Burnside, Chicago, Illinois

• District 103-523 CHICAGO CITY WARD 8 (TRACT 673 - PART)
• District 103-524 CHICAGO CITY WARD 8 (TRACT 673 - PART)

German Places in Slovakia

Slovakia Home Page

http://feefhs.org/links/Slovakia/dg-gps.html

http://feefhs.org/links/slovakia.html

http://feefhs.org/links/Slovakia/skdb1/slrp-cf.html

Background:The Surname Location Reference Project, is compiling a database of emigrants from Slovakia and where they located in North America. Basically, the only information kept is the surname, location and county in Slovakia, and name and address of the submitter.

The idea is that individuals doing genealogical work on a particular surname or location in Slovakia can be put in touch with others working on the same surnames or locations.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~svkwgw/

This page provides a beginning place for your research on your Slovak roots. The links above will provide you with a variety of information that may help you in your search.

Feczko surnames site: 

http://www.tccweb.org/web/gene0037.html

http://www.tccweb.org/web/gene0034.html

Carpathian German Homepage

http://carpathiangerman.com/zipsancestry.htm

• Where is Zips County
• History of Zips County
• Speech of our Ancestors: Zipser Dialects
• Sources on the Zips

• EISDORF/ZIPS ANCESTRY HOMEPAGE
• ZIPSER BELA/ZIPS ANCESTRY HOMEPAGE

At the same time, the overpopulation of the farming areas led many Zipser to emigrate already in the late 18th century to the Bukovina, (Buchenland), notably the area of Zibau, where Zipser German was spoken till World War II, to the area of today's Karpato-Ukraine and of today's Maramures area in Romania, (the Karpato-Ukraine includes part of the old Magyar county of Marmaros, but also other counties such as Bereg), in the latter notably the areas of Ober-Wischau and the nearby Wassertal (Valea Vaser in Romanian). Zipser Saxons founded Oberwischau in the 12th century as a mining settlement, but the original population was assimilated over the centuries. The 18th century migrants came mainly from the Oberzips, notably the area around Kesmark and Leutschau, but also from Germany proper. Despite the ethnic cleansing of the Germans of the East after World War II, traces of Zipser famlies still survive in the Wassertal and Oberwischau. This website here is in German, and has pictures (2005) Oberwischau . This emigration further reduced the number of Germans.

In 1847, the census counted 191,523 people in the Zips, of which 63,833 were Germans, 2,043 Jews, 500 (!) Magyars, 98,951 Slovaks and 26,196 Ruthenians. The Germans, excluding Jews, were now only 33% of the population. And after 1867, the urban Germans increasingly became Magyars, owing to the pressure of "magyarization" laws. In 1880, the census counted 172,881 people in the Zips. Of these 48,169 were German, 96,274 were Slovaks, 5,941 Jews, 16,158 were Ruthenians, and 3,526 Magyars. By 1910, the total number of inhabitants was 171,725 people, of which 38,434 were Germans, 7,475 Jews, 97,077 Slovaks, 12,327 Ruthenian, and 18,658 Magyar. Most of these Magyars were former Germans. A good example of the ethnic change was Zipser Bela, where, without any "ethnic cleansing," from 1880 to 1890 the number of Germans fell by 19 percent, from 1890 to 1900 by another 8.3 percent, and from 1900 to 1910 by another 13.5 percent while the number of Magyars exploded. (From Ladislaus Guszak, in Karpatenpost February 1969, p. 4, based on census data in Dr. Erich Fausel, Das Zipser Deutschtum, Jena, Germany, 1927, p. 111).

4. Burghers and Robots: Social Rank in the Zips: The Zips had legally, till 1848, three classes of people. The nobles owned the land and had a seat in the county legislature. They were tax exempt. The local nobles tried from the 14th century onwards to become feudal lords of the remaining royal areas. They succeeded especially after 1526, when the new Habsburg kings desperatly needed the support of the nobles against the Turks. This included the remaining 11 cities of the Zipser federation. While the people of these little cities kept their local self-rule and were not made into serfs, (leibeigen) they now had to pay the king's annual rent to a noble family. The rent was raised substantially. The rent was due in cash and in kind, and increasingly also unpaid labor, called the robot). The Csaky remained hereditary Obergespann of the Zips till 1848, and after that remained appointed county heads. Albin Csaky, (1841-1912), who later served as minister of education in Budapest, was Obergespann till 1880, the last of his family to hold the office.

The Buerger, or burghers, of the remaining free royal cities paid royal taxes collectively through these. Untertanen (subjects) were the peasants and artisans of the villages and small cities that had come under feudal rule. The most common occupation, even in the towns, was that of peasant, called a Untertan, Bauer, and in the 19th century a Landwirth, in latin colonus. The Besiztlose, consisting of Hausleute, Kleinhaeusler, Mietsleute etc were people without enough land to live from farming. They eked out what their could from their garden plots and worked as laborers or itinerant laborers or peddlers.

