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THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS - No. 357 August 31, 2024, © 2024 by The Burgenland Bunch All rights reserved. Permission to copy excerpts granted if credit is provided. Editor: Thomas Steichen (email: tj.steichen@comcast.net) BB Home Page: the-burgenland-bunch.org Our 28th year! The BB was founded in 1997 by Gerald Berghold (1930-2008). | ||||
| Current Status Of The BB: * Members: 3237 * Surname Entries: 9396 * Query Entries: 5967 * Staff Members: 14 | ||||
| This newsletter concerns: 1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER 2) TRIP REPORT (by Patricia Nemetz-Mills) 3) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES: 4) ETHNIC EVENTS 5) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (courtesy of Bob Strauch) | ||||
1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER (by Tom Steichen) Our regular tidbits include the monthly BB Facebook report, book sales, a recipe and some Words for Thought. The remaining articles include a trip report by Patricia Nemetz-Mills and our standard sections: A Historical BB Newsletter article, Ethnic Events and Emigrant Obituaries. 193 Km/H on the Autobahn: I had to chuckle a little over a Burgenland article I read this past month. It seems a 19-year-old "novice" driver from I suppose that when I was 19 I might have thought this was creditable justification... but I doubt I could have been unaware that 120 mph felt much faster than 80 mph. Good thing he didn't go the full "speed limit" of 130! Eisenstadt Diocese Benefices Lease Decisions Causes Protests: The Diocese of Eisenstadt announced that they have awarded new leases on their parish benefice lands, and the prices have "risen massively," say their critics. As you may recall, lease contracts for church-owned farmland in Burgenland were terminated in April and an open online bidding process followed in May. Among Church statements I reported previously were these: ...the concerns of the farmers are understood, and with "equality of offers" the existing tenants would be preferred. But ...lease awards are "also about the economic offer," implying the size of the bid is an important factor. ...the new allocation is "not only based on economic and ecological criteria, but also on pastoral criteria. Among other things, the commitment of the respective bidder to the parish is also decisive." Now that the contracts have been awarded, some farmers (who evidently did not make the high bids on their prior leased lands) are not satisfied and are marching to protest (see image and slogans above). They claim that the Church has not kept to an important agreement, claiming that "it had been agreed that if the previous tenant was only a third below the highest bid with his offer, he would still be awarded the contract." Instead, previous lease holders received a call and were given the choice of leasing at the highest bid price or losing the land. As I reported previously, there are over 150 parish benefices in Burgenland totaling around 1,200 hectares (~3000 acres) that were previously split among some 300 farmers. However, some 5,000 bids were received during the online bidding process. Farmers speculated that the highest bids came from "very large farms that wanted to grow at any price" and that there were no longer any tenants from home villages. The Diocese, however, says many old tenants were awarded contracts and reiterated that, for bids of the same amount, the old tenants received preference. It denied that there was any agreement by which old tenants would be awarded the contract if their offer was within one third below the highest bid. They stated that the leases were based on the prices that were offered by Burgenland farmers, they were not prices that the Diocese invented, so the Diocese does not see a need for further discussion and the new contracts are final. To give 2024 numbers, he reported that there were only 470 attempted illegal border crossings at the Nickelsdorf crossing in northern Burgenland this year during the months of January to July, compared to around 13,000 in 2023 and 24,000 in 2022. Across Austria, he said the number has fallen by around 65 percent... but "the goal can only be to push illegal migration to zero." He also reported on the number of human smugglers apprehended, with only 12 so far this year compared to 298 in 2023 and 365 in 2022. He explained that the decline is the result of numerous measures, including cooperation with Hungarian authorities and the use of various technologies such as video surveillance or thermal imaging cameras. Still, over 600 people from the police and the armed forces remain active in patrolling and controlling the border of Burgenland. Payment Card For Asylum Seekers: Austria currently provides a monthly stipend for asylum seekers, and it is paid in cash. While I do not know the exact details of who qualifies for a stipend nor how the program is administered, it is evident that both the Austrian federal government and the Austrian state governments are involved in distributing the money. However, concerns have arisen that the money is not being spent in intended ways. Instead, some of it is going to gambling companies and some is being transferred abroad, either to support family members left behind or to pay smugglers. The Federal Interior Minister says the card is intended to make misuse of support money more difficult, ensuring a better asylum situation and reducing cash transfers that fuel smuggling and additional asylum seekers. While the federal government expects to switch fully to this card system next year, it is up to each state whether they wish to adopt it also. In Burgenland, the responsible councilor, Daniela Winkler, said it is remains open whether Burgenland will adopt the system, as the state government is waiting for the test results on how well the card works and what it costs to administer it. However, she is quick to point out that "it does not actually solve the real problem," which is too many asylum seekers. She wants to see a defined upper limit for asylum applications, rather than the currently unlimited situation. Austrian State Treaty, 1955; Feedback Revisited: In May, I wrote about the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 and invited comments from those who lived through it. I published two reports last month and noted that Eva Hergovich, from Canada, said, "I would like to respond in regards to the State Treaty of 1955, as I recall it quite vividly.Unfortunately, I am extremely busy at the moment. In a little while you'll hear from me." This month, she found the time to write: Memories from May 15, 1955, the signing of the Austrian