The Bukovina Society of the Americas NEWSLETTER P.O. Box 81, Ellis, KS 67637 USA Vol. 18, No. 4 December 2008 Editor: Sophie A. Welisch Assistant Editor: O.M. Windholz Board of Directors Rebecca Hageman Laura Hanowski Gertrud Siewi [email protected] [email protected] Martha McClelland, President Wichita, Kansas Regina, SK,Canada Tiefenbach, Germany Hays, Kansas Shirley Kuppetz Ortfried Kotzian, Ph. D. Wilfred Uhren Web Site: www.bukovinasociety.org O.M. Windholz, Vice President Ellis, Kansas Augsburg, Germany Tulsa, Oklahoma Webmaster: Werner Zoglauer Assistant Webmaster: Rebecca Hageman Hays, Kansas Norma Lang Edward Al Lang [email protected] [email protected] Joe Erbert, Secretary Ellis, Kansas Sycamore, Illinois Ellis, Kansas Steve Parke Paul Massier Membership Dues: Art Honas, Treasurer Pueblo, Colorado Las Vegas, Nevada Lifetime $150.00 Ellis, Kansas Werner Zoglauer Van Massirer Annual $15.00 Ralph Burns Naperville, Illinois Crawford, Texas Ellis, Kansas International Board Doug Reckmann Irmgard Ellingson Michael Augustin Portland, Oregon Grafton, Iowa Leonberg, Germany Kurt Rein, Ph. D. Eileen Goetz Ayrton Gonçalves Celestino, Ph. D. Baldham, Germany Hays, Kansas Curitiba, Brazil The Board of Directors extend their best wishes for a • Anyone interested in subscribing to Der Südostdeutsche, the monthly newspaper of the Landsmannschaft der blessed Christmas holiday and a happy New Year to Buchenlanddeutschen (Regional Association of all members of the Bukovina Society and their fami- Bukovina Germans), may contact the editor, Herr lies. We thank you for your support during the past Luzian Geier, 86159 Augsburg, Alterpostweg 97a, year and look forward to continued mutual efforts in Germany or Sophie Welisch at 2 Hughes Street, Congers, NY 10920, USA. Subscription cost in Ger- bringing Bukovinian traditions, history and culture to many and Austria: 28 euros; overseas: 30 euros. our readership. • Herr Luzian Geier has informed us that he is currently working on the creation of a virtual Bukovina cemetery for the web site and has asked that anyone with pictures BUKOVINA PEOPLE AND EVENTS of grave stones of Bukovinians and their descendants, in whichever country they may be located, be sent to • The Society is pleased to welcome our newest lifetime him at [email protected] or at his postal members, # 176 Manuel Mueller, Berlin, Germany; address noted above. Please identify location of #177 Linda Gellner, Kars, Ontario, Canada; and #178 cemetery with name and origins in Bukovina (if known) Erwine (Pilsner) Haering, Stony Point, NY. of person interred. • The next issue of the Newsletter, March of 2009, will include program and registration information for the twentieth anniversary celebration of the Bukovina BAD WILSNACK GATHERINGS Society scheduled to be held in Ellis on September 19. by Douglas Reckmann (Portland, OR) On the following two days members are welcomed to attend the annual Midwest Deutsche Oktoberfest in On the evening of June 10, 2006 at the Bad Wilsnack Song Hays. Festival, a group of Bukovinians found themselves sitting • At a time when many organizations are raising dues, the together at one end of one of the tents. Someone men- Bukovina Society is pleased to have kept the cost of tioned that it was “too bad” that with so many Bukovinians membership low and unchanged for some fifteen years. in the area they rarely saw one another much less gathered Part of our success in holding expenses down can be together as a group. A number of those present suggested attributed to the fact that all work is done by volunteers; that they have their own little “Bukovina Festival.” When in addition, many members are now receiving a PDF confronted with “but where?” Lydia Hefke née Beer coun- copy of the Newsletter by e-mail. Anyone wishing a tered with “im Deutschen Hof bei Karl-Heinz” (Tischler). sample copy of the Newsletter via this electronic delivery Karl-Heinz’ family came from the Bukovina villages of Ostra service may e-mail [email protected]. and Schwarzthal (Tischler, Fleissner, Frisch). The next day, Another major source of financial support is the online when Lydia asked Karl-Heinz about the possibility of using membership and the web site shopping store. his banquet room for such a meeting, he immediately 1 responded “of course, and without the normal booking fees.” sundry information, I informed them about the genealogists’ A meeting was set for September 9, 2006 with a short meeting scheduled for the fall. They immediately assured me announcement in the local paper and word-of-mouth the that they would attend. only advertisements. Those wishing to attend were asked to RSVP to Karl-Heinz. And indeed they came. Our “genealogists’ meeting” this year (September 5, 2008) attracted fifteen participants. We Approximately sixty people attended this first meeting discussed our common research goals, our individual including guests from Würzburg, Giffhorn, Celle and projects, our successes, and our