They conquered - not with the sword - but with the plow.  1763 Their road to the swamplands between the Danube and the Theiss Rivers, took the first generation of colonists on detours through DEATH and DEPRIVATION before being rewarded for their courageous fight for survival - with BREAD.   1945  Through the inhuman tragedy of the Second World War,  once again DEATH and DEPRIVATION.

From A Privileged Perspective

by Renate Koelbli

At fifteen I was finally given permission, after almost a year’s begging and pleading, to join the Donauschwaben folk dance group in Montreal. Fool that I was, I had no idea that I was playing right into the hands of my parents, who were far better psychologists than I suspected at the time. If they had asked me to join the group, I would in all likelihood have fought the suggestion with a vengeance. When they asked my two Montreal-born brothers to join the group a few years later, it cost my folks the price of a T.V. set for the boys’ room. What can I say … it has never paid to be the eldest.

I believe it was very important to my parents and grandparents to see their offspring, born outside their homeland of the Batschka, embracing some of their traditions and enjoying some of what they treasured about that good and simple life they had had to abandon so abruptly during World War II.

In the case of my family, the poverty they experienced during their sojourn in Austria as refugees from war-torn Yugoslavia was an unacceptable base on which to build a future, and so my parents left for Canada with a three-year-old Renate in tow. We spent 10 days bouncing the Atlantic on the Fairsea, then were deposited on Canada’s shores in Quebec City.

During a whirlwind few days, we were rescued from the otherwise obligatory farm labor by a Romanian Donauschwaben family who took us in to live with them, and had my Papa working at a carpentering job 72 hours after we arrived. Best of all for me, they took us to the beach the second day we were in Canada! By all indications, this was going to be an ideal place to put down roots … so my Mutti and Papa wrote to all of the remaining family to get over here ASAP. And get over here they did …

I suppose it’s safe to say that my mother, father, and I were pioneers of a sort – at least for our own family – here on the great continent of North America. And with us came our Donauschwaben roots, which have always been a more or less conscious part of me whether I appreciated them at various parts of my life or not.

From my parents’ point of view, of course, the lightning quick changes in their lives these past ten years were almost too rapid to grasp. In the twinkling of an eye, it seems – all within a decade – a once carefree fourteen-year-old Donauschwaben farmer’s daughter was fearfully fleeing Batsch on a covered wagon as the Russians approached her birthplace in October of 1944 – then suddenly was watching her own 3-year-old child playing in the sand of a Canadian beach in July 1953 - less than ten years later.

How does one put this into perspective? And how is any of this relevant to researchers of their roots who are first, second, third, or even fourth generation descendants of Donauschwaben ancestors? These are questions that further interaction with other researchers of their roots will eventually help me answer, I expect.

John Feldenzer, who is my gracious host for the Batsch part of this site, has pointed out my privileged position as one who has - and still does - live much of what was the Batschka. We cook many of the same foods, practice some of the same rituals and holiday observances, and even speak the same German dialect that was spoken in Batsch, Hodschag, Palanka, Parabutsch, Kernei, and other nearby towns in 1944. A large, close community of Batschka born Germans in Montreal guaranteed that these things have survived until today. But what are the chances that they will survive another twenty, forty, or sixty years?

In the meantime, many other Donauschwaben descendants whose families emigrated before WWII and who have been integrated into North American communities and cultures more thoroughly are looking for their ties to this community that still thrives in various centers such as the one in Trenton, New Jersey, as I have just discovered over the net.

What is it that drives an individual to establish his inherent ties to a group? And why at a time in history when the trend is to stress one’s individuality? The "belonging to" which the study of one’s genealogy provides is one of the key ways of "fleshing out" who one is as a person in yet another fascinating way. At the same time it gives us another set of characteristics that make us unique from others in our circle. The balance of similar to unique is healthy and essential, I believe.