State Treaty (Staatsvertrag) in Vienna, Austria In 1955, I was in year 1 of secondary school (Gymnasium) in Eisenstadt (which was 5th grade in the North American school system). The school was, and still is, located across from the Landhaus, which is the seat of the government of Burgenland. My home state of Burgenland was occupied by the Russians at that time, while other states of Austrias federation were occupied by the British, the French, and the Americans. Vienna was occupied by all four Allied occupation troops whose commanders would patrol Austrias capital. They were known as The Four in the Jeep. I recall watching the Russian troops from the classroom window as they exercised their military drill in front of the Landhaus every morning. Austria was desperately trying to free itself from foreign occupation. We knew that the obstacle was the Russians. All other Allied forces were more than willing to leave the country. And then, all of a sudden, it happened! The government of the USSR finally agreed to leave Austria though for a hefty price. I do not recall all details, but I do remember that millions of metric tons of crude oil from Austrias oil rigs had to be handed over to the Russian government in addition to other payments in order to obtain freedom. However, this was happily done. There was a euphoria in the country that even I, as a kid, could feel. It is hard to describe. I had never experienced anything like this before. In school, our teachers ditched the program for the day, and the topic was the upcoming state treaty. Id like to note that we had a different teacher for every subject, but all of them talked to us about the upcoming state treaty. We listened carefully to what it all meant. For me, as a Croatian from Burgenland, I retained the content of Article 7, which secured the rights of minorities in the country at that time, it applied to the Slovenians in Carinthia, and to the Croatians in Burgenland. Above all, the commitment to neutrality was explained to us in detail and this, many times over. The homework given on that Saturday morning (there was still school on Saturdays) was to listen to the radio (we had no TV in 1955)! May 15th was a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning. After having attended mass in the morning, we rushed home and were glued to the radio. The signing of the Austrian State Treaty took place at the Belvedere Palace in Vienna. We listened as the reporter described the process: Er nimmt die goldene Feder, referring to each signatory: He takes the golden fountain pen. Wow! I, as an 11-year-old, was so impressed that the fountain pen was made out of gold!! The signatories were: Leopold Figl, Austrias Foreign Minister, held up the newly-signed document to the crowd and declared in a strong voice: "ÖSTERREICH ist FREI (AUSTRIA is FREE) It was a moment in my life that I will never forget. P.S. On a humorous side note: Many, many, years later, I studied German literature at the University of Toronto. One of the professors, Dr. Weissenborn from Germany, was very interested in the events of Austria. It was puzzling to him that the Russians agreed to let go of Austria. One day, after his lecture, he called me over with a smirk on his face: You know, I figured it out. The Austrian delegation that negotiated with the Russians in Moscow, brought with them the best wine from the Wachau region in Austria. And from Burgenland, I keenly added. Dr. Weissenborn continued: I believe the Austrians simply drank them under the table. The Beer Party: Given the state of politics in the US, I can't help but mention that the Beer Party (Bierpartei, BIER), which is an Austrian satirical political party, was in the news last month. Europe has a tradition of satire that far exceeds anything in the US (in fact, retired BB VP, Hannes Graf, ran a successful satire web page long before he got involved with the BB). Founded in 2014 by Marco Pogo, the front man of the Viennese punk rock band Turbobier, the Beer Party was known as the Beer Party of Austria (Bierpartei Österreich, BPÖ) until it was renamed in 2020. Initially, the party's activity was confined to Vienna, where BIER first appeared on ballots in the 2019 Austrian legislative election and in the 2020 Viennese state election. It was unable to attain sufficient votes in 2019 for representation in the National Council, Federal Council, or the Landtag, but claimed 1.8% of Viennese votes in 2020 and was able to win mandates (seats) in 11 of Vienna's districts. Beer parties exist throughout the world, but especially in Eastern Europe. Poland's Beer-Lovers' Party was started as a prank but won 2.97% of the vote and 16 seats in the Polish 1991 parliamentary elections, even becoming part of the coalition government with its own minister. Such parties are satirical but can develop more serious platforms, as was the case for the Polish Beer-Lover's Party. In the 2020 Vienna state election, the Austrian Beer Party campaign kicked off with a "beer rally" led by Pogo. One of the party's election promises was to replace the Hochstrahlbrunnen, a fountain in Schwarzenbergplatz, with a beer fountain. A more serious goal was to provide support to Vienna's culture scene during the corona crisis, which was badly hit by pandemic lockdown measures. Still, the winning of 11 seats came as a surprise. The party had listed only six candidates for the election, so it had to scramble to nominate additional representatives, with Pogo serving as a representative for Simmering, the 11th district. In the 2022 Austrian presidential election, Pogo collected the necessary 6,000 declarations of support to appear on the ballot under his real name Dominik Wlazny. He won 8.3% of the nationwide vote, good for third place behind incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen. As for the upcoming 2024 legislative election, the Beer Party has already received enough validated signatures to be on the ballot in the whole of Austria... and political pundits think it has a real chance of getting in. Political scientist Katrin Praprotnik sees the most important issues for Wlazny and his beer party equal opportunities, young people, equal rights, health and education as being particularly interesting for voters to the left of center. There are no longer any demands for a beer fountain, and Wlazny has said goodbye to his artistic alias, appearing more serious since the federal presidential election. BIER, however, remains a shoe-string operation, with little funding. Its campaign has kicked off with just nine poster stands (one for each Austrian state)... and, because of its novelty, much expectation of additional free advertising in the press. What do you think? Would