[To the top of the Webpage] 5. Torn from the Fatherland: World War I and its aftermath: In August 1914, World War I broke out. The Zips was administed in 1914 by Obergespann baron Arthur Wieland and Vizegespann Dr. Ludwig Neogrady, in 1918 by Dr. Tibor von Mariassy. The Zips' roughly 172,000 people, mainly small farmers, with some industrial workers, could not expect to eke enough food from the county's soil. The Russian offensive into Eastern Galicia in Fall 1914 caused panic, with the front by September 26 at Tarnow and Gorlice just East of Krakau--Tarnow was only about 160 km (100 miles) from Kesmark--and also sent waves of refugees crashing through the Popper River valley. But the German and Austrian-Hungarian armies threw back the Russian army in Mai-June 1915. After that, there was no direct military threat, but the slow drain of young men and of food, the progressive lack of which made death rates rise. Food production was increasingly controlled by the Ministry for People's Nutrition (a.k.a Food Ministry). It would be too much to detail the agony of the Zips. I will focus on the last months of the war, based on the Karpathen-Post and other sources.

By Summer 1918, the Zips was worn out. In late September, the Food Ministry decreed that the Zips had to deliver at once 2,500 train wagons loads @5 tons of potatoes, or it be seized by force. Also, a family could have only keep one pig per five people to feed itself if they had a license. Sugar, one of the few bountiful items, was raised from 2.14 K/kg to 2.92 wholesale, hence in stores from 2.40K to 3.30K. Even matches were rationed. Local politics revolved nearly entirely in lobbying for more food. Kesmark mayor Dr. Otto Wrchovszky succeeded in getting the fat of 1,600 pigs to be rationed to the nine Zipser cities with self-government. Also, after food distribution broke down in November, and the Kesmark population had nothing for December, he persuaded the local state employees, who had received an annual allotment of flour and other foodstuff, to share these, thus preventing mass starvation (and probably the lynching of said employees by hungry mobs), according to the Karpathen-Post of November 28. Interestingly considering the times, in October-November, though half of the mountain spas were closed, Tatraszeplak, Ujtatrafured, and the sanatorium in Otatrafured, as well as some hotels in Tatralomnitz,were still with guests from Budapest. [This part is a work in progress]

6. The End after 800 Years: Slovakia became independent in March 1939. In the great European civil war between the two ideologies, its leaders allied themselves with Hitler, who was not yet a mass-murderer in 1939, rather than with Stalin, who had already murdered 15 to 20 million men, women and children by that time. The Slovak Army participated in the campaign against Poland and then against the Soviet Union. Until 1943, when a German defeat appeared possible, few Slovaks had complaints about that alliance, despite what their official history claims today.

But as the tide of war turned, in Summer 1944, there was a Communist-led partisan revolt in Central Slovakia. Over 3,000 ethnic Germans were massacred. The uprising failed. Yet, as the Soviet Army rolled nearer, Carpathian German civilians were evacuated to protect them from indiscriminate slaughter. The children of Eisdorf were evacuated to Austria on September 21, 1944, led by their teachers, the boys to Glognitz and the girls to Rabenstein. On January 10, most women and old men, as other Germans from the Zips, were evacuated with the last trains from the railroad station in Kaesmark. On January 23, the 85 men who had stayed packed their belongings on 55 carts, with 112 horses, and began a long trek through the snow-covered and wolf- and partisan-infested countryside until they reached Bischofsteinitz in the Sudetenland on February 25, having trekked for 350 miles. Once the fighting was over, they expected to be able to return to their little village. The trek left in the nick of time. German and Hungarian troops (though the Soviet imposed Hungarian puppet government, the so-called "Debrecen government," had declared war on Germany on December 21, 1944, most Hungarian troops fought with their German friends and allies to the bitter end--such as in the epic defense of Budapest till February 13, 1945)--evacuated the upper Zips between January 22 to 26. Menhard was occupied by soldiers from the Czechoslovak (Benes) army on January 27. So were the other villages, by CSR and Soviet troops.

Not all Zipser left. Many simple souls, knowing they were innocent, trusted the Allies (after all claiming to fight for Freedom & Humanity), and stayed. Many were murdered by Czech and Soviet troops. And when the war was over on May 8, 1945, the great self-anointed humanitarians who claimed to fight a "good war" allowed the Czech government to torture some, kill others in slave labor camps, and ethnically cleanse all of them from their homes of 800 years. Today, Eisdorf only survives in the memories of families, such as mine, who live in the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, the United States and Canada.

