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VISITING AUTHOR/EDITOR ARTICLE

News report from the AGM of the Donauschwaben USA

By Hans Kopp

At the last years meeting, Ed Grünwald stood before you asking your help to translate “Ein Volk and der Donau” by Nenad Stefanović bringing to you interviews with Donauschwaben intellectuals and Rudolfsgnad death camp survivors never published before with historic chapters written by Professor Zoran Žiletic “The Germans and the second World War” and Goran Nikolic “The Vojvodina Germans” between the wars.

The initial translating was accomplished by Hans Kopp in 5 months and handed over to Ed Grünwald and Dr. John Michel’s for editing and publishing and ultimately for your enjoyment, only one year after our last AGM.

Now at this meeting, Nenad Stefanovic, the author the book and Professor Zoran Žiletic, a contributor to the book were among us to be introduced to you and their newly published book “A people on the Danube”, one of the most important publications about the Donauschwaben by Serbian authors in the English language. The English publication is very unique as it views the drama and the tragedy of our people from a perspective other then the Donauschwaben. 

During their 4 day visit in Cleveland and Akron, the author who’s dream it is to write a book about the “Donauschwaben USA” interviewed more then a dozen people from all sorts of life and social standing of the Donauschwaben, who have established a new life in the USA.

Dr. John Michel and the University of South Dakota where pleased and honored to bring these “great friends of the Donauschwaben” and their book to you and is equally proud that our society honored them with the “Goldene Ehren Verdienstnadel” of the Donauschwaben USA.

It is a great pleasure to publish the speech by the author Nenad Stefanović as he presented it during this AGM.

*********

Liebe Donauschwaben in the USA, Mr. President, honered guest, ladies and gentlemen

I am very honored to be with you today on your annual national convention of the Donauschwaben in the United States. It is even a greater pleasure to congratulate you Leo personaly for receiving the „Verdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

I am also greatful to John Michels and his committee members Hans Kopp and Ed Grünwald who made it possible to translate my book „Ein Volk an der Donau“ into the english language under the title of  „A people on the Danube“ which is now published in the united States.

 I often ask myself if there is a higher cause in such a books, besides the usual pleasureof reading it. Can such a book inspire YOU and the YOUNG generation of the Donauschwaben to read it and the same time initiate new relations between the Donauschwaben of today and our people in a world we are now living in?

            I had accepted the often meaningless idea of a books until I questioned what did happen to the Donauschwaben in my country? Where did they disapear too? As I began to search for the truth, I became inspired by their culture, hardworking ethics, industrious adcheavements and their never yealding faith of their past in this country.

            It is not the number of copies that are at stake here to set the distribution of my book into motion, but it is the value of the content book telling the truth. It is worth to mention that „A People on the Danube“ had six editions in the Serbian leanguage, three editions in the German leanguage and it is now here in the United States.

But more important is the fact that this book has expanded the understanding of the readers in Serbia, Germany and now it certainly will expand yours here in the United States, as well as Canada and elswhere in the English speaking world.

            My first edition of the book was published Serbia in 1996. It was much like a lone voice in the desert. Nothing was known to the Serbian public about the sufferings of Donauswaben in Vojvodina and East Slavonia after the Second World War. The remaining German community in Serbia is small, organized only as the „Donau“ group in Novi Sad. From time to time, the official press accuses the group of not being patriotic to their country and of being connected somehow with foreign powers.

            We had no money to promote this book in Serbia. We barely collected enough for the printing. But there was help from a group of people from „The Society for Serbian-German Cooperation“. The most prominent was the voice of Professor Zoran Žiletic, who is now here with us today.

            We succeded to organizing sevaral readings and discussions in Beograd, Novi Sad, Sombor, Zrenjanin, Kać. The reactions of the audiences were varied, but were always very emotional in one direction or an other.

            Patiance prevails! I knew that one presentation of the book is not enough to change the views of the people who were always mislead abouth the actual truth about the Donauschwaben, you who found a new home in the USA. During those discussions I was often asked about my motives for writing such a book and many the listeners were scaptical and often not satisfied with my explaination. They preferred the past communist theory of conspiracy. My answer was too simple for them, but my answer was always the same.

I had learned that only fifty kilometers from the center of Belgrade there were mass graves where 12,000 or more innocent people found their last resting place which had existed for more than 50 years without any cross or a marker. I could not find peace heart standing by and doing nothing about it.

Of course, as you very well know, you never were permitted to erect monuments on the sites of mass graves of your loved ones, your brothers sister and grandparents who perished  in Tito`s death camps.

            The Donauschwabens only crime was that they were of Germans descent, whoever they had very little control over their destiny, and yet they became victims of a war and suffered inocently. This  I also would tell to my audience.

            Then I was lucky one day. There was a promotion for my book in the library in Zrenjanin, previously Gross Betchkerek. The hall was full of people. Among them many Germans who survived the camps and one could see by their tears in their eys they were crying inside silently.

However, there were also several people from the community government the Zrenjanin present at that time, led by the Democratic Party. I asked them if they would be willing to place a monument in Knicanin, the former Rudolfsgnad, a monument on which it will be clearly written that our citizens of German nationality died in camps of starvation and disease during the years 1944 to 1948 and who were buried in mass graves there withouth any markings. They promissed to help and they kept their promise.         

            Our limited resources were the reason that we could only provide a sign made of thin sheet metal at the grave site on the Telecka mounted on water pipes, made possible only because people from the Belgrade water system, Aleksandar Hajder and Dragomir Lajsic, helped us. The sheets were large enough to write the following text: „Here rest our fellow citizens of German nationality who died from starvation, cold and disease in the camp Knicanin from 1945 to 1946. May they rest in peace. Society for Serbian-German Cooperation, Belgrade 1998.“ On the second sign, posted in Telecka, we changed only the years of the burial: 1946 to 1948.

Placing those signs were the turning point of the changing of the attitude of our people towards the sufferings of Germans in Tito’s Yugoslavia. The signs also helped ease relations between Societies of the Donauswaben and today’s citizens of the Vojvodina towns and villages. The cemetary chapel has been renewed, several new plaques have been placed and some are still in the making.

Summerizing the ice has been broken, as we use to say in Serbia and I sencerly hope that my book; „A people on the Danube“ can and will serve as a small contribution to a change of thinking and the aditute of our and your paople.

Thank you very much for your attention and for allowing me to take valuable time out from your convention and it was a pleasure for me to make your aquantance. Have a succesful meeting.

 Nenad Stefanović

Pictures 207 DSC 003: Dr. Alexander Lermer, Josef Holzer and Hans Kopp welcome our guests from Belgrade, Nenad Stefanović, Professor Zoran Žiletic.

Pictures 207 DSC 014: Nenad Stefanović, Professor Zoran Žiletic interview Karoline Lindenmaier, longtime administrator, director and teacher of the Donauschwaben German school in Cleveland. 

Pictures 207 DSC 087: President Leo Maier presents the „the Golden Ehrennadel“ to Nenad Stefanović, and Professor Zoran Žiletic at the AGD at the “Akroner Familienverein” in Akron.