a beer party get traction here? Civil Recording District Changes: Thanks to Angelika Richter, I became aware that the Unterfrauenhaid (Lök, Loók) civil recording district was established effective December 1, 1901. That affected three villages, Unterfrauenhaid itself, which moved from the Stoob district, Lackendorf, which moved into it from the Lackenbach district, and Raiding, which moved from the Neckenmarkt district. We have updated our FamilySearch page to document these recording district changes. As I've said before, discovering changes like these is not easy, as I've never found a comprehensive listing of such district changes. Thus I thank Angelika for mentioning this and I invite you to inform me if you discover one we have not documented... or write me even if you simply discover that civil records seem to "disappear" for a village... that is usually a hint that they were moved to a new district. If so, I can probably figure out where they went and then document the change for you and other researchers. Greetings, Burgenland Bunch! Its hard to believe that the end of summer is upon us! Im looking forward to the chilly fall nights of genealogy research on the horizon. Please consider joining us in our Facebook group if you havent already! This month, we welcomed 12 new members, bringing our membership count to 2227. facebook.com/share/ Member Ryan Strawn shared a YouTube video featuring our own Steve Huber. On the clip, Steve performed the song Burgenland you are so beautiful. You can enjoy it here: youtu.be/pAe Member Franz Stangl shared some beautiful photos of a celebration at Castle Güssing in honor of "Maria Snow" (the memorial day of "Maria Maggiore"). On this day, for centuries, people of the region have made a pilgrimage to the chapel for mass. The Neo-Gothic altar dates back to the year 1794. Member Fred Knarr kept us all updated on the Austrian Olympians competing in the Paris Olympics. The Austrian sailing duo of Lara Vadlau and Lukas Mähr won the gold medal in the 470 class. Making Burgenland extremely proud was Valentin Bontus. Valentin, of Podersdorfs Yacht Club, brought home a gold medal in kitesurfing! With his Burgenland heritage, Joe Kovacs brought home a silver medal for the USA in the shotput competition! Joe Kovacs born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and grew up in Nazareth, PA. Joes family is from Szentpéterfa, which is just over the border from Eberau, Gaas and Moschendorf. BB Staff member Bob Strauch shared some more information about Joe: Joes paternal grandmother, Stella Kovacs (née Kositz) was born in Nazareth, but her father Mathias was from Steingraben and her mother Gisela (née Stelzmann) was from Moschendorf and was also a great-aunt to Verena Dunst, member of the Burgenland government who visited last October with Gov. Doskozil. We are all very proud of Joe and all of Austrias Olympians! Member Renate Reingrabner recommended that anyone interested in life around Lake Neusiedl (from 1890-1960) check out the village museum (Dorfmuseum Freilichtmuseum) in Mönchhof. She writes It is very informative, nice and authentically designed. An entire village was built. For this purpose, Mr. Haubenwallner (Pepo) dismantled old houses and rebuilt them in the village museum. The main focus was on the crafts, workshops and everyday life of the time. As if the grandfather were about to come out of the wine cellar and the great-grandmother was fetching eggs from the chicken coop. And always on the last Sunday in July, the workshops come alive. The bakery bakes, the blacksmith forges, the cinema shows old news, the hatter makes hats, etc. This is how our ancestors lived back then. Member Andrea Aminger shared some nice photos and a video from the border crossing in Mörbisch, where an event was held to commemorate "35 years of the Fall of the Iron Curtain." Several informative signs were set up for guests to read about the historical significance of the area. Andrea also provided a link to a story (Matrikenbücher der Evangelischen Kirche im Burgenland werden digitalisiert) updating the progress that has occurred in the digitization of the Protestant parish church books. Completion is anticipated this winter! Member Samantha Schwarz shared some sad news regarding the passing of her great aunt, Theresia (Unger) Blank. Theresia was the daughter of Johann Unger and Anna Gröller, who emigrated from Strem and Deutsch Tschantschendorf. Theresia researched the village of Strem and inspired Samantha to become involved in research and dancing with the Schuhplattlers. We are very sorry for your loss, Samantha. Theresia will be missed! Another sad bit of news comes from Member Kathy Lorber. Kathy writes, My Mother, Eleanor Poglayen Mutaw passed away on August 8, 2024 in Vernon Hill, IL at the age of 98. Eleanors mother, Ludmilla Mullner, was born in Apetlon in 1900 and moved to Waukegan, IL in 1906. Ludmillas parents were John/Janos Mullner and Eva Opitz of Apetlon. The family lived in Apetlon for generations. Other family names include Pilles, Loos, Pitzl, Unger, Horvath and Tschuner. My mother attended the Burgenland meetings in Waukegan in the 90s and was proud of her Austrian heritage. We are very sorry for your loss, Kathy! May the memory of your wonderful mother be a blessing! The Coplay Sängerbund is hosting its Oktoberfest celebration on Sunday, September 15th, 2024. Music will be provided by Josef Kroboth. The parade begins at 2:30 pm. There will be performances by the Auerhahn Schuhplattlers and the Button-Box committee. There will be a Sing-a-long and a Masskrugstemmen competition. Admission is $5 per person and the event is open to the public. Member Steve Lamberty shared an interesting video about the origins of the Hungarian people. youtu.be/ojb Thats all for now! Have a safe, happy, and healthy month! Vanessa Current total sales are 1778 copies, as interested people purchased 2 books during this past month. As always, the book is available for online purchase at a list price of $8.89 (which is the current production charge for the book, as we purposely choose not to make any profit so you can obtain the book at as low a cost as possible!), plus tax & shipping. See the BB homepage for a link to the information / ordering page. The book is an excellent read for the Burgenländers in your family... so get theirs now! Burgenland Recipes: This recipe comes to us from Patricia Nemetz-Mills. She recently traveled in Burgenland and a cousin's mother served Zwetschgen Knödeln at lunch, which brought back wonderful memories of her own grandmother's kitchen and recipe, so she dug it out of her own recipe box when she returned home. Although we have published similar recipes twice before (recipes 129 and 235), we include it here as a companion piece to Patricia's trip report, which appears later in this newsletter (357). GRAMMYS ZWETSCHGEN KNÖDELN (PLUM DUMPLINGS)