[To the top of the Webpage]

C. ZIPSER SPEECH

[To the top of the Webpage]

ZIPSER BELA HOMEPAGE

http://carpathiangerman.com/zipserbela.htm

• Where is Zipser Bela?
• History of Zipser Bela: A small German town in the Zips  

As most other towns of the Oberzips, Bela is on the high plain between the towering Tatra mountains. Its median altitude is 631 meters, about 2,000 feet. The town’s name derives from the Bela creek, in Slavic meaning “white,” an appropriate name for the gushing whitewater creek flowing through the town. There were several such rivers in the old kingdom of Hungary, and places named for them, hence informally "Zipser" was added to Bela till it became official in the 20th century. In the local German dialect, one did not say I go "nach Bela" (to Zipser Bela) but "in die Bejl" (I go into the Bela area).

The attitude of the Catholic county administration also affected the school after 1772. First the Hungarian officials simply forbade Lutheran schools, claiming they were bound to honor Poniatowski’s edict. Then, in 1780, “national schools” (public grade schools with a national curriculum) were created, in theory non-denominational except for religion and singing provided by the respective Catholic and Lutheran parishes. But in practice only Catholic teachers were hired. In 1785, Josef II allowed Lutheran schools, and the local Lutherans opened their own grade school. In 1802, teacher Martin Lang received a free apartment in the school house and use of a vegetable patch, 150 Gulden (Florin, Fl.) in cash and 6 Metzen corn, mainly rye, (10.71 bushel), 8 Klafter firewood (a Klafter had 3 cubic meters, or 83% of a US cord, it was 6 2/3rd cords total), but he had to cut and cart the logs himself. He also received sundry fees from each child, such as a 10 Kreuzer registration fee and a 6 Kreuzer on his name day and certain holidays, altogether estimated by Samuel Weber at 50 Fl. over the year. The teacher had to substitute for the minister if the latter was sick for free, but earned additional money by doing the organizational work at funerals, incl. writing the funeral oration. If he had the training (and strength) to also work as the parish cantor, he could earn another 80 Fl. salary, plus fees for organizing the singing at marriages and funerals. In 1842 mandatory Latin was dropped from the grade school curriculum, but drawing, geometry, mapmaking, gymnastics, and Hungarian, added to it and the teaching method changed from rote learning to more active student learning.

The aftermath of the revolution of 1848/49 brought full legal equality, and also led to a change of attitude among the local Catholic Magyar nobles who enforced that law. Local Germans, in Zipser Bela and elsewhere, had supported the Magyar revolutionaries against the Hapsburgs. After the revolution was over, Bela Lutheran minister Karl Maday was even briefly jailed (He later became bishop). The Catholic Hungarian nobles took note. And so religious strife lessened over time and in 1870 the Bela Lutherans gave up their parish school to join the reformed public school, which also hired the four Lutheran teachers. After 1870 grade school teachers were lavishly paid, receiving still free lodging with a large garden, but now 400 Gulden in cash (US-$ 160 then), 12 Klafter firewood (about 10 US cords), with free cutting and carting now, and still a small cash gift from each child on name day. They were morally expected to be active in their parish, but not forced anylonger to act as clerical help to the minister. However, they now were expected to be agents of Magyarization. Two important persons in Bela during that era were Rev. Samuel Weber (1835 Poprad-1908 Bela), Lutheran minister in Bela from 1861 to 1908, and his successor Franz Ratzenberger (1863 Schwedler-1930). Both were literary active and wrote on local history as well. Weber was honored by the city in 2008. Unfortunately in the exhibit the names of his family were “Slovakized” though his ancestors were all Zipser Saxons, giving a misleading impression of how he saw himself.

The economic situation of Bela remained good throughout the 19th century, despite a devastating fire in 1828, and four Cholera outbreaks, 1831 (85 dead), 1856 (a smaller number), 1866 (45 dead), and 1873 (65 dead). From 1783 to 1793, Bela had accepted 199 craftsmen as new burghers, after showing that they had completed their regular journeyman training, then wandered for 3 years, had done their masterpiece, and were financially able to set up a household. While many were relatives of existing burghers, others were new to the town and long-lasting boost for its economy. In the 17th century, several mineral springs located 1.5 km (a mile) from the city had been discovered, and became Bad Zipser Bela (Belianske Kupele), locally famous for helping with arthritis, gout and skin conditions. By 1881, the city developed 2 miles upmountain the new resort of Hoehlenhain (Grove at the cave, because of the nearby cave Belaer Tropfsteinhoehle), in Magyar Barlangliget, in Slovak today Tatranska Kotlina. Another new industry was tanning, and the distilling of a local gin (Borovic^ka) that had originated in nearby Liptau Megye. As Andrej Novak noted, home brewing for sale was still important, too. In 1812, of 400 houses in the city, (many of which were not burgher houses), 29 used their burgher brewing rights. In the second half of the 19th century, several new industries came. Factories were opened to make flaxy canvas (1869), starch (1878), bricks, lumber, the liqueur factory Kleinberger (1875), the breweries Szimonisz (1870) and Reich (1872), a plant making smoking tobacco (1892), a distillery for industrial alcohol (1902), etc. A further boost came from the building of a train branch from Kesmark to Zipser Bela in 1892.

