ten thousand held there. They set up schools and a theatre and even a university. My picture shows children playing in the camp (it also held women and children). There are a few vague traces of the family name on the internet, but nothing really firm enough to follow up on. So; if anybody from the Bräm-Jonckheere family would like to be reconnected with a piece of the family past, please get in touch.