Ingredients-filling:
large pot of boiling waterIngredients-coating:
Preparation: Dough: Make dough by mixing potatoes, flour, egg, and salt, then gradually adding potato water. Add enough potato water until the dough comes away from fingers while mixing. Filling: Roll out dough on a floured surface, a bit thicker than cookie dough, maybe 1/2 inch thick. Cut dough into squares large enough to accommodate 1 plum. Place one pitted plum in center of each square. Sprinkle plum generously with sugar and cinnamon. Seal dough around plum, making sure there are no gaps. Drop sealed dumplings with plum in boiling water. Boil a few minutes until the dumplings start to rise to top and dough is firm. Drain. Coating: Melt butter in a large pan, and add sugar, cinnamon, and bread crumbs into melted butter. The amount needed of each ingredient should be enough to coat the bottom of your large pan. Add more if necessary. Drop the boiled dumplings into the crumb mixture, stirring gently to coat each one. Serve warm. Choose plums that are moderately firm, but sweet and ripe, preferably with skin that is not too tough when heated. Plums tend to get sour when cooked, so test boil a few to see how much sugar to add for your dumplings. If plums are large, you can put 1/2 plum in each dumpling instead of 1 whole plum. Note: Our recipes sortable list has links directly to the recipes or food-related articles published in our past newsletters. You can access the list by clicking our recipe box (to the right). Thanks to the contributions of our members over the years, we have quite a collection of Burgenland recipes, some with several variations. However, whenever we use up our unpublished recipes, this recipe section will become dormant. So, if you have a favorite family recipe, please consider sharing it with us. We will be happy to publish it. Our older relatives, sadly, aren't with us forever, so don't allow your favorite ethnic dish to be lost to future generations. You can send your recipe to BB Recipes Editor, Alan Varga. Thanks! Words for Thought:The past, present and future walked into a bar in Burgenland. It was tense. | ||||
2) TRIP REPORT (by Patricia Nemetz-Mills)I wanted to write to you about my recent visit to Europe: 7 countries in 7 days -- USA, Germany, Montenegro, Albania, Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia. It was a quickly planned trip. My 34-year-old adopted daughter had a wonderful science teacher in grade school who used to take select students out on rafting, hiking, and outdoor adventure trips to the wilds of Montana. He unfortunately was a victim of aggressive Alzheimer's disease at a young age and passed away this year at the age of 63. At his memorial service, several of these former students and his wife decided to go on an adventure trip to Albania to honor his memory and enthusiasm for the great outdoors. My daughter's husband also passed away from cancer 2 years ago, so she needed some therapy too. I knew this was finally my opportunity to show my daughter her birthplace in Montenegro, which is an hour away from where their Albania trip began. She was never enthusiastic when I asked her in the past if she wanted to go back to where she was born (I had taught a semester in Montenegro in 1990, which is how I ended up finding this gift of a little girl who brought me so much joy). So, I quickly put together an itinerary to show her the Montenegrin places relevant to her life. After seeing her safely to Albania, I finally got a chance to spend a few days in my family's genealogically-important places in Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia. Each time I had been in Austria before, I had to rush back for my university schedule (or to avoid being stashed away in Vienna during the pandemic). I'm pretty sure you've printed a lot of this stuff in the Burgenland Bunch newsletter before, but I thought there might be a few "view-from-the-ground" nuggets in here of interest. It was such a wonderful trip to me, I have to gush a little. That said, I'll put in a little about politics at the end. Some of the politics are concerning to me, considering some of the "trolling" I got from Orbán-loving Hungarians when I was trying to conduct academic research. 1. Rudersdorf Tunnel. I flew into Graz and rented a car to get around all the rural villages I needed to visit to see the birthplaces of my grandparents -- Gerersdorf bei Sulz in Austrian Burgenland, Rábafüzes in Hungary (right on the border with Austria and definitely part of Burgenland's past German-Hungarians, Martjanci in Slovenia (close to Burgenland, but not German), and Sveti Jurij in Slovenia (close to Styria, Austria and the source of my name, Nemetz, which means "German"). I consider only my grandparents from Geresdorf and Rábafüzes to be Burgenländers. The other two are Slovenian (aka Windisch). Though these villages are in three different countries, it was only a three-hour roundtrip to see them all and get back to Graz. Having a car was wonderful. Unbeknownst to me, the Rudersdorf Tunnel had just been opened the week before I got there, and my GPS routed me right through that tunnel to get from Graz to Rábafüzes. My daughter and I, just days before, had marveled at the amazing tunnel and bridge structures recently built by the Chinese in Montenegro, to get from the sea to the mountain resort town of Kolasin. We had a hired driver there who was also an electrical engineer, so we chatted about these engineering wonders quite a bit. I never expected to drive one of these tunnels myself in Austria, so I was excited when my GPS sent me right through there. In a nod to my nerdiness and engineering past, I spent the entire long airplane trip back reading about the geographic, engineering, and environmental challenges of these tunnels throughout Europe. They are amazing: going under the Alps (St. Gotthárd Tunnel), going under the English Channel (Chunnel), connecting Germany to Denmark under the Baltic Sea (Fehmarn Belt), and all the way from Europe north to Europe south. The technical challenges are interesting, but there are some positive environmental consequences of building these tunnels. Long term, there are plans to use high-speed electrical vehicles through these tunnels to reduce the carbon footprint. (I'm attaching an article translated into English, from steiermark.antenne.at/der-erste-tunnel-im-burgenland-wird-eroffnet. It's worth going to the website to see a picture of the tunnel.) 