The town’s prosperity supported numerous associations. The shooting club of 1637 still had 95 members in 1845. There was a theatre club (1870), the Belaer Chor (1862), hunting club (1860), fishing club (1889), voluntary fire brigade (1878), sports club (1910) and many others. The Faschingsverein (founded around 1900) created a lively mardi-gras, with up to 4,000 tourists coming to town to watch the parade. Yet there was a change of spirit in the meetings. Till the 1880s, a meeting of local “Bejler” might begin, reflecting their genuine love of their Hungarian homeland, with the magyar shout “Eljen” (for Eljen a Kiraly, long live the King) and the pious wish, to please any Magyar government officials, that someday in the (far, far) future all Hungarian citizens would speak Magyar as their mother-tongue. Then the Bejler would happily continued in the local Potoksch German dialect. Now, civic leaders enforced Magyar through legal pressure and social mobbing. In 1855, according to Samuel Weber, there were 81 inhabitants speaking Slovak and 6 Magyar at home--and 2,225 German inhabitants. The population was 96% German. But then emigration and Magyarization, together with the hiring of Slovaks for the new factories—they worked for less than the sons of German burghers and craftsmen--cut that number. As Erich Fausel noted in 1926, citizens declaring that their household language was German dropped to 1,889 (or 72.8% of 2,589) in 1880 and 1,242 (43.1% of 2,887) in 1910, rising to 53.8% (1,557) of 2,894 in 1919 as some Magyarized Germans returned to their roots. But the trend was towards Slovak. The Karpathen-Post reported that in 1912, of 94 live births, 64 had been Slovaks, 25 German, 5 Magyars. (16 Jan 1913). In terms of religion, in 1877, there were 827 Catholics, 36 Greek Catholics, 1,605 Lutherans, 10 Reformed and 111 Jews.

Looking through old copies of the weekly Karpathen-Post, one glimpses in the last years before the war also an active local democracy. In November 1910 for example, in the elections for the county legislature, a majority of voters in Bela voted, with Dr. Friedrich Gabriel receiving 184 votes, Armin Mayer 174 votes, Michael Neupauer 124 votes. There may have been other candidates, too. The Gabriel clan was very active in local politics, including in the city council, which had 12 elected aldermen. The town’s prosperity was envied by its neighbors, as the budget was entirely paid by income from the town’s forests and other ventures, such as the brickyard and spa. Only Kesmark was in the similar happy situation of not needing to levy city taxes. Income and expenses were predictable. The projected budget for 1914 was 171,545 Kronen, of which 76,938 came from the forest, 9,005 from the brickyard, 16,838 from the spa, 21,972 from interest on bonds. Expenses were 165,125 Kronen, with expenses for forestry 24,846, brickyard 7,880, spa 10,000. The city payroll proper was 47,510, office supplies 2,374, upkeep of city buildings 18,710, sanitation and city veterinarian 3,495, local help for schools and churches 10,658 (Karpathen-Post 17 Nov 1910, 4 Dec.1913). The future seemed predictable. But it was not to be.

In August 1914, World War I broke out between the Central Powers and the Entente. By November 1918, the Central Powers were defeated. Austria-Hungary was cut into pieces by the revenge-mad victors, who created the foundation for a new world war. After the Armistice,and upon learning of the surrender of their country to the Czech separatists who had been supported by the victors, Hungarian troops and administration slowly retreated. On December 15, 1918, Polish and Czech troops faced each other before Kesmark over conflicting claims to the Oberzips. The Czechs won. They occupied Bela, too. Without moving, the citizens of Bela had become part of a new country whose elite was hostile to them and as early as 1919 hoped to get rid of the non-Slavic native population.

In the 1920s, the Wintergasse in Zipser Bela looked like this.

Still, Carpathian German life continued. My mother, as a child, in the late 1930s and 1940s, visited often her aunt Emma Teltsch, born Alexy, who had married the widowed former mayor Arthur Teltsch. She was the oldest surviving child of Rev. Matthias Alexy from Eisdorf, my greatgrandfather. Matthias Alexy’s wife Julianne Schmeiss, also spelled Schmeisz, was herself from an old Zipser Bela family. My mother recalled the Simonis family, with the brewery, who were in-law relations, having married other Alexy cousins. In the USA, there was my aunt (a few times removed) Liesel Hentschel, born Alexy, from Eisdorf, whose husband Emil Hentschel was from Zipser Bela. As it turned out, they were in-laws of the Simonis as well, and share more than half of my Zipser Bela ancestral surnames, too. The Oberzips was a small world.

