SEASON’S GREETINGS
Best wishes to all for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. In our almost seventeen year history, we have only published a December newsletter one other time. The special occasion for this letter is the opportunity to obtain a 2013 calendar containing postcard pictures of Zichydorf. See below for details.
VINTAGE POSTCARDS
Hans Schneider, a collector of vintage postcards, has used them for the last several years to produce calendars for family and friends. I recently discovered several of his old calendars with pictures of Zichydorf, Werschetz, and Regina and asked permission to post the pictures on our web site for our members. Hans kindly granted permission and volunteered to make his 2013 Zichydorf calendar available for purchase. You can see examples from previous years in the Photo section of our site under Vintage Postcards.
Hans only wants 10 Euros for a calendar, but postage to North America is 15 Euros. Hans is not set up for international financial transactions, so we concluded that the best option is to send him cash via registered mail. Please send 25 Euros or $33 US dollars. (Canadians, please send US dollars. Canadian currency would require coins that are best not sent in the mail.)
Hans may be able to make you calendars for other places besides Zichydorf. You can ask him when you order. He can also do German or Hungarian text with German or Hungarian holidays. Of course, the postage would be lower for orders from Europe. You can work that out with Hans when you contact him. Note that Hans emails in German, so use a translator in your email. Contact Hans at
Hans Schneider
Markt 1
7532 Litzelsdorf
Öster reich/Austria
hans.schneider1950@gmail.com“>hans.schneider1950@gmail.com
MEMBERSHIP REMINDER
Just a reminder that ZVA annual dues of $10 are based on the calendar year. Please check your dues status on the web site. Go to Your Profile in the user menu and look at the last item in the column on the right side of the page where it says “Dues paid to the end of: ____” If you have not paid for 2013, please remit your dues using one of the options described on the Membership page. From September on, I will credit new members for the following year. I will downgrade unrenewed members on the web site in April of each year to give you plenty of grace. We are continually adding new content to the Members Only parts of the site. If you are not connected to the Internet, just drop me a line at the address below and I will update you. Thanks for contributing to our common cause.
OBITUARY
Regina genealogists suffered a great loss when Katherine “Kay” Niedermayer passed away on November 16. Kay was a founding member of our group in 1996 and attended our meetings regularly until recently. Her friendly presence was always a highlight of the meeting. She freely shared her encyclopedic knowledge of many of the early pioneer familes. She will be missed.
NEW ON THE WEB
From the Main Menu of the ZVA site, click on Banat > History > Sefansfeld for the Foreword and a brief history from the Stefansfeld Familienbuch on CD.
Member Justin Keller just brought to my attention that the old St. Mary’s church records from Regina have been posted on the web. Go to familysearch.org > Canada > Saskatchewan. There are four sets of records, including the church records, probate records, and court records. Click on Saskatchewan, Catholic Church Records, 1846-1957 > Browse through 6,587 images. Don’t worry! You don’t have to sift through every image. You can choose among several towns. The Regina > St. Mary’s collection has an index to help you navigate. Note that we have several lists of extractions on our site at Canada > St. Mary’s Church Records – Regina.
NEW IN THE LIBRARY
Millions Cried…No One Listened. Ann Morrison has compiled a series of six films detailing the post-war fate of the Germans of Eastern Europe. Although she deals with events over a wide area, a large portion of her story, perhaps even the majority, concerns the Donauschwaben, particularly those of Yugoslavia. Each film consists primarily of first person accounts of experiences, backed up with explanatory pictures, video, and maps. The first film tells how Germans came to be salted throughout Eastern Europe and ends with the Nazi occupation. Film two tells of the flight from the Russians and the deportations to Russia. The third film focuses on the establishment of internment camps, especially in Yugoslavia. Film four details the labour camps, death camps, and orphans. Film five explains escaping, refugee camps and the work contracts that had to be fulfilled to eventually obtain permission to leave Yugoslavia. The sixth film deals with finding a new home.
Städte und Dörfer: Beiträge zur Siedlungsgeschicte der Deutschen im Banat. This German language book has a brief history of each of the villages in the Romanian Banat with a reasonable proportion of German residents. We will have several of these histories translated and posted in the Member section of our web site. There are many pictures, some village maps, and an excellent Banat map.
Banater in Südostrumänien: 1951-1956: Sterbefälle im Baragan. This book is a listing of the German people who died in the Baragan Steppe during their forced migration during the 1951-1956 period. After World War II the Romanian government considered the German population unreliable and forcibly removed them from a twenty mile wide strip along the border with Yugoslavia. They were relocated to a barren, previously unsettled area in eastern Romania. There they suffered through the same hardships as their ancestors had in the Banat two hundred years earlier. They were forced to eke out an existence from scratch with virtually no assistance. Many died from disease and the harshness of their existence. These deaths are listed alphabetically by their original village. There is a very short explanation of the deportation that we will have translated and posted on the web site. The remainder is all lists of names with personal data, including a short list of births.