frustrations, confirmed Rheinsberg. At the end of the afternoon there were numer- common approaches to our work, agreed to share data, ous requests to repeat this event the following year. The resources, and do whatever it took to facilitate our goal of date: September 8, 2007 with the same general structure as documenting our Bukovina ancestry. Since our meeting, before with an emphasis on including people with Bukovina the Internet lines have been blistering with our combined roots. communications. Now that we know one another our personal correspondence is so much easier. This was my first meeting. There were about sixty-to- seventy people in attendance including many of my And so on September 6, 2008 about sixty-to-seventy Schwarzthal friends and family. We reminisced about our participants again showed up including many of the previous previous gatherings (over lots of great food and beer), and I guests as well as a few ones. As anticipated, they were was able to update them about the latest details of my immediately inundated by questions from the genealogists. Schwarzthal research. Lydia Hefke welcomed the group and Four laptops were pressed into service, and we were input- introduced the Bukovinians, who had not been at the ting data at lightning speed. My distant cousin, Maria previous meeting. Stephanie Reck née Citron was among Jedliczka née Bernhauser, who brought her grandmother’s this group. Three years earlier I had been contacted by her photos, asked everyone if they knew any of the people she grandson, Arian Morgner, who was looking for information could not identify. Maria Ahlberg recognized some of the about his grandmother’s ancestry. Arian wanted to present unfamiliar individuals as her maternal grandparents with her with a family tree on the occasion of her eightieth their six children. birthday. Together we developed a six-generational family tree. I marched over and introduced myself and discovered The group including the hardcore genealogists agreed to that my e-mail friend, his mother, his aunt, AND his meet again in Bad Wilsnack next year with details to be grandmother were there as well. What a thrill! worked out later. Anyone wishing information about the 2009 meeting may contact Lydia Hefke, Jahnstrasse 26, After I was introduced as a family tree researcher for 26928 Pritzwalk, Germany; tel: 0 33 95/30 29 93 or the Schwarzthal from the USA, one of the attendees, Maria author at his e-mail address: [email protected]. Ahlberg née Weber, approached me, introducing herself as a great granddaughter of Ferdinand Seemann from NEW PUBLICATION Klosterhumora. She was pleased to learn that we were related: Ferdinand Seemann and Wenzel Seemann (my Irmtraud Schaper and Adolf/ Josef Neuburger, Buchenhain: great-great grandfather) from Schwarzthal were brothers. I Die Heimat unserer Deutschböhmen: Vom Leben und Wirken was able to send her a 1925 photograph taken in der Deutschböhmen—von der Kolonisation bis zur Schwarzthal, which included all the children of my great- Umsiedlung— von der Ansiedlung bis zur Vertreibung (Bad grandmother including and her uncle, Ferdinand Seemann. Lippspringe, Germany, By the Authors, 1986/2008), 240 pp. Before departing, all attendees agreed to convene the Irmtraud and Adolf Schaper have alerted us to the publica- following year on the first Saturday in September. A number tion of the above-referenced monograph about the of us met the next morning for lunch and said our final Bukovinian village of Buchenhain (Romanian: Poiana “goodbyes” until 2008. Micului). Building on Josef Neuburger’s out-of-print book of the same title, this publication adds several new features In the spring of 2008 while visiting Gertrud Siewi in including charts of the first settlers, of men killed in action Landshut, Bavaria, I told her of my experience in Bad during the First and Second World War, of the 1940 trans- Wilsnack the previous fall. I suggested that it would really ferees to Germany as well as numerous elaborations, infor- be interesting to couple the upcoming meeting with a mation about individuals, and other relevant data based on “serious genealogists’ component.” We decided to meet in recent research. Interested readers may order the book Bad Wilsnack on the Friday before the general gathering. directly from the authors at Fliederstrasse 21, 33175 Bad About a week later, while visiting other relatives, I was able Lippspringe, Germany or via e-mail at adolf-schaper@t- to speak with Adolf and Irmtraud Schaper in Nienhagen online.de. Price: 20 euros plus postage. (near Celle, Hanover). After mutually sharing various and 2 Brazilian “Bucovinos” on YouTube photo to the left, Lucas by Steve Parke (Pueblo, CO) has his arms around his mother, Celia. His sister There was a flurry of activity among some North American Ana Marta is behind him Bukovina enthusiasts in October as a Bukovina researcher and Alfonso is on Lucas’ found YouTube videos composed by a young Brazilian left.