Most Carpathian Germans were Lutherans. The parish had in the early 1940s 841 members, plus 112 in Nehre and 270 in the “Diaspora,” including Kreutz. The last minister, 1931 to Jan. 1945, was Georg Hirschmann (1904 Pressburg-1966 Stuttgart), the parish inspector was August Rissdorfer, the cantor for Zipser Bela was Julius Roth and for Nehre Ladislaus Buchalla. Between November and January 1945 about 850 Germans were evacuated to prevent a massacre by the Red Army and the returning Beneshists. Those who stayed, or returned, often died in camps or were murdered. By 1947 most remaining survivors were resettled to other places in Slovakia. Rev. Michael Holko (1866 Pressburg-1960 Deutschendorf), who had administered the parish in 1930-31, was able to stay (though his children not) and served as administrator of the Lutheran church till he had to retire in 1947. The historic Zipser Bela is gone. As a result, though there are a dozen local Germans left, they have no presence, no power to reclaim their past.

As noted earlier, there were scarcely any native Slovaks in the city in 1855, and most of the Slovaks living there in 1945 had moved there at best one or two generations earlier. A new batch of settlers in 1947 were Ruthenian Greek Catholics from Lendak, which had burned in 1947. Instead of rebuilding the remote village, the authorities simply moved the peasants to the empty German homes in Bierbrunn and Zipser Bela. Other settlers came from further North, Zdiar and and the Zamagursky area, and often were Ruthenian and Greek-Orthodox, though now in a process of Slovakization as well. Historically, they often were friendly to Germans, and that is crucial for how they deal with the remnants of the Zipser Bela’s German past.

After the end of Communism, which used Czech nationalism to make itself more attractive, the city created a museum for native sons Josef Petzval (1807-1891), a pioneer in photography, and Michael Greisiger (1854-1912). I’m not sure if the exhibits always point out that when alive, the two were neither Slovaks nor German-Slovaks (as Carpathian Germans are sometimes mislabeled today—a German Slovak is someone with mixed German and Slovak ancestry, not a German from an area only since a century called "Slovakia"), but Magyarophile Zipser Saxons. A Slovak-language history of the town was published in 2006, which, according to informed readers, is fairly accurate in most parts. In an interview in the Karpatenblatt, Primator Dr. Stefan Bielak stated that he was very positive on the German history of the city. The sister city partnership with Brück/Austria, where many deported Zipser live, helps to remind the current inhabitants of who lived there before.

EISDORF/ZIPS HOMEPAGE

http://carpathiangerman.com/eisdorf.htm

• History of Eisdorf: A German village in the Zips

Eisdorf is located in the valley of the Popper River. Probably at the end of the 12th century, two villages were founded in the township of Eisdorf, Eisdorf and the hamlet of Klein-Eisdorf 3 km away. The first surviving mention of Eisdorf is from a charter of 1209. The village name in German, Magyar and Slovak indicate that a man called Isaac was the founder (in medieval German, Isaac was pronounced like in English, with Ei instead of German I, and at some point the middle syllable dropped from Eisackssdorf, while in Slovak, the first syllable got dropped). After the Mongol invasion of 1241 Eisdorf was rebuilt but Klein-Eisdorf not. Eisdorf belonged to the Zipser Staedtebund from the very beginning. Several historians believe that the settlers of Eisdorf came from the Eisacktal in South Tyrol, (Rudolf, 78) including the ancestors of my own mother's family, the Alexy (then called Haering). Eisdorf belonged to the Zipser Bund, which means that the village, which had at its heyday at most 500 people, had city status. The township of Eisdorf since the middle ages had an area of 3635 Joch (a Joch has 5700 square meters, an acre 4040, a Joch is 1.41 acres). The village had an area of 5125 acres or about 8 square miles. By 1944, the distribution was 75% fields, 14% forests, the rest meadows, gardens and the village.

The Eisdorfer suffered from the catastrophes that shook the area. For non-nobles, life was not fun in a feudal society in the best of cases. But here, the Czech Hussites came and plundered and murdered in the 15th century. In the 16th, they were followed by the Ottoman Turks, who though stopped 20 miles south of Eisdorf, conducted regular raids northward until decisively beaten between 1686 and 1699. Eisdorf had become Lutheran in 1542. In 1672, the government banned Lutheran parishes. In November 1672, Imperial troops plundered the village, in February 1709 the rebel Kurutzen, and in May 1709 the troops of Prince Rakoczy. After that, enemy troops would not come to the village till 1945, though the young men had to suffer in far-away wars.