2. Landscape. What I noticed in Burgenland was the pastoral beauty of Burgenland, undisturbed by overhead electric lines, unsightly billboards, and endless highway interchanges. The tunnels will help maintain that landscape. I noticed immediately how history shaped the land, remembering your newsletter about how strips of land were allotted to peasants, and villages were built around lands worked by multiple families. The landscape was noticeably different than the Pennsylvania farming landscaping I remembered, where single-family farms were prominent, with a big barn, family house, and outbuildings centered amidst the farmland. Pennsylvania is now paved over with all manner of technical structures and warehouses, but I loved those uncluttered landscapes of the past. Europe seems to be onto something, keeping the junk out of sight. 3. Family. I didn't contact any of my Burgenland family before leaving on my trip because I knew it was a short one, and I didn't want to burden them with an unexpected visitor on an uncertain schedule. I have been in contact with numerous family members in the USA, however, keeping copious notes to add to my genealogical studies. From them, I learned there is a Freilichtmuseum in Geresdorf, worthy of a visit. I follow the museum on Facebook. The museum recently posted that there is a new Schadl Haus being installed, and I knew there was a Wunderler Haus already there. I commented back, mentioning these were the names of my grandparents, and I'd be interested in knowing if they were from my family. I didn't think so, especially because Schadl is a popular name in the area. Someone responded that they encourage descendents to come see the museum, so I should come! Later, a Schadl genealogy expert responded that the Haus was not likely from my grandfather because its origin was from a village further north. Nevertheless, when I got to Geresdorf, I happily popped in to see the museum, looking for more information. I paid my ticket, walked through the exhibits, then returned to the counter to ask about the houses. I shyly asked in my "iffy" German about the houses, and then the lady at the counter said with a smile, "Are you Patricia?" And I said, "Yes." She said enthusiastically, "You are my cousin!" Knowing my genealogy pretty well, I asked in amazement if her name was Schibig, and she said yes. She was told about me by a coworker who saw my posting on Facebook. What a wonderful visit we had! We talked family tree, then she offered to take me around 4. Freilichtmuseum. People who are interested in genealogy and human survival will find the Freilichtmuseum (open-air museums) interesting. These are somewhat akin to Williamsburg, Virginia, in that they attempt to replicate lifestyles of the past. There are fewer in-person working exhibits than in Williamsburg, but I saw some people using scythes to work a field and a general store staffed with costumed personnel. I visited the Freilichtmuseum in Stubing (Styria) and the Freilichtmuseum in Geresdorf. The museum in Stubing is larger than in Geresdorf and includes buildings from each area of Austria. It starts with Burgenland and moves north from there, ending with buildings in the Alpine mountain areas. There is a restaurant along the way with local cuisine. The inside entry area has a lot of information of anthropologic and cultural interest, along with exhibits about architectural techniques. Anyone who wants to know how people lived before their generation will find it of interest. The Stubing museum was founded by a professor and is located close to Graz. He wrote many books that are available in the bookstore there. One criticism is that all the exhibit signs are written in German, not English, but the museum did seem to have a large Austrian clientele, and the goal of the professor was to preserve history for the people of Austria. The Freilichtmuseum in Geresdorf is also interesting, with its many buildings that illustrate farming and craftwork of the past. 5. Hungary. My family from Hungary has been of particular interest to me because they were part of the German-Hungarians that were expelled from Hungary after WW-II. As you know, Burgenland was part of Hungary until 1920, but many Germans remained in Hungary after that agreement. My grandfather and his brother were born in America, but were taken back to Hungary by a homesick mother and raised there until each was an older teenager, when they returned to America as citizens of the US (around the early 1920s). My grandpop's father went back and forth between America and Hungary five times between 1903 and 1914, and his mother bore six children during that time. His father unwittingly returned to Hungary just in time to be drafted to fight in WW-I, where he mysteriously lost his life (maybe as cannon fodder or to disease). His mother's sister gave birth to 14 children, which included two sets of twins and a set of triplets. So, my grandfather had many siblings and cousins, many of whom experienced the tragedies of wartime deprivation and expulsion associated with life in Hungary. Because my grandfather and his brother were citizens of the US by birth, my grandfather became a central figure in sponsoring those he could as they sought refuge. Several of his male cousins had to choose conscription in Hungary or enlistment with the German Wehrmacht during WW-II. One was captured after the war and became a POW under the Russians (including at Tiszolak work camp) until 1953. All his other relatives were expelled. Some went to Austria, others to Germany, and still others to America. When the POW was finally released, he rejoined his family in Germany, then the whole family emigrated to America. His daughter has been helpful to me in tracking all this genealogy and family history. They returned to Hungary for a visit when the Iron Curtain fell and told me about St. Emmerich, I visited this church, and it was indeed very nicely rebuilt. It was right on the border, and you could walk right from the church front yard into Austria. However, I got "vibes" that the joy of the Iron Curtain falling had maybe faded. The small grocery where I stopped to get directions felt a lot like stores I visited in Bulgaria right after the Red Star fell and communism collapsed there. Shelves were bare and service was poor. People scurried away if you talked to them in English or German. I saw nicely painted houses and manicured lawns in Austria, but homes were more unkempt across the border. I knew that the government under Orbán had become more autocratic and anti-immigrant, but I didn't want to be too quick to judge. Then, coming back across the border into Austria, I saw a huge sign covering the entire side of a house that said, "F--- NATO, F--- the West". Later, I told my cousin I was glad