Site Hosts: John and Myrtle (Gard) Feldenzer
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"PALANKA" INFORMATION:
" Note: I no longer copy pages of the Palanka OSB due to the condition of the books.............sorry."
1 Palanka surname list
2 People with books list
3 Palanka "Coat of Arms"
4 History of Palanka ........ (this takes awhile to load)
Bacs Bodrog 1910 Batschka county map: http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/maps/1910/bacsbod.jpg
Batschka region (handmade) map....... MAP ... coordinates for Palanka = Nx4
ULMER SCHACHTEL BOAT/BARGE
Danube River ..... via the "National Geographic Magazine"
PALANKA ......... Vital information on Palanka.
Guide Service ....... Information and guide service for this area.
Questions: feldenzer@feldenzer.com
Flight and Expulsion
TRANSLATION BY: RENATE KOELBLI
For 180 years German settlers and their descendants, along with Serbs, Hungarians, and people of other ethnic backgrounds worked together to build the three Palanka towns, which albeit administratively separate, otherwise constituted one unified town in every other respect. By far the largest group, and the one that most influenced commercial development, were the Germans. By conservative estimates, they represented some 7000 to 7500 of a total population of 13,000 towards the end of WW.I. However, their presence came to an abrupt end in 1944.
As Rumania capitulated on August 23, 1944, the political and military upheaval triggered a speedy advance of Russian troops in the direction of the Banat and the Batschka regions.
The reasons that drove some to flee and motivated others to stay at home would have been the same ones as in the other German towns. The younger inhabitants gauged the danger that the Russians and Partisans presented to the Germans to be considerable, and so they left their homeland with heavy hearts, all too soon witnessing cruel evidence that they had been right. On the other hand, for the most part older people, among them young women with children, hoped it wouldn’t be so bad and counted on their Yugoslav state to take their consistent loyalty into account. Naturally their ties to the land also played a deciding role. Many just simply could not bring themselves to leave behind their properties built up for generations.
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Of the approximately 3500 citizens that left Palanka in the early fall of 1944, most fled on ships or barges on the Danube. That was their first major trial. For over a week, they were under way by ship. A more serious threat than the Partisans was the danger to both persons and ships from mines that fell from allied airplanes. Fortunately none of the ships sank as a result of these mines. Mohacs was the first town where it was possible to dock. Budapest was the end of the line. After that, most traveled by rail transports to the Sudetenland, the Saxon region around Dresden, Silesia, or Upper Bavaria. Many fled by horse-drawn carriages.
On October 20, 1944, Russians, Bulgarians, and their accompanying Tito Partisans entered Palanka. There were home searches, arrests, and shootings.
Dr. Wilhelm Neuner, former district judge in German Palanka, gives accounts of two major operations, the first of which involved seventy boys aged 14 to 19 who were taken from their homes, walked to the nearby acacia forest, and shot there, having first been forced to dig a large pit, and on 26.10.1944 (?) some 100 German men were arrested, who after cruel tortures, met the same fate as the adolescents.
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In yet another operation, an additional 184 Palanka men were arrested and locked up and tortured in the Bürgerschule (high school?). The following day, they were herded to Vrdnik in Syrmia for forced labor. There was a second concentration camp at Novi Sad.
On 21.11.1944 a fateful decision was made in Belgrade whose consequences were the elimination of a German presence in Yugoslavia.
Women and children and the sick were forced to leave their town. Work camps were established in Paschitschewo, Schowe, Stepanovicevo, Irmova-Pussta, Sentiwan, Kulpin, Futog, and Titel. Also in Palanka. Those incapable of working were put up in the extermination camps Jarek, Gakovo, Krushiwl, and Mitrowitz. These were left to starve to death or to perish from the diseases that spread rapidly.
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Educated estimates are that some 30 – 40, 000 Danubeswabians escaped from Yugoslavian concentration camps by the turn of the year 1947/48. Among them were some 500 people from Palanka.
Ancestors – Emigrants
- Memorial at the Danubeswabian waterfront in Ulm -
Its unveiling took place in 1958 on the occasion of the biggest ever Donauschwaben reunion. Many Palankans took part.
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The Bronze Sculpture ......... It was created by the Pfalz sculptor, Erich Koch, Jr.
Chiseled into the memorial is the following epitaph: From Ulm German settlers traveled in the 18th century along the Danube to southeastern Europe. Their descendants, whom fate drove out of their homeland after WWII, returned to the land of their fathers.
The ship appears as leitmotiv representing the traits of the Swabians, while the mighty Cross, symbol of the Faith, gives the family its solid base. The bundles represent emigration and expulsion.
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* Plaque reads: The three sister communities on the Danube – Old Palanka – New Palanka – German Palanka