Eisdorf also suffered from devastating fires. The village has no riverfront or fire pond, and so fires could not be quenched in time. In 1717, 1869, 1873, 1882, 1892, 1919, 1927, 1931 and 1937, large chunks of the village burned, destroying also the stored harvest and creating famine. There also were illnesses and epidemics. In 1558, 1600, 1646 and 1710, the plague struck. In the year 1700, 73 men, 67 women and 25 children, or 165 people, a third of the village, died of the plague. The cholera was less deadly, but still...in 1831, 34 people died of the cholera, in 1855 44 people, in 1914 10 people.

2. The village economy

Even when the plague (Pest), Cholera and war did not threaten, the life of the Eisdorf peasant was not easy. Most of the villagers were Untertanen, the remainder Besitzlose. The peasants were differentiated according to whether they owned the rights to a full farm (64 Joch, that is 90 american acres, or 36.5 hectar), a half or a quarter farm. In 1821, there were 105 full and 28 half-sized farms. The peasants made fruit brandy and homespun linen. Otherwise, there were no crafts. However, in 1944, the village counted a carpenter, smith, merchant and innkeep.

The village had comparatively few meadows, and so there was not much cattle. The majority of grasslands was owned in common, with hay cut only once a year because the soil was poor. But geese and sheep, which could be feld in the scrubland, were kept in larger numbers. The fields were planted according to the three-fields rule, each peasant having a long strip in each third, the rotation of the crops (potatoes, wheat, then rye) being decided by the village elders. Every five years, to allow the thin soil to regenerate, all fields were used as pasture. After 1848 the farmers were not legally bound anylonger to cooperate in the three fields system, but continued to do so because this way of farming was necessary until fertilizers became more available--but they were not cheap.

In the 16th century, Eisdorf, like the other members of the Zipser Staedtebund that were not mortgaged to Poland, was now too weak to protect its liberties, and was assigned to the estates of the noble family (Counts) Csaky. For the right to use a full farm (90 American acres), a peasant family now owed the Csaky family annually until 1848:

• 52 days of unpaid labor (robot) by one adult man with horses or 104 days without horses
• Cutting and bringing to the castle one large waggon load of firewood, for free
• One Gulden in cash, and 2 chicken, 2 roosters, 12 eggs, a half crock of rendered pigfat (Schweineschmalz), and for each 20 farms one fat calf
• Wenn the count or the countess marry, the taxes are doubled for that year

In addition, each farm had to pay several kinds of taxes to the king/state, plus the tenth to the Catholic Church, which was the state church, and a city tax. I'm still trying to understand the particulars of some of these taxes (Portengeld, notably):

• The Gemeindesteuer (city tax)
• The tenth of the harvest to the Catholic Church until 1781 (despite the fact that most Eisdorfer were Lutherans)
• The Mautpflicht
• The Korbgeld
• The Portengeld
• The Salzfuhr (Salt tax, salt being a state monopoly with each household being required to buy a set amount at a set price)

4. Living on the farm The lifestyle of the village of my ancestors was rough. The climate did not allow large gardens. Hence, vegetables and fruit were uncommon at meals. As Adalbert Wannhof remembered from his youth in the 1930s, farmers breakfasted with hot sweet milk-coffee and bread and butter. There was a second, more substantial, breakfast at 9 AM. Food was simple. Because there were few meadows and gardenland, vegetables and milk were not plentiful. The staple for breakfast, lunch and dinner was the potato, cooked in ingenious ways, and served with bacon or some milk product.

Life was characterized by ceaseless labor to eke out a living from a harsh land, even after the Robot for count Csaky had ended. Houses were seen not as homes in a romantic sense, but as mere dwellings, with the limited resources being rather put into improving the stalls rather than the living room. After the large farms began to be subdivided, the large homes became cramped--even though the number of villagers dwindled. Usually, the large farmsteads were inhabited by the parents and several adult children, including married children.

Looking at old birth registers, it is noticable that many births up to the 1930s were stillbirths, because pregnant women worked as long as they could on the fields. The birthrate began to drop after the 1880s, with the average number of children born to a married woman surviving her entire fertility cycle dropping from the usual 10 to 15 of the mid-19th century to 5 to 8. Below a picture from the 1930s.

5. Population: In 1700, the population was about 500 people.
In 1921, the census counted 608 people, of which 582 were German, 10 Slovaks, 4 Magyars, 2 ethnic Jews and 10 others. By religion, 420 were Lutherans, 167 Catholics, 2 Jewish.
In 1930, the census counted 641 people. Of these 624 were German, 10 Slowaks, 2 Magyars, 3 ethnic Jews, 2 other. By religion, 428 were Lutheran, 207 Catholic, 3 Jewish, 3 other.

