WEB SITE REGISTRATION
Several people have registered on our web site to learn more about us, but have not become active. Presumably you have found that you are in the wrong place and do not have a connection to us. If you would like to de-register so as not to receive further contact, please send me a message at the address at the end of this letter and I can remove you from the list.
LIBRARY LISTING ON WEB SITE
When we first created our web site we thought that our SGS library listing should be a Members Only resource. On further reflection, there is no information in these pages that needs to be proprietary to members. In fact, exposing our library holdings to the public may actually attract more members. Therefore, the library pages are now public. Although our library resources are physically in Regina, they can usually be borrowed from the SGS library. For smaller inquiries, I can also do lookups or make copies. For more information, go to the library page from the Main Menu.
ZVA ON FACEBOOK
I have started a ZVA Facebook page at the address below. We may find that it will serve us well as a forum for discussion among ourselves. I will send invitations to everyone on my mailing list in a couple of days, but feel free to go there first on your own. You are welcome to join, but I certainly understand that some people prefer their privacy.
http://www.facebook.com/ZichydorfVillageAssociation
ZICHYDORFERS IN SASKATCHEWAN
At our spring meeting we discussed the fate of our old project to tell the stories of the Zichydorfers who came to Saskatchewan, originally conceived as a book to be published in Saskatchewan’s centennial year of 2005. Our original intent was to edit these stories into a common format. Although we received many contributions, many families were not represented. Somehow, the task of tracking down contributors from each family never reached the top of the priority list. The fact that we were missing so many familes also undermined the urgency of the reformatting process. As a result, there has been only slight progress on this project in the last several years. The original committee long ago moved on to other interests, leaving a huge project with a manpower deficit. At our meeting, we discussed a few options to move this forward: hiring an editor; putting the existing contributions on CD/DVD; and putting the existing contributions on our web site. At this point I am leaning towards putting what we have in the Members Only section of our web site. This has the advantage of allowing us to add new families whenever we receive submissions, and to easily update existing submissions. Although personal information should be quite safe, and certainly safer than all the public genealogy sites, we could strip out dates of people who are still living. I intend to tackle this project over the winter, beginning by contacting existing contributors about updates. If you have any thoughts on any of this, please drop me a line.
NEW IN THE LIBRARY
The historical novel Der Grosse Schwabenzug by iconic Schwaben author Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn has been translated as The Great Swabian Migration by Linda Byrom. This classic book tells the fictional stories of a bride from Swabia who travels down the Danube to meet her bridegroom; a family from Pfalz that travels by wagon to find a new homeland; and Count Klaus Florimund Mercy, Governor of the Banat, who convinces his nephew to help him achieve his vision of a new paradise. Their fates intertwine in this fascinating tale which chronicles the journey of thousands of Danube Swabians who came mostly by boat to find a new homeland in the Banat, Batschka, and Schwäbische Türkei, areas which are now in Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Croatia.
Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War by R. M. Douglas is a new scholarly investigation of the post-war fate of Germans in eastern Europe based on documents of the allied governments and international aid agencies. Here is the description from the dust jacket: Immediately after the Second World War, the victorious Allies authorized and helped to carry out the forced relocation of German speakers from their homes across central and southern Europe to Germany. The numbers were almost unimaginable – between 12,000,000 and 14,000,000 civilians, most of them women and children – and the losses horrifying – at least 500,000 people and perhaps many more died while detained in former concentration camps, while locked in trains en route, or after arriving in Germany exhausted, malnourished, and homeless. This book is the first in any language to tell the full story of this immense man-made catastrophe. Based mainly on archival records of the countries that carried out the forced migrations and of the international humanitarian organizations that tried but failed to prevent the disastrous results, Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War is an authoritative and objective account. It examines an aspect of European history that few have wished to confront, exploring how the expulsions were conceived, planned, and executed and how their legacy reverberates throughout central Europe today. The book is an important study of the largest recorded episode of what we now call “ethnic cleansing”, and it may also be the most significant untold story of the Second World War.
Here is another review from the Wall St. Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444873204577536973443279932.html
Deutsch Stamora: Ein kleines Bauerndorf im Banat by Denus Fanghäuser, Hubert Donauer, Dr. Stefan Hasenfratz, Dr. Anton P. Petri is as good a local history book as I have seen. It is like a textbook in its detail and completeness. It is thoroughly researched, full of tables of statistics and lists of names. It is also loaded with pictures and sketches depicting daily life in the village. Many of the original German families of this village came from Zichydorf.
