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VISITING
AUTHOR/EDITOR ARTICLE
OCTOBER
2008
Donauschwaben
Jugendfreundschaftslager
Held in St Louis
June 2008
  
Forwarded From German Cultural Society, St.
Louis
In April of 2007 at the yearly Dachverband meeting, Landesjugendleiterin
Ingrid Dorr proposed at our Jugend
meeting,
that we should try to begin an
annual camp or meeting of the
Jugend other than the
Landestrachtenfest held during Labor
Day weekend. Immediately I
thought, St Louis could do this!!!
We have Donau-Park which
would be a perfect camp setting
and this would be a perfect
opportunity to show other cities
what the St. Louis Donauschwaben
have to offer. This
Jugendtreffen (youth gathering)
was to promote friendship
among the Jugend and give them a
better understanding of
their Donauschwaben heritage and
traditions in an atmosphere
of fun and camaraderie. And so it
began on Thursday, June
26th with the arrival of our first
group, and ended Sunday
morning,
June 29th, with long and sad farewells for everyone.
Donnerstag/Thursday:
Check-in
Check-in started at noon with St. Louis Jugend arriving and
setting up camp. Together they set
up tents throughout the
lawn between the lodge and
pavilion, leaving room between
their tents for a visitor’s tent
to be set up. Around 1:00pm
Chicago arrived with Cincinnatti
and Cleveland following
thereafter. First each group was
directed to the lodge for
registration, which consisted of a
packet including two name
badges, an itinerary of the
weekend and a zip-lock bag of a
certain color &/or shape of
bead. From there our youth helped
everyone set up their tents and
get settled in. Each tent was
adorned with a name of a
Donauschwaben city. In-between
tent setup and dinner, the youth
played a few mixer games.
The bead bags received at
registration was meant for a bead
exchange.
The theory was to make sure that you met everyone
by exchanging your bead for theirs
and then stringing them
onto a wire (included), making
sure that you received a bead
from everyone. Dinner, and every
other event, was announced
by
the ringing of the Alpenglocke. Dinner included Brats/hot
dogs, potato salad, sauerkraut and
chips. The evening closed
with
a ‘toasty’ bonfire, Gus’s Pretzels, tasty ’smores and a
little singing along accompanied
by accordion music from
Frank
and Monika Schiro.
Freitag/Friday:
‘Meet
Me in St. Louis’ sightseeing
Early Friday morning, the Alpenglocke rang at 6:15 to signal
the first crew of Jugend to
assemble at the vans for the first
run to the YMCA for showers.
Breakfast and clean up followed
the showers and by 8:30 we were
off to our ‘Meet me in St
Louis’ sightseeing trip. First
stop was to the Gateway to the
West - the St. Louis Arch. All of
us were able to go up to the
top of the Arch as a group and the
kids were absolutely thrilled
to be able to see the sights. Next
stop at noon was the
Deutsche Kulturverein Halle for
lunch. There we gave everyone
a ‘taste of St Louis’ with a
variety of St. Louis style Cecil
Whittaker’s pizza, toasted
ravioli and salad. After lunch
everyone toured the facilities and
then it was off to Anheuser
Busch’s-Grant’s Farm. We
entered the park and boarded the
tram that took us around the park
and we were able to see
elk, deer, buffalo, cattle,
mountain goats, and ostrich. Then
we exited the tram by the
Tiergarten, where many of the
Jugend and adults got to feed the
baby goats. Many sat and
watched the elephant show, where
some of the others just
roamed around to see the other
animals and exhibits. We all
met at the front entrance by
3:30pm and headed towards the
stables to see the famous
Clydesdale horses and then to our
cars to leave. Hot and tired we
returned to ‘Camp Donau’ and
had some down-time before dinner
was served. A little slip’nslide
and a few water balloon fights
cooled off many of us,
while others played corn toss and
volleyball. Dinner was served
by 6:00 pm with another ‘taste
of St. Louis’: BBQ pork steaks,
grilled corn on the cob, pork and
beans, tossed salad and Ted
Drewes frozen custard. By 7:30pm
the kids were dancing
and singing to the tunes of Ron
Morrison’s live band: “Jack
the Cat”. (It’s amazing that
the kids mostly danced polkas to
the rock ‘n roll music!) By
11:30pm, lights out was announced
and we headed to our tents very
tired from a long day of fun.
Weatherwise all was well
except this particular Friday night,
the winds picked up and spotted
showers were in the forecast.
Luckily there was only a short
period of rain (not drenching)
but most of the night the winds
blew quite strongly and
disrupted much of our sleep. (No
tornados reported – just
strong
winds.)
Samstag/Saturday:
Donauschwaben-Tag
(to
promote awareness and the upholding of
Donauschwaben
traditions,culture,food and dance.)
After a long and windy night, our Saturday started a little later
than usual and our shower runs to
the YMCA began around
7:30am. By 9:00am, the Alpenglocke
rang, and all of the
Jugend assembled by the kitchen to
learn how to make
Goulash. At registration we had
assigned each of the Jugend
to a group represented by a color
and each group had a St.
