Microfilm and me

I have been thinking about events that happened on my mission. One story I heard involves microfilm. There was a microfilm processing facility at the mission office. They would develop the film which they obtained from some members who were what we would call genealogy missionaries today. I knew two of these men. Richard Ranglack and Paul Langheinrich. They would obtain permission to microfilm records both in the East and in the West of Germany and the adjacent countries. 

When I was in Berlin I heard the following story. One man was in the East and had a lot of film he needed to get to the mission. He had contacted the man from the West to meet him on a certain day in a certain city. This was probably East Berlin,but it could have been another city in the East. Of course the police we on the lookout for spies and would be suspicious of anyone who was carrying microfilm. There was a lot of spying going on on both sides of divided Germany. 

The two men did not make specific arrangements because their correspondence was potentially monitored. They just were in the same place at the same time. In the city there was a movie theater. In Germany at that time one would purchase a ticket at the box office and one would be given a certain seat. In America at that time one could go into a movie and sit anywhere in any seat and stay as long as you wanted and see the movie two or three times. 

Not knowing where the other was, the one man felt impressed to go to the movies. He went in and sat down only to discover the person sitting next to him was the man from the East. He got the case with the microfilm and took it back to have it developed. 

After the microfilm was developed it was sent to the church office in Salt Lake. Many of these are in the Granite vaults and are now being digitized. When I was released the mission president,knowing that I was taking a VW bus back to the United States, asked me to take a shipment of microfilm back to Salt Lake City. He gave it to me in Hanover when he met with us. I put it in the back motor compartment of the minibus and stored the vehicle in a garage in Hannover. When I left my companions in Paris after our travels I flew back to Hanover and picked up the minibus and drove to Bremerhaven where I delivered it to the steamship line to be put aboard the US America. We later boarded the ship in Southampton and later landed in New York and drove across America to Salt Lake where I gave up the microfilm at the church office building. 

 

Richard Ranglack and Paul Langheinrich came to Salt Lake City and lived on the Avenues.  Paul was in our ward and we had dinner at their home.  They used to treat our children with chocolate. His daughter Marianne was Alice's good friend.  

 

--