BB News No. Xmas 02 dtd 15 Dec 2002

THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS - SPECIAL XMAS EDITION 2002 DEDICATED TO AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN BURGENLAND FAMILY HISTORY (Issued monthly by G. J. Berghold) December 15, 2002 (c) 2002 G. J. Berghold-all rights reserved) HEILIGE WEIHNACHT! RECIPIENTS PLEASE READ: You are receiving this email because you are a BB member or have asked to be added to our distribution list. If you wish to discontinue these newsletters, email with message "remove." To join the BB, see our homepage. Staff and web site addresses are at the end of this email. * BB HOLIDAY WISHES As another cooperative BB year draws to a close, I wish you all a happy holiday season and thank you for your cooperation. The BB has matured into a splendid ethnic organization. I see no reason to change our present policies and plan to continue the newsletters as in the past. While not as rapid as in the beginning, our membership continues to grow and we will soon pass the one thousand-member mark. Some staff news that you may have missed. Albert Schuch has accepted a teaching position in Vienna and continues his most welcome articles and meetings with international visitors. Klaus Gerger has been appointed Burgenländische Gemeinschaft (BG) representative for the BB by the BG membership and has also been greeting visitors, while expanding his web sites. Anna Kresh continues to expand her URL lists and be very active in our interests. Hannes Graf's health has improved following a lengthy period at a health spa, which did not interfere with his magnificent maintenance of the membership list. He and Tom Steichen quietly expand and improve their Song site. Poetry has been added! Hap Anderson, Tom Steichen and I have added to the Homepage. The mid-west picnic was again a success. Bob Strauch continues to monitor the Lehigh Valley immigrant community for us as well as staying in contact with the BG office. Bill Rudy continues to maintain and enlarge the village list. All list editors have improved our search mechanism. Frank Teklits is putting the finishing(?) touches to his massive Szt. Peterfa and St. Kathrein record listings and greets Croatian members. Fritz Königshofer has completed the draft of his great-grandfather's brief history of Poppendorf and is working on another article concerning Burgenland composers. He is also the prime respondent to queries to our WGW site. Charles Wardell has been traveling extensively but continues to update our archival index. Bob Unger helps me constantly by offering suggestions and moral support as well as articles. A Dakota immigrant article from Dale Knebel will be appearing in a future edition of the BG news. Tom Glatz continues to breath fire into the Chicago Burgenland enclave and keeps us apprised of activities there. Maureen Tighe-Browne fields our infrequent Hebraic queries. Inge Schuch has traveled extensively this year but has been available for "official" translations and help with visitors. Two senior members have been sending us much material. Gerhard Lang gave up his home in Eisenstadt and moved to Rust where he is very active in local music organizations-he is translating two books for us. Margaret Kaiser has also been very active. She has been contributing newsletter material and supplying us with family history data. She helped with the Burgenland official visit to Allentown last May (as did Frank, Anna, Bob and John Lavendoski and spouses). Many members visited Burgenland and shared their visits with us. Molly and I are planning another GCT river-boat trip in May of next year (probably Amsterdam to Vienna). Bob Unger says we should all go - a great way to get to know each other! In case any of you are interested, I'll be glad to tell you where you can find details. (Two staff members have already indicated an interest.) The best of holiday wishes to you and yours. Gerry Berghold * FRÖHLICHES WEINACHTEN! from THE BB NEWS - No. 48 dated December 15, 1998. We hope that by now the Kipfels and Nüssen and Möhn Strudels are beginning to come from the oven, the "springerle" are baked and hidden and that you've put out your family Christmas heirlooms. A bottle or two of Austrian wine and Birnen Schnapps wouldn't be amiss and our members from the Lehigh Valley should have their Christmas "putz" in place. This time of year, I remember my grandmother gilding walnuts and preparing foil wrapped candy for the tree. *CHRISTMAS REMEMBERED - FROM THE B. GEMEINSCHAFT NEWS Nov./Dec. 1998 The opening article of the Christmas issue of the Burgenländische Gemeinschaft News is called "Weihnachten in der Erinnerung" or Christmas Remembered. It carries a wonderful picture of a snow covered village in the south of Burgenland. Dr. Walter Dujmovits writes (and I repeat the German because English just doesn't seem to convey the poetry of his words) - "Wir erinnern uns an