6. For the Spirit: Churches and Schools: The Catholic St Nicolas' church was built in the 13th century, (oft modified) and has parish registers beginning with 1672. Many Eisdorfer became Lutheran in 1542. The list of all Lutheran ministers has been kept. But Catholicism was the state religion. Until 1782, Lutherans could worship only in a few churches. Births and death of Lutherans in Eisdorf were registered at the Catholic parish until 1782, then at the Lutheran church was in nearby Menhardsdorf (Vrbov). Around 1830, a Lutheran church was built in Eisdorf, and a parish book begun in 1850. For a list of archival material, see below.

In the 19th century, the two parishes organized parish grade schools. In the 20th century, a kindergarten was built as well.

There were not many societies. There was a Lutheran Maennergesangverein (male glee club) and a relief society (Bruderverein). Every 24th June, St John's Day, the "brothers" shared the "Bruderbier." In city hall, there was a small public library with smoking room, the "Casino." Young men also joined the volunteer firefighters.

Not much is known about the Jews of Eisdorf. Their births and deaths were not recorded in either the Catholic or Lutheran records. Until Jewish emancipation in the mid-19th century, Jews were confined to small trading and peddling, and moneylending, and Eisdorf was too small to host a larger, permanent group of such Jewish residents, unlike nearby Hunsdorf, from whence Jewish peddlers came to Eisdorf for business. In the late 19th-early 20th century, some stayed long enough to have children born in Eisdorf, though most did not stay long in the village, according to Yad Vashem records online. In 1858 Eduard Low was born to Ernestina Low, no father named. He then lived in Deutschendorf/Poprad. Other Jewish births listed for Eisdorf/Zips were Jakob Winkler (1880), Andre Ben Yirmiyahu (1888), Schlomo Bugler (1905), Jakob (1901) and Margita (1910), Feuermann, children of Tzvi and Zhana Feuermann, who seem to have been long-term residents, Malvina Friedmann (1918), Laszlo Bass (1921). Also, Iliya Langer was a merchant in Eisdorf till 1944. I welcome any more details about the history of Jews in Eisdorf and Zipser Bela.

7. The End after 800 Years: Slovakia became independent in March 1939. In the great European civil war between the two ideologies, its leaders allied themselves with Hitler, who was not yet a mass-murderer in 1939, rather than with Stalin, who had already murdered 15 to 20 million men, women and children by that time. The Slovak Army participated in the campaign against Poland and then against the Soviet Union. Until 1943, when a German defeat appeared possible, few Slovaks had complaints about that alliance, despite what their official history claims today.

But as the tide of war turned, in Summer 1944, there was a Communist-led partisan revolt in Central Slovakia. Over 3,000 ethnic Germans were massacred. The uprising failed. Yet, as the Soviet Army rolled nearer, Carpathian German civilians were evacuated to protect them from indiscriminate slaughter. The children of Eisdorf were evacuated to Austria on September 21, 1944, led by their teachers, the boys to Glognitz and the girls to Rabenstein. On January 10, most women and old men, as other Germans from the Zips, were evacuated with the last trains from the railroad station in Kaesmark. On January 23, the 85 men who had stayed packed their belongings on 55 carts, with 112 horses, and began a long trek through the snow-covered and wolf- and partisan-infested countryside until they reached Bischofsteinitz in the Sudetenland on February 25, having trekked for 350 miles. Once the fighting was over, they expected to be able to return to their little village. The trek left in the nick of time. German and Hungarian troops (though the Soviet imposed Hungarian puppet government, the so-called "Debrecen government," had declared war on Germany on December 21, 1944, most Hungarian troops fought with their German friends and allies to the bitter end--such as in the epic defense of Budapest till February 13, 1945)--evacuated the upper Zips between January 22 to 26. Menhard was occupied by soldiers from the Czechoslovak (Benes) army on January 27. So were the other villages, by CSR and Soviet troops.

Not all Zipser left. Many simple souls, knowing they were innocent, trusted the Allies (after all claiming to fight for Freedom & Humanity), and stayed. Many were murdered by Czech and Soviet troops. And when the war was over on May 8, 1945, the great self-anointed humanitarians who claimed to fight a "good war" allowed the Czech government to torture some, kill others in slave labor camps such as the castle in Kesmark, and ethnically cleanse all of them from their homes of 800 years. Today, Eisdorf only survives in the memories of families, such as mine, who live in the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, the United States and Canada. Two families remained due to illness, and the Cathoplic priest, Rev. Pataky (died 1947). The village was resettled by Slovaks and Ruthenes. While individual Eisdorfer visited the village in the 1960s, as a group surviving Eisdorfer and their descendants visited their village in May 2006 and July 2009, led by Albert Gotthardt, and the elders made peace with the current dwellers of their homes in a moving ceremony for the 800th anniversary of the first surviving mention of the village. Think how hard that was. I'm not sure I could do it, nor did our Slovak tour guide, a lovely young lady who both times guided us with heart and understanding. As a group, we wrote a beautiful village history that reflected our ancestor's world. The Slovak side wrote also a book.