they were part of Austria and not Hungary. She told me there is some tension now. Some of the Hungarians that crossed the border when the Iron Curtain fell bought real estate in Austria and are fomenting conflict. Then I read an article in German that said the Austrian side put up barriers on a road so Hungarians could not drive into Austria [Ed: the Schattendorf/Ágfalva border crossing; I wrote about it again just a few months ago]. They could only walk through. Hungary challenged this barrier as a violation of EU rules. Then, as you know, Orbán visited Putin as EU's current presiding officer, and the EU challenged him that he was NOT representing EU during that visit. So, in summary, I'm concerned that Hungary's transition to democracy has gone sour. I don't want Burgenland to become the next Ukraine, but it is definitely something to watch. Just as part of Ukraine was claimed as belonging to Russia, Burgenland can be claimed as once being part of Hungary. That would be disastrous for Burgenland. Burgenland has become the most right-wing part of Austria, so this is all very concerning. [Ed. note: I question this statement, as Burgenland is led solely by a center-left government. Six Austrian states are led by center-right coalition governments and the remaining two by center-left coalition governments. Austria on the federal level is led by a center-right coalition government. One could argue that this indicates that Burgenland is the most left-wing state in Austria. However, Austrian states are formally and practically endowed with less autonomy than, say, American states, so the leanings of a given state matters less overall, as they largely must administer federal policies. Personally, I see Austria and its states as historically centrist, careful to avoid extremism... but I also see it/them affected by the issues causing the rightist lean that Europe is currently experiencing.] | ||||
3) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES Editor: This is part of our series designed to recycle interesting articles from the BB Newsletter of 10 years ago. This month we reprise an article about the underlying documents for the "house lists" we have on our website. Member Richard Potetz gave the history and I chimed in with more detail. THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS - No. 246 GERMAN LANGUAGE HOUSE LISTS IN HUNGARY ARE THE RESULT OF THE FAILED HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION OF 1848/1849 (by Richard Potetz) Many genealogy hobbyists in the Burgenland Bunch have built family trees from pre-Burgenland church records. Hungarian and Latin given names fill those trees, taken from baptism, marriage and death records. The 1857/1858 house lists are an exception among pre-Burgenland records. Those house lists show German-language given names, like Johann, Paul, and Franz, equivalents to the Hungarian/Latin names János/Joannes, Pál/Paulus, and Ferencz/Franciscus. The house lists of 1857/1858 are a prominent part of the Burgenland Bunch website. Thanks to Klaus Gerger, we have this powerful tool to help us research our family trees. A look at history explains why those house lists came to be written in German. Searching Wikipedia for Kingdom of Hungary gives a quick answer to the question of which language was used by government in Hungary: The official language remained Latin until 1844. Then, between 1844 and 1849, and from 1867, Hungarian became the official language. Those sentences are tough to follow but theyre true. From 1849 to 1867 there was no law making Hungarian the official language. It is in that time span that our house lists were written, a time when German-speaking Austrians were running Hungary, the result of a failed revolution. Many revolutions began in 1848; the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/1849 was just one of them. Hungarys army was doing well against Austria at the start of 1849, prompting the Hungarian Parliament to declare Hungary a republic. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, reacting to the danger of yet another country operating without a monarch, sent an army to suppress the revolution. By the end of 1849, the Hungarian Army had been forced to surrender and an Austrian military governor in Budapest was heading Hungary. Alexander von Bach, the Minister of the Interior for the Austrian/Hungarian Empire, enforced the same regulations in Hungary and Austria. A large contingent of German-speaking civil servants, working for the Ministry of the Interior, came from Austria to implement new regulations. The spelling of some surnames provides evidence that the civil servants who filled in the house lists forms were German-speaking outsiders. Germanic surnames were not a problem for them. But consider the name Bodetz seen in the Welten house list, appearing in houses 15, 33 and 80. Those families attended the church in Sankt Martin an der Raab, where their name in the records was always spelled Potetz, not Bodetz. The LDS index finds no one named Bodetz in that parish, but there are many entries with the surname Potetz. In defense of the outsiders, it has to be admitted that the pronunciation of the name Potetz in the dialect used in the Sankt Martin parish did sound exactly like Bodetz. The strong local dialects, that made that sort of spelling error possible in 1858, were caused by language isolation. Years later, radio plus education in German instead of Hungarian diminished those dialects to just an accent. The first names on this page include Andreas, Josef, Johann, Franz, Michael, Mathias, Anton, Theresia, and Georgall German spellings. Your German-speaking ancestors would likely have used the German versions of their first names. In the civil records that began in 1895, the first names of the people involved are entered in Hungarian. At the bottom of the form, the informants signature usually shows the German spelling. When my aunt was born in 1896, her fathers name listed in the form was Sucher János, but his name in the signature block at the bottom of the form was Johann Sucher. For the Hungarian civil records in the years 1895 to 1906, there are two signatures at the bottom of those pages, one labeled anyakönyvvezeto (the registrar, the official responsible for keeping the register), and a second signature labeled bejelentö (the informant). The signature of the registrar starts with the surname followed by the Hungarian version of the given name. The name of the informant, on the other hand, begins with the Germanic version of the given name followed by the surname. The Hungarian naming convention, placing the surname before the given name, was used by the registrar. Clearly, by this point in time, Magyars