Henry A. Fischer born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, is the son of Danube Swabian immigrants from Hungary whose lives and families provide much of the background for his writing and historical research. This resulted in the publication of his first book: Children of the Danube. In a sense, it gave birth to the trilogy entitled: Remember To Tell The Children.
Although a work of historical fiction, it is based on extensive historical and genealogical research, family and village traditions and stories handed down through the generations. They reflect the common experience of the Children of the Danube and their descendants since joining the Great Swabian Migration into Hungary early in the 18th century.
The first volume of the trilogy: The Pioneers deals with their journey down the Danube and the early settlement years in Hungary. The second part of the trilogy focusses on the development of their own distinct identity and lifestyle duirng the first half of the 19th century within the context of the wider society in which they were: Strangers and Sojourners. The final volume deals with their continuing search for a homeland and their eventual forced dispersal throughout the world, leading to their becoming: Emigrants and Exiles.
He and his wife Jean reside in Oshawa, Ontario. They enjoy travelling and the freedom of retirement but spend as much time as they can with their children and grandchildren. A former Lutheran pastor and co-founder of InterChurch Health Ministries, he is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Waterloo Lutheran Seminary.
Dear Mr Fisher; I have been trying to research the history of my fathers family. From the oral history that he gave us as we were growing up, I have been able to piece together quite a bit of the family story. My fathers family was from Bawanischte (Bavaniste), a neighbour village to Mramorak. They were raised as Lutherans and were very religious, to the point that my grandfather was reportedly jailed as a conciencious objector for refusing to serve in the army.
I was very interested to read your story regarding the influx of Lutherans into the Mramorak area. We were told by my father that he believed they were originally from the Schwartzwald, but based on what I just read perhaps that is not true. I was very saddened by reading about what happened to the german peoples of Mramorak and the surrounding villages. My father was in a British POW camp when he ran into someone he knew from Bawanischte. That person told him that most of his family had been killed. Fortunately, his younger brother, who was only 9 or 10, was not killed and eventually got out to Germany. After the war the were able to reunite and my father heard the grisly details of what had happened.
By the way, I think it is important to state that what you say about the ethnic Germans in that area is accurate. My father said that only a few of the Volksdeutche were rabid Hitlerites, while most had no love or time for him or German war efforts. He always said that if it were not for the threats of being declared an enemy of the Reich, almost nobody would have joined the Prinz Eugen SS division. That division was never a “volunteer” division by any stretch.
I am actually planning to visit Vojvodina/Serbia later this year. One of my goals is to discover the land tract numbers for my fathers family farm, reportedly pretty large, so that I can then trach the family back via the records of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Is this something that you were able to do in your research?
I would love to hear back from you on any thoughts you may have on how I can make my search more productive. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Peter Klein
Newark, Delaware, USA