In my own parents’ and grandparents’ homes there has always been easy access to documented evidence of our Donauschwaben heritage, although I was rarely tempted to make it my reading material as an adolescent or young adult raising my children. I do admire the persistence of all who rely solely on a rather complicated paper trail to find their Donauschwaben roots. Besides all sorts of written material, I have had living, breathing former residents of the Batschka, including my late paternal grandparents, living under the same roof with me for much of my life. And yet I have only just become familiar in the last couple of weeks with many of the details and events and people that made up the environment of their youth.

I realize, too, that I still know precious little of what there is to know. It took total immersion in the photographs and intense picking of the brains of both of my parents and many of their surviving friends and relatives, both here and in Germany and Austria, to accomplish the gathering of material that now appears in these pages on Batsch, Yugoslavia, and its surroundings. I expect the telephone calls are far from over, as my "rattling the cages" of our friends and relatives to obtain information has awakened a pleasant curiosity and willingness to participate in many of them.

With luck perhaps something that appears here will be a key that opens a door to take one or two of you a step further in your search for who you are through your ancestors. Man remains a product of genes as well as environment – and the question of what balance of these makes us who we are will ever be a subject of debate. Nevertheless, if we should consciously emulate anything about our Donauschwaben ancestors, I believe it must be their dogged determination to overcome all obstacles to their dignity and survival, as well as their equal knack for working hard and relishing the good simple things honestly earned.

There’s a little verse that describes their way of looking at life fairly accurately: "Setzt dich über alles weg. - Freu dich ueber jeden Dreck." Unfortunately it doesn’t rhyme in English, but it translates more or less: "Get over all the crap (obstacles?) that comes your way, and derive joy from even the tiniest pleasure (success?)."

I recently wrote Mr. Feldenzer that one of the main purposes of the Donauschwaben social clubs in Canada and the U.S. was to keep the young socializing and thus intermarrying with others of their own kind. This was true to some extent, but it would do the Donauschwaben a disservice to say it stopped there. The ultimate pleasure those organizations have given and still give the remaining living original inhabitants of the Batschka of the first half of the 20^th century is the triumph of seeing their offspring – the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd generation North Americans enjoying living their heritage in countries like Canada and the U.S.A., where instead of having to be embarrassed about the culture of their forefathers, they can enjoy it, take pride in it, and share its richness with others.

To see their children and grandchildren, and great grandchildren dancing is a treat in itself, but to see them dancing in traditional Donauschwaben costumes to the music they themselves danced to at weddings, Kirchweih, and other festive gatherings in the towns of their homeland is a healing of the wounds of their losses. To see their non-Donauschwaben friends join in on the merrymaking – or to have them at their home tables enjoying the Donauschwaben cuisine – creates a wonderful feeling of pride in their contribution to the new homeland and good will among all those who partake.

I’ll never forget my grandmother’s sense of satisfaction when friends my brothers and I brought home ate at our table. She would keep track on just how many "Palaschinka" or "Kränzle" or "Hunich Küchle" each had devoured – not because she begrudged them the food – on the contrary - she was just so excited that they enjoyed our traditional cooking and baking – often more than we children in the family who all too often took it for granted and thought that bought baked goods, like store doughnuts, were much more special - until that day dawned when we seemed almost overnight to be a whole lot older and wiser …

Just like all want to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day – in the same way, a good German festival, Donauschwaben or otherwise, always draws the crowds. That is true here in Canada as well as in the States. I have no figures for what percentage of Americans and Canadians have Germans or Donauschwaben in their family lines, but I do imagine it to be a rather impressive number. But just like we drink Irish coffee and wear green on St. Patty’s Day, one certainly doesn’t have to be German to enjoy a great German beer and a polka and the spirit of "Gemühtlichkeit".

How few of present researchers of their Donauschwaben roots read, write, or even speak German is something that Mr. Feldenzer has impressed upon me as well. German is not an easy language to learn, I can assure you, if one has not grown up with exposure to the structure of the grammar and to three genders of nouns, among other mysteries. When French Canadians who attended McGill University’s German Department with me as undergraduate students spoke to me in flawless German while I struggled with verb tenses and vocabulary, I found it remarkable indeed.