had again taken the civil service positions. That Hungarian name order convention is why our ancestors church records placed the surname first when the record was entered in Hungarian. When the Latin language was used, the given name came first, followed by the surname. For example, Holtzman Borbálya entered in a Hungarian-language record became Barbara Holtzman in a Latin-language record. The language chosen changed other spellings too. For example, my Magyar ggg-grandfather Forján György in a Hungarian-language record was Georgius Forian in a Latin-language record, because Latin did not use a lower case j in Hungary. The records genealogists use to establish Burgenland family trees contain evidence of the changes brought about by the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/1849. A future article in the BB Newsletter will cover more of the changes that came about because of that revolution. Ed Comments: In his example house list, Richard shows only the left half of what was a two-page form. Below is the top of a full form from Lackenbach (click to see an enlarged version). Beneath that is a transcription of the column headers and a translation to English.
There are interesting things in both Richard's example page and the one I show. First, note that the village of Welten is spelled Welden on Richard's page. This again suggests that an German-speaking outsider performed a phonetic spelling of the spoken village name but was confused by the strong local dialect (Velike is the Hungarian name and is sufficiently different from Welten, so that likely did not influence the recorded spelling). [There are many other villages in the House Lists with slight misspellings of their name on the forms.] Second, note the handscript used in the Gattung des Gebäudes columnit is the German Kurrentschrift handscript font, whereas the preceding columns were written in the Latin handscript font. (If you are curious, most of those entries state "Wohn u[nd] Wirtschafts gebaude s[amt] Hof" [Residential and economic buildings, including yard] or "Wohngebaude s[amt] Hof" [Residential buildings, including yard]). While I have seen the handscript combination as shown in the Welten example, far more common is for only the Ortschaft name and the surnames to be in the Latin font (see my example form); the given names are most often in Kurrentschrift and the right-side columns are always Kurrentschrift. Occasionally, the full form is in Kurrentschrift. I remain baffled by this intermixing of handscript fonts, as I have no idea as to why differing scripts were used. The third note I'll make concerns the columns on the right half of the form. Of these, I've seen only the Anmerkung (Comment) column in use. This, despite the fact that the primary purpose of the House Lists had to be for taxation purposesyet the columns relating to taxes were never filled in! Why was this, I ask? Lastly, I'll note that there were at least two other House List forms in common use during this time (though Klaus usually obtained only the one discussed herein). The form I find more interesting lists (alphabetically) allresidents of the village, regardless of whether they were property owners, and gives their "stand" (status, such as Bauer, Inwohner, etc.) in the village. And, yes, these forms were written in German. | ||||
4) ETHNIC EVENTSLEHIGH VALLEY, PA Sunday, Sep 1: Parish Picnic at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Stiles (Whitehall). Polka music by The Pennsylvania Villagers. Info: www.stjohnsstiles.com Please consult the club links for their events: coplaysaengerbund.com Friday-Sunday, 1-8 pm: Biergarten is open. Austrian Donau Club, 545 Arch Street. | ||||
5) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES Edward Forstner Born in Mosonszolnok (Zanegg), Hungary on May 6, 1925 to Lajos and Maria Forstner, Edward married Edith Csajtay on September 30, 1950. Their loving bond lasted 73 years. In 1956, the Forstner's fled Hungary and settled near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mr. Forstner worked as a master machinist at H&H Manufacturing until his retirement in 1983. Afterwards, he and Edith moved to Palmer, Alaska and lived the rest of his life in a family-built log home on Edgerton Park Rd. Edward was an avid philatelist and enjoyed his vast collection of stamps. Edward also enjoyed volunteering at Pioneer Peak Elementary as a foster grandparent until 1993. He is survived by his loving wife Edith, children Marianne (Tom) Luc; Edith (Wayne) Roeder; Edward (Gina); and Peter (Emily) Forstner; 13 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren. He is preceded in death by his parents, brother Joseph Forstner, and son Thomas Forstner. A mass of Christian burial will be held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 1201 E Bogard Rd. Wasilla, Alaska at 11:00 a.m. To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store. Published by Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman on Aug. 12, 2024 | ||||
| END OF NEWSLETTER (Even good things must end!) | ||||
| NOTICE (Informal Terms and Conditions) : The Burgenland Bunch (BB) was formed and exists to assist Burgenland descendants in their research into their heritage and, toward that end, reserves the right to use any communication you have with us (email, letter, phone conversation, data upload, etc.) as part of our information exchange and educational research efforts. The formal Burgenland Bunch Website Usage Agreement is here: Agreement The Burgenland Bunch homepage (website) is at: the-burgenland-bunch.org | ||||
| Burgenland Bunch Newsletter, copyright © 2024 by The Burgenland Bunch All rights reserved. Permission to copy excerpts granted if credit is provided. |
This month's random bits and pieces (Article 1) start with a semi-humorous report of a Burgenland traffic stop... oh, the youth of today (regardless of where they may live)! The second bit covers the results of the forced rebidding for leases of church farmland... we have some unhappy farmers. The third bit talks about the number of illegal border crossings into Burgenland (and Austria as a whole). Thankfully, the numbers are down... but... bit four is about monetary support for asylum seekers, again in Burgenland and wider Austria... and, even with the number of illegals reduced, issues remain. Bit five is a promised follow-up to member reactions to the Austrian State Treaty of 1955... Eva writes for us now. The sixth bit, is about the Austrian (political) Beer Party... drink it in! We end with a bit about three villages changing recording districts in 1901. Angelika Richter was kind enough to point out the change for Lackendorf, which led me to the two associated changes.