Geschichte der Deutschen in Oberstuben (Hauerland)

http://www.geburtig.de/

CARPATHIAN GERMAN LIFE AND CULTURE

http://carpathiangerman.com/cities.htm

  Folkways/Cooking Cities Dialects  

FOLKWAYS/COOKING

Folk Costume from the Zips.

There is an excellent English-language article on Zipser folk costume by Karin Gottier, "The Costume of Zipser Germans" in VILTIS: A Magazine of Folklore and Folk Dance, vo. 47 No. 4 (December 1988), 5-10, Christmas, p. 19, and dances, p.20.
If you need a copy, the address of the magazine was then P.O. Box 1226, Denver, CO 80201.

Familynames/Housenames. In many areas of medieval Southern Germany, large farms had names, usually one derived from the first family that lived there, but not always. Very often, since peasants did not have well-defined family names until the late middle ages, a new family moving in was called according to their house. After the middle-ages, the habit remained though legal surnames now existed. In most of the German area, as well as most of the Zips and Hauerland, housenames became akin to a semi-official nickname: Legal records would state that so-and-so (real name), known in the community as (alias the housename), etc. Even when locals used exclusively the housename in their dealings with each other, there was a legal surname as well. But in some places, like Muennichwies (today Vricko) in the Hauerland, an isolated mountain village founded in 1450 in the uppermost Neutra Valley, the medieval usage continued. Until the late 19th century the husband marrying into a farm (when taking it over) legally received the housename, and it was used exclusively in all church entries about him and his children.

(from Johann Lasslob, in Heimatblatt Mai/June 2000, p. 5-6)

Cooking. Joachim Geburtig has a home page (in German) with recipes from Oberstuben in the Hauerland at Recipes.

• Eisdorf (Zips), by Thomas Reimer, at Eisdorf
• Oberstuben (Hauerland) by Joachim Geburtig at Oberstuben
• Ratzersdorf (now a part of Pressburg), by Norbert Gschweng, see Ratzersdorf
• Metzenseifen (Zips, in Slovak Medzev), see Metzenseifen
• Metzenseifen (an English website by a descendant, see Metzenseifen-USA
• Muennichwies (Hauerland, in Slovak Vricko), see Muennichwies

CARPATHIAN GERMAN SPEECH

Carpathian Germans were divided by dialects that were not mutually intelligible, as these examples show. Pressburger German was close to Viennese. The other two were rather unique. These short pieces of Zipser, Hauerlaender and Pressburger dialect are spelled phonetically, using standard German phonemes.

A dancing song from the Zips
From Karpatenpost June 1968, p. j1.

Wu gejst hin, wu gejst hin, du schworzes Porailchen?
En die Mihl, en die Mihl, mein liebes Frailchen.
Wos sollst du en der Mihl, du schworzes Porailchen?
Mohln, mohln, mohln, mohln, mohln, mein liebes Frailchen.
Wos sollst med Mahl dank tun, du schworzes Porailchen?
Of mein Hochz, of mein Hochz, mein liebes Frailchen.
Wann wed dein schejn Hochz sein, du schworzes Porailchen?
Wanns Mihlchen pfeift, 's Korn a"uch reift, mein liebes Frailchen.

Mei Gellenztol
From the Hauerland, only first and last strophes. In Hauerlander, German "w" becomes "b," like Welt becomes Belt. From Karpatenpost September 1968, p, K1.

Bie ho mei Gellenztol ich gean
En liebsten off da Belt
met all sein Ta"len ond Gepia"gn
met all sein Bald ond Feld....
Es Volk es stark, es fromm ond gutt
ond liebt sein freien Stand
Bie ho mein Gellenztol ich gean
mei teua Votaland

Ein Hauerlied aus Pressburg A wintner's song from Pressburg, only first strophe. From Karpatenpost Sept. 1968, p. j1.

Kaum kraht da Hohn die Moargenstund, do steht da Haua auf,
geht lusti u"ba Beach und Tol, is munta und wohlauf.
Di Sunn is sei Begleiterin von fru"ah bis in di Nocht,
wonn sie aus Osten freindli strohlt, he Leit, des is a Procht!