unser kleines Dorf, wo um die Weihnachtszeit meist schon Schnee gelegen ist, der ganz ruhig und in grossen Flocken von Himmel fiel. Oft war es ganz still, bis ein Glöcklein das Nahen eines Pferdeschlittens anzeigte. In das Nachbardorf is man kaum gekommen. Das kleine Dorf war die kleine Welt." ("We remember our small village, already covered with snow on Christmas Eve, everything very quiet, as large flakes fell from the heavens. It was all very still until we heard horse sleighbells. Someone coming from the neighboring village. That small village was our small world.") Ed. Note: Hardly seems possible that only half a century has passed since that idyllic scene. Today, in Winchester (as well as in many Burgenland villages), the darkness is penetrated by light from homes and street lamps and the silence is broken by the murmur of traffic from the town bypass. Overhead, a helicopter or jet adds to the clamor and from a distance we hear the diesel horn of a locomotive moving sand from the quarry. Now the entire globe is our small world. In our hearts, however, Christmas Eve will always carry the magic of that quiet village or city neighborhood where we were born, an expectant stillness reflecting another night so long ago in Bethlehem. * BG NEWS - NOV./DEC. 2002 EDITION BB member and BG delegate (Güssing) Heinz Koller has written a splendid feature Xmas article. I hope to get it translated to English for the BB news. Page six carries a picture of your editor as well as the first of three English language articles concerning immigrant itineraries. Bohnenstrudel (bean) is the featured recipe in English, translated by Bob Strauch. * HIER IST DIE WELT NOCH IN ORDNUNG (Here the world is still in order!) - courtesy Bob Strauch (ED. Note: Attached to this email was a picture of a tractor pulling a farm cart. Sitting in the cart, in an iron corn-crib, are two farm ladies getting a ride. Remember wagon rides on the farm? The vehicle in question in today's Burgenland is more often a Mercedes or Porsche!) * GREETINGS ON ST. NICHOLAS' DAY (Dec, 6th)-from Bob Strauch 1. For an explanation of St. Nicholas' Day in Austria: www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.n/n724489.htm (for a short video clip of a St. Nicholas house visit, click on the link next to "Video Album" at the bottom of the page) and also www.germanic.org/cultpg02.htm. 2. For a little St. Nicholas' Day ditty (Nikolauslied): www.nikolo.at/page/lieder.htm (this website belongs to a "St. Nicholas rental service" in Vienna) 3. St. Nicholas' Day custom: children would leave their shoes by the door or window and St. Nicholas would fill them with oranges, candy/chocolates, and nuts. The bigger your feet, the bigger your treat. (But if you were bad, the devil (Der Teufel) might be there as well to leave a switch.) * BB XMAS SONGBOOK (courtesy Hannes Graf and Tom Steichen) For Burgenland Xmas songs go to the BB Homepage and click on our Songbook. Be sure your speakers are turned on. You can choose from: Es kam ein treuer Bote, Maria ging übers Gebirge, Hört ihr Hirten Ich lag in einer Nacht, Losts auf Buima Was wünsch ma * MORE BURGENLAND HOLIDAY MUSIC (Margaret Kaiser, Bob Strauch & Albert Schuch) Margaret writes: Someone wrote that she orders music through www.abella.com. I explored the site. Once there, I entered Burgenland as a search term, and found various recordings by Robert Payer and his Burgenland Kapelle. You can choose a specific piece from the play list, and then listen to a 30-second playback via RealPlayer. Bob responds: Here's a similar, but better site. Alphabetized by artist. www.alphamusic.de/musik-stoebern-volksmusik.htm Recommendations: Buchgrabler (Burgenland)......Click on "Stöbern" to get to other types of music: classical, Xmas, int'l folk/world, etc. And again from Margaret: For some nice Croatian Xmas hymns, go to: www.hrt.hr/arhiv/bozic/hpjesme.html Sung by choir w/organ accomp. An in-depth (and interestingly illustrated) site about Croatian traditions starting with Advent right thru Epiphany. But only in Croatian. Albert Schuch adds: During a recent trip to Canada musicians from Apetlon decided to produce a CD with traditional Christmas music which can be heard on the Canadian (German language) internet radio station www.radioherz.com on 21 December at 4 p.m. The co-ordinator of the recording, Josef Pitzl, who heads the "Musikverein - Trachtenkapelle Sewinkel Apetlon", has a website at http://blasmusik.center.at/Pitzl-Start.htm (forgive the commercial, but you may be interested in the following) AUSTRO/HUNGARIAN (Croatian) CHRISTMAS ITEMS FROM AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN-L@rootsweb.com (courtesy Margaret Kaiser) CROATIAN HERITAGE MUSEUM CHRISTMAS ITEMS The following items are available by mail from the CROATIAN HERITAGE MUSEUM, Cleveland, Ohio 1) Croatian Christmas customs booklet 2) Licitar srce, heart shaped cookie dough ornaments decorated with various designs and a tiny mirror in the center. A tradition which stems from courting practices of young Croatians in former times. 