I myself grew up hearing and speaking the Batscher Donauschwaben dialect as my first language, while English became my second just before starting school. At that point, as children will, I soon became proficient in English, and I later took advantage of my B.A. courses to learn "book" German. At that time I still thought that our dialect was only an isolated aberration of "proper German" of which I ought to be ashamed, so it was to my absolute delight that I discovered, in the church scene of the film "Witness", that the Pennsylvania Dutch speak almost exactly the dialect I grew up with. I’d never heard anything so close to our own. I figured if Harrison Ford could fall in love with a woman who spoke like that, then it couldn’t be as bad as all that.

Amish country is an ideal place to hear the dialect of our forefathers. Because their community is close-knit and there is no intermarriage with the outside world for those who continue to live their traditional lifestyle, the dialect has been preserved. Their ancestors also hail from the regions of Germany, France, and Switzerland that our own ancestors are from. However, don’t call them Donauschwaben, as they are not … Our ancestors became Donauschwaben by way of leaving that area and traveling the Danube by way of Ulm to the swamplands of Hungary. The Amish took no such detour to America.

The point I’m making is that you shouldn’t be hard on yourself if you find it difficult to learn German – and don’t blame the generations before you for not making a point of keeping it alive in the family until you were born. Keep in mind that their fear of the unknown in a strange new country, anxiety about being accepted, and insecurity from past negative experiences doubtless left them with mixed feelings about wanting to keep the old ways and language for their children. Some likely felt it to be for the best that their offspring be completely absorbed and "de-arianized", especially with the events of the two World Wars. Whether they wanted it that way or not, time would take its toll on the traditions of another time and place.

On the lighter side, in my own experience, even people married into Donauschwaben families generally only learned the names of the foods anyway. My ex-husband and other "out-laws" could ask for "Dobos Torte" and "Sarma", "Kipfel" and "Bretschel", but couldn’t put a sentence together beyond that. My children understand much of what is said in the household in "Batscherisch" or German and have taken beginners’ courses in college, but what with another European language to cope with on their father’s side, and the obligatory French and English in the province of Quebec, German is their third language at best and will remain so unless their futures one day take them to a German-speaking environment to live.

Here I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention the absolute delight it is to hear a younger Montreal-born cousin of mine repeating many of my late grandfather’s more memorable expressions in an inimitable Batscher accent speaking smidgeons of German or broken English … Between that and my brother’s deliberate humorous butchering of the language his grandparents spoke to him, the old dialect hangs on beyond me with our clan a little while longer.

As for me, I find myself just in the knick of time asking the questions that I might have regretted never asking had I waited any longer. What started as an effort to help a relative research the part of the family tree we share evolved to a delightful experience with a Donauschwaben roots researcher by the name of Sarah Nunez, who was so helpful to me that I was encouraged to approach some others, including John Feldenzer, already a valued friend, who turned out to be thoroughly enjoyable to work with, whose generosity I so appreciate, and whose reliable help, guidance, and experience I expect to lean on for as long as I am permitted.

I have also just had the pleasure of making the e-mail acquaintance of Herr Josef Stefan who is working feverishly to finish the Batsch Ortssippenbuch. Until its completion, may this site serve as one of your glimpses into the well-loved town of Batsch and its people.

One can only rely on word of mouth for so many generations back, and so, other than my being able to communicate in German and having a great documented start of two or three generations back near at hand, I’m in the same boat as all of you for the rest. I’m only just starting to penetrate the world of researching my family tree, but I’m already dreaming about if and how it’s possible to "flesh out" the names on that tree once we have them. Ah … if only someone would invent a time machine, we’d already have the perfect itinerary for a great trip!

Please let me know, my dear fellow researchers, if there is any help I can provide to any of you who may benefit from what my own advantages may be, particularly those of you who may have ancestors in the Batsch of the first half of the 20^th century. Unfortunately, just like everyone else, my precious "word of mouth" sources won’t be here for any of us forever.

If you have any questions or comments about anything on the site, please don’t hesitate to write me through John’s Guest Book – bottom of his PALANKA home page.

AND AS YOU RESEARCH YOUR ROOTS, REMEMBER:

Setz tich iver alles vek, Frei tich iver jeder trek.

(Batscherisch)