the Eisenstadt district was clocked by police going 193 km/h (~120 mph) on the Südost Autobahn (A3) instead of under the permitted 130 km/h (~80 mph). The 19-year-old claimed that he had not noticed his speed because the speedometer in the car showed miles per hour rather than kilometers per hour. However, the explanation apparently held little weight with the police, who took away his probationary driver's license on the spot and issued a speeding ticket.
Number Of Illegal Border Crossings Into Burgenland Has Decreased: Burgenland's state police director, Martin Huber, recently held a press conference to announce that the number of illegal border crossings into Burgenland continues to decline. He reported that about 81,000 illegal migrants were apprehended attempting to cross into Burgenland in 2022 and around 29,000 in 2023.
This has led the federal government to test in Upper Austria the use of a payment card (of the ATM debit variety) that is rather restricted: only 40 euros a month can be converted into cash and transfers to gambling companies and payments abroad are not allowed. It is a "benefits in kind" program where food and other authorized purchases must be done as debits from the card. Further, earnings from temporary jobs are paid to the card account rather than in cash. 
After the signing, all the dignitaries appeared on the balcony of the Belvedere Palace, waving at the thousands of cheering Viennese that had gathered in front of the Palace.
Party leader Marco Pogo, whose real name is Dominik Wlazny, holds a medical degree and was a practicing doctor before the success of his band led him to change careers. Apparently, the idea for the Beer Party grew out of a song, "Die Bierpartei," which appeared on Turbobier's debut album, Irokesentango (Mohawk Tango). In an interview at the time, Pogo stated that "the country needs a strong movementa strong movement for beer... I did it for the country." 
Their poster stands are ~5-foot-tall three-sided stands being placed in strategic public locations, with a state-specific slogan on one side, the nation-wide slogan "A party without politicians" and a picture of Wlazny on the second side, and the party "menu" (they don't call it a platform) on the third side. The Burgenland-specific slogan is shown to the right. It translates to 'Beer after wine, treat yourself," which is a play on the words of an old German aphorism about the order in which you should not drink alcoholic beverages [going back to beer after you have graduated to wine is considered a social failure... or will possibly make you sick!]. Their twist is to use it as a way to say "be yourself, do what you want." Vienna's poster says "Next stop: cohesion," as they already have a foothold there. While the party says they don't want to plaster the whole country with posters, the reality is there is not enough funds for a larger campaign. They estimate their total election campaign costs will be 350,000 euros (much less than established parties).
The Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):
Update for book "The Burgenländer Emigration to America": Here is this month's update on purchases of the English issue of the 3rd edition of Dr. Walter Dujmovits' book "Die Amerika-Wanderung Der Burgenländer."
to see the family and the old family farm the next day. I went back, toting my family tree printout, and visited the most kindly people anyone can imagine. Her mother made me a lunch of Zwetschgen Knödeln, which brought back wonderful memories of my grandmother's kitchen (I'm attaching my grandmother's recipe here, which I found after digging through my recipe box on my return. You probably have the recipe in an earlier newsletter, but people don't cook like this anymore, so someone might find it of interest again [Ed: I've asked our Recipes Editor, Alan Varga, to run it this month anyway, as a companion to this trip report]). I visited some other relatives, all of whom were so welcoming and made me feel like I really belonged to them. It was a wonderful touch of family nostalgia, photo sharing, and cultural familiarity (miles away, across continents) -- and they were very forgiving of all my clunky German speaking mishaps! Most Austrians speak English, but less so in rural areas, so I was glad I had a little German language under my belt to linguistically lumber through the visit.
Inside the main building, they feature modern local artists and musicians. There are additional events, like the Mai Pole Fest, Christmas celebration, and harvest-time crafting. These museums are self-supporting, so visitors are encouraged. These museums are designed to show how peasants lived, and of course, people who are interested in how the religious and aristocrats lived, will find many cathedrals, churches, and castles in other venues close by.
a church right on the border with Austria that was rebuilt in an effort to re-join east with west. The church had been so dilapidated after the war that a tree grew up through the middle of it.
Edward Andrew Forstner, 99, passed away on July 31, 2024 at his home in Palmer, Alaska.