3) Bon bone, colored foil wrapped candies with fringed edges to hang on the tree. This and the licitar were among some of the first ornaments used by Croatians when they adapted the Christmas tree to their culture in the 1800s. 4) Kitchen towels embroidered with various Croatian designs and verbiage, IE Dobar Tek, Sretand Božic, Dobro Došli 5) Psenica, seed wheat which is planted on Dec 13th, St Lucy's Day in a shallow bowl. When the wheat sprouts, a red, white and blue (Croatia's national colors) ribbon is tied around the wheat and a candle is placed in the middle. The wheat symbolizes our rebirth in Christ, the candle Jesus light of the world. In some regions of Croatia 3 candles are placed in the center symbolizing the Trinity. 6) Note cards with a painting by Croatian American artist Stanka Koridic of a girl in Bratina (between Karlovac and Zagreb) nošnija (folkdress) 7) Christmas cards with greetings in Croatian or English, various scenes with artwork done by Croatian American graphic artist Zdenka Benic Gorn(ic). 8) Genealogy Handbook, Searching Your Croatian Roots by Robert Jerin * ELLIS ISLAND HOLIDAY GIFTS! From: news@ellisisland.org You may place orders for any gift ideas, including ship manifests and ship pictures, until December 19 and receive them in time for Christmas! Log on to WWW.ELLISISLAND.ORG. and go directly to our Gift Shop at http://www.ellisisland.org/shop/giftshop.asp. * BERGHOLD-BURGENLAND PRODUCE STAND - Allentown (from Bob Strauch) (ED Note: I found this while deleting my June email files and it reminded me of the times when our family went to the Allentown Fairground Farmers' Market during the holidays. We would buy festive holiday foods and meet ethnic friends and relatives. My Great-Uncle Frank (Franz Berghold from Poppendorf) started a produce market many years ago which is still operated at the Fair Grounds by his descendants.) Bob writes: I was at the A'town Farmers Mkt. this morning and had an Old World Moment while passing Berghold's produce stand. I ran into a woman I've known for years and usually only see her at the annual flag raisings in Oct. at the Austro/Hungarian Vets: Mitzi Trinkl Sweeney, who comes from Gleisdorf/Steiermark, but whose parents were from Heiligenbrunn and Moschendorf and bought a farm in Gleisdorf and moved there. She and her sister Gisela (deceased) and brother-in-law Toni (former policeman in Graz) would all show up in their Steireranzugs (Styrian clothing). Anyway, Mitzi had a friend with her, a Frau Gibiser who's visiting from Poppendorf. Frau Gibiser has a daughter who's a nurse in NY and was at the affair at Castle Harbour. Another daughter married over to Inzenhof - named Schadl. She said they often go to Inzenhof to eat at the Gasthaus there but couldn't remember the name. I only remember seeing some Western-theme bar there. If only I'd have had a camera with me, we could've had a photo taken of her in front of the Berghold sign. Talk about "customer loyalty". THE STAFF OF THE BB WISH YOU ALL THE SEASON'S BEST! END OF NEWSLETTER BURGENLAND BUNCH STAFF (USA unless designated otherwise) Coordinator & Editor Newsletter: Gberghold@AOL.com (Gerald J. Berghold) Burgenland Editor: albert.schuch@gmx.at (Albert Schuch; Austria) Home Page Editor: hapander@spacestar.net (Hap Anderson) Internet/URL Editor: ARKRESH@AOL.com (Anna Tanczos Kresh) Contributing Editors: Austro/Hungarian Research: fritzkoe@mindspring.com (Fritz Königshofer) Burgenland Co-Editor & BG liaison: klaus.gerger@usa.net (Klaus Gerger, Austria) Burgenland Lake Corner Research: dkneb@tnics.com (Dale Knebel) Chicago Burgenland Enclave: tglatz@aol.com (Tom Glatz) Croatian Burgenland: , fteklits@comcast.net (Frank Teklits) Home Page village lists, eberau@mail.burgoyne.com, (Bill Rudy) Home Page surname lists: steichen@triad.rr.com (Tom Steichen) Home Page membership list: lagraf1@chello.at, (Hannes Graf, Austria) Judaic Burgenland: 71431.1612@compuserve.com (Maureen Tighe-Brown) Lehigh Valley Burgenland Enclave: strauchfam@enter.net (Robert Strauch) Western US BB Members-Research: rfunger@cox.net (Bob Unger) WorldGenWeb-Austria, RootsWeb Liason-Burgenland: cwardell@aon.at (Charles Wardell, Austria) BB ARCHIVES (can be reached via Home Page hyperlinks) BURGENLAND HOME PAGE (WEB SITE) http://www.the-burgenland-bunch.org http://go.to/burgenland-bunch (also provides access to Burgenländische Gemeinschaft web site.) The BB is in contact with the Burgenländische Gemeinschaft, Hauptplatz 7, A-7540 Güssing, Burgenland, Austria. Burgenl.gem@bnet.at Burgenland Bunch Newsletter distributed courtesy of (c) 1999 RootsWeb.com, Inc. P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798 Newsletter and List Rights Reserved. Permission to Copy Granted; Provide Credit and Mention Source.