Familienbuch der katholischen Pfarrgemeinde Saint Hubert, Charleville und Soltur (ohne Heufeld und Mastort) im Banat 1770-1835/1854 is a 2004 book by Josef Kühn that is out of print. However, we have acquired a 2012 CD version. This book follows the usual Familienbuch pattern. The main feature is the list of families compiled from the church records, but it also includes a short history and some indices and maps. We will have the history translated and posted on our web site in the future. This book is a vital resource for those French families that came in the early days of settlement and were later Germanized.
2013 MEMBERSHIP DUES
Time to start thinking about your 2013 membership dues. To check your status, log in to zichydorfonline.org and go to Your Profile. You will find your dues expiry date on the bottom right side of your profile. If you think there is an error, by all means drop me a line and we will straighten it out. You may pay with PayPal by using the donation box on the left side of the homepage. Mailing address and other details for payment by mail are on the Membership page.
THE DANUBE SWABIANS DVD
You may recall from the last newsletter that the original version of this DVD played on computer DVDs, but not stand alone DVD players. We have received a new version that plays on both.
ON THE WEB
We have had the Deutsch Stamora history translated from the Familienbuch. From the Main Menu go to Banat > History > Deutsch Stamora History
Hungarian/English Glossary of Causes of Death and other Archaic Medical Terms
http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/International/Hungarian.htm .
Causes Of Death: Hungarian To English
http://www.jewishgen.org/hungary/Data/IllnessDeathRecords.txt
Cristina Renard, the mother of Banat List member Renee Renard, is an accomplished artist. She has a blog where you can see some of her lovely watercolors of Timisoara. If you have visited Timisoara, these painting will certainly bring back pleasant memories. If you have not, you will be able see what you are missing. Cristina’s work has been exhibited at shows at the Adam Müller-Guttenbtunn centre in Timisoara. http://cristinarenard-art.blogspot.com/
From the DVHH: Ute Ritz-Deutsch presented "Victimhood and Memory: Danube Swabians and the Ethnic Cleansing Campaigns
in Yugoslavia, 1944-1948" at the Wayles Browne Slavic Studies Symposium on Feb. 26, 2011 at the A.D. White House at Cornell
University. The symposium was held in honor of Browne, who is a linguist at Cornell and longtime human rights activist. Ms.
Ritz-Deutch has done a great job of condensing the complex history of the Donauschwaben people and the atrocities committed
against them, into a 30 minute presentation. See the video on YouTube or at
http://www.dvhh.org/history/Victimhood-and-Memory-Ute-Ritz-Deutch.htm
OBITUARIES
Maxine Jones passed away July 14. For those of you who did not know Maxine, she was a sparkling personality that brightened any room she entered. She will be missed.
Elizabeth (Novak) Eisworth died in February at the age of 102 years. The last of her family, she was the daughter of two Zichydorfers, Andreas and Katherina Novak.
MILLIONS CRIED … NO ONE LISTENED
Ann Morrison has created a petition addressed to Paula A. Kerger: President and Chief Executive Officer of PBS (Public Broadcasting System) to televise the documentary series “Millions Cried…No One Listened.” Her goal is to gather 1,000,000 signatures. To sign the petition and read more about what she is doing, click here:
http://www.change.org/petitions/paula-a-kerger-president-and-chief-executive-officer-of-pbs-televise-the-documentary-series-millions-cried-no-one-listened?share_id=KFqeRaUFFe&;utm_campaign=petition_creator_email&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition
Once you’re finished, please ask your friends to sign the petition as well.
ZVA REGINA BRANCH MEETING
Access Communications, which has hosted our meeting on Sundays for several years, has changed its policy. It no longer employs security guards on weekends, meaning that there is no one to let us in. As a result, our future meetings will be on weekday evenings. Our first such meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 10, at Access Communications, 2250 Park St. (north door by the ball diamonds). Please mark your calendar and bring along a Zichydorf friend.
Zichydorf Village Association News
edited by: Glenn Schwartz
2274 Baldwin Bay, Regina, SK, S4V 1H2
Internet: http://zichydorfonline.org
http://www.feefhs.org/members/zichydorf/frg-zva.html