Fifty Years After By George Kaiser, Düsseldorf(Part Two) Up until the departure of the train from Arad, I still hoped that I would be released because I was too young. It was midnight and January 30, 1945 had begun with us packed inside the cattle car. It was my seventeenth birthday. I had become seventeen…
Slave Labour in Russia: Fifty Years After
Fifty Years After By George Kaiser, Düsseldorf On August 23rd in 1944, Romania broke its military pact with Germany and stood on the side of the Soviets. In just a few short weeks the Soviet Army overran all the territory that Romania controlled. This was done in spite of the fierce resistance of the…
Lower Debro in Heves County
Lower Debrö: A Forgotten German Village in Heves County Count Anton Grassalkovich purchased the castle of Debrö along with the surrounding Debrö Domain in 1740. Among the first actions he took was the settlement of the region within geographical proximity to his estates. As a result the village of Lower Debrö came into existence on…
Georgshausen in the Banat
Georgshausen/Velika Greda From Leidensweg der Deutschen im Kommunistischen Jugoslawien The Way of Sorrows of the Germans in Communist Yugoslavia Georgshausen is a small village that until 1919 did not have a single Serbian inhabitant. Alongside of the 650 Swabians there were around 250 Hungarians and 1 Slovak who lived there at that time. This changed with…
A Young Man’s Diary
A Portion of the Diary Of Andreas Toth (Andreas Toth was born in Semlak, Romania on Septeber 16, 1928, the only child of Andreas Toth and his wife the former Julianna Bartolf. Following his completion of Public School in Semlak, he went to the Trade School in Temesvar and High School in Detta. He died…
A Tale of Two Sisters: Gadacs and Szil
The following are excerpts from Gott Ist Getreu, by Henry A. Fischer in a limited edition and self published work in June of 1988. GADÁCS AND SZIL: The Two Sisters The village of Döröschke’s foundations were firmly rooted in the clay soil, to maintain a foothold on the descending hills upon which it was…
The First Settlers in Felsonana
The village of Felsönána was situated on the von Mercy Domains in Tolna County and was settled by Hessian settlers beginning in the mid 1720s. The majority of these pioneering families were Lutherans although there was sizeable numbers of Reformed among them. They formed a “united” congregation and related to the Lutheran congregations…
Helpful Hints In Researching in Somogy County
Bonnya, Somogy County Although there were both Lutheran and Reformed congregations in Bonnya, they were both filials (daughter congregations) of a Mother Church in the vicinity. If you are tracing your family members who were Reformed, they would be included in the records of the Reformed Church in Flesö Mocsolád. The vast majority of…
Places of Origin of Families in Varsad
The following information finds its source in the transcriptions of the late Johann Müller of Beitigheim/Bissingen of the Varsád Lutheran Church Records. Becker, Johann Adam from Rhein/Heimbach in Hessen married Barbara Elisabeth Enkemeyer on 27.06.1772 in Varsád. Conrad, Johann Michael from Werigerode in the Duchy of Halberstadt married Anna Maria Müller in Varsád on 18.06.1731.…
Family Origins in Gyonk
There are only passing references to the original homes of the families who emigrated to Hungary and settled in Gyönk in both the Lutheran and Reformed parish records that have both been transcribed by the late Johann Müller of Bietigheim/Bissingen. Even though the information is limited it is worth preserving. The Reformed Church Krauss, Johann…