Louis youth assigned as a lead
person. There were five groups,
each assembling around their own
table with ingredients and
recipe waiting. And the cooking
began! Everyone had a job
and took turns at chopping onions,
browning the onions and
beef, stirring the pot, etc. By
10:00 the Goulash was simmering
on the stove and again the Jugend
were divided into groups.
Three groups stayed in the
kitchen to make Spätzle, while the
other
two groups reported to the pavilion to learn two new
Donauschwaben dances. … and the
Goulash simmered!
Lunch at noon: Sub-sandwiches or peanut
butter & jelly, raw
veggies with ranch dip, chips and
fresh fruit were served under
the pavilion. At 1:00 pm the
Alpenglocke rang to gather
everyone to the pavilion and our
history lesson began. Mr.
Joseph Simon, our historian and
Cultural Representative, gave
a presentation on the history of
the Kirchweih which included
pictures of traditional
Kirchweihtracht and festivities. After Mr.
Simon’s presentation we had another guest speaker: Mrs.
Elizabeth B. Walter, artist and
author of Barefoot in the Rubble.
First, Mrs. Walter gave us a
sneak peak of some of the pictures
that she has illustrated for her
new book about the Kirchweih.
Then she continued to
entertain us with excerpt from her book,
Barefoot in the Rubble, and
explained what life was for her
when she was only four years old
and lived through the Ethnic
Cleansing after World War II. She
gave us some insight on
how our Donauschwaben heritage
came to be. Afterwards
Mrs. Walter had a book signing for
whoever was interested in
purchasing
her book. … and the Goulash simmered!
The Alpenglocke again rang at 3:00pm to
announce the
exchanging of groups – the two
groups that had danced, now
reported to the kitchen to make Spätzle
and the other three
groups to the pavilion to learn
the two new Donauschwaben
dances.
... and the Goulash simmered!
The Spätzle making proceeded the same as the making the
Goulash, as each group had a recipe, lead person and lots of
adult helpers. Dinner consisted of
the wonderful Goulash and
Spätzle everyone made, along with
green beans, bakery bread
and apple or cherry strudel. It
was a sight to see how fast they
all ran when the Goulash dinner
bell rang. …and the Goulash
was gone!
By 7:00pm the pavilion was ready to
rock ‘n roll
to the sounds of D.J. Eddie
Tullius. However, before the music
began, we incorporated a few
trivia games with prizes – one
for Donauschwaben trivia and the
other St Louis trivia (from
the Arch & Grant’s Farm they
should have learned on our
sightseeing tour). We also
invented a new game for our Jugend
to play. This game was called: tag
the Donauschwaben –
coming from a Jugend translation
of the german words: Tag
der Donauschwaben. We had a lot of
laughs and quite a few
winners. “D.J. Eddie” played
music that the Jugend picked
out which ranged from rock music
to German music to line
dances.
Everyone had a great time! As the evening drew to
an end, we had a spectacular
fireworks display put on by some
of
our Jugend, with beautiful music accompaniment that ooh’d
and aah’d everyone in the camp.
Sonntag/Sunday:Auf
Wiedersehen
7:00am - Breakfast served: pancakes with syrup &/or
strawberries, fresh fruit, cereal,
coffee, juice and milk. Quickly
we helped everyone break down
camp. The visiting cities had
at least 5-10 hours of driving
back home and wanted to leave
early morning. With the last ring
of the Alpenglocke, farewells
were said to everyone with the
anticipation of seeing each
other at the next year’s
Jugendfreundschaftslager.
On the behalf of the Jugendlager committee we would like to
thank the Deutsche Kulturverein
for hosting this first-time
event. Also, special thanks to the
following groups and people
who helped make this
Jugendfreundschaftslager a success:
OurJugendlager-Parentscommittee: John
Pappert, Moni
Lorenz, Ruthie & John
Vanderpluym, John Unterreiner, Birgit
Sterzl-McMullen,
Pete & Linda Heddell, Kathy & Matt Stark,
Ann & Ron Morrison, Gaye &
Mark McMullen, Terry Ficken
and
Herbert Lorenz.
Member
helpers: Annerose Klotz, Ray & Ann Vonderhaar,
Monika & Frank Schiro and
Ralph Hofarth
Youth
Organizations: German Culural Society of St Louis
Jugendgruppe: A special thank you
for all your help!
Chicago
Donauschwaben Society: Chaperone: Lara Kuechel
and Jugend
Cincinnati
Donauschwaben Society:
Chaperones:
Debi and Ed Tullius and their Jugend
Cleveland
Donauschwaben Society: Chaperones: Ingrid Dorr,
Landesjugendleiterin, Margot
Maurer and their Jugend
Donauschwaben
Historians:
Joseph Simon, DKV Cultural
Representative
Elizabeth Walter, artist and
author of Barefoot in the Rubble
It was an honor for me to be able to help host this first
Jugendfreundschaftslager in
St.Louis and appreciate everyone
that came to my aid in making this
a wonderful success.
Hopefully this will help
bring a closer friendship and
understanding of our Donauschwaben
heritage and culture
to the youth that follow in our
footsteps.
Dankeschön!
Rosemarie
Ficken
Jugendleiterin,
St. Louis
Go To This Link
in the
Jugendseiten Section
For Pictures of
this Event
http://donauschwaben-usa.org/2008_jugendfreundschaftslager.htm
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