The Reformed
Church Community of
Beschka
by Peter Lang
Translated by Brad Schwebler
Memories by Franz Kniesel (vgl. Reg. No. 1033) and Philipp Ewinger (vgl.
Reg. No. 456). Statements by
Bierbrunner, Pindor and by the Reformed bishops’ office in Budapest, as well
as some memories.
In the first years after 1860 the Reformed let their children be baptized
in the Orthodox church of Rev. Boshovic. From
1863 to 1869, in the time of teacher Friedrich Steinmetz, who was also the “Levit”,
the Reformed had their school and church affairs looked after by him.
However, as the Beschka Evangelicals applied for the establishment of an
Evangelical mother community together with the Krtschedin Evangelicals in
Beschka, the Reformed joined as the daughter community to the mother community
in Neusatz. (Neusatz, lying 25 km
northwest across the Danube, may have led to unforeseen difficulties in the
winter).
The case of this teacher should be identical to the
Neu-Pasua teacher
Ferdinand Spaniel since he first came to Beschka in 1896.
In any case Spaniel was a trade school teacher at the turn of the
century. He was also an organist
for the Reformed church. His
successor was Josef Zert, the father-in-law of Johann Röder.
Zert was already dead before 1927. This
statement I can make about him because I knew his widow.
Now back to the year 1874. In
this year the Rev. Sigismund Draschkowitsch became the administrator of the
Beschka Reformed church. He was
originally a Catholic priest and was also named as vicar in the Siwatz homeland
book. He was born in 1796. Rev.
Draschkowitsch probably bought the parsonage and the prayer house by the
“military border” or received them as a gift.
Like all military buildings this house was also built very solidly.
Half of the house was the parsonage and remained unchanged until the
people fled. The other half
received a belfry at first on the roof. In
1932 it was built up and supported with a beautiful tower.
Until the prayer house was enlarged to a church with a tower the belfry
was in the middle of the roof and over the overhang, the so-called dry entrance
(Einfuhr – Einfahrt). Just when
this belfry was erected and the bell was purchased I could not determine.
Perhaps someone could learn something about it from the Reformed
bishop’s office in Budapest. Yet
I could not find out because my connection there died.
Franz
Kniesel has kept a note about the cost of the consecration of the belfry.
It was written word-for-word, partly in the dialect – and this document
is still a valuable and agreeable piece written as follows:
Statements for the bell’s debt (Gloenschult)
1. Paid for two (zwey) columns ………………...…………..….7 fl.
2. Paid for iron (Eissen)……………………………….......…..…. 3 fl.
3. 3 Guilders for 5 loaves of bread (Leb)…………..….…... 3 fl.
4. 2 Guilders for nails (Negel)…………………......……..………2 fl.
5. 5 Guilders for the star……………………………..........……….5 fl.
6. Paid for the calf……………………………………….............…...5 fl.
7. Paid to make the belfry (Kluchn Stuhl)…………......…….19 fl.
8. Paid for powder (Bulfer) in Neusatz……………....………...2 fl.
9. Paid for the lock…………………………………..............………..1 fl.
10. Paid to have music (Mussik)……………………......….……..10 fl.
11. Paid for nails, coffee (Kafeh) etc.………………...…....……4
fl. 65 x
12. Paid for wood (Hols) and iron…………………….…….......…22 fl. 22 x
13. Paid for ribbons (Benner) in the front…….……………..….30 x
14. Paid for a half pail of beer……………………...….......……….2 fl. 75
x
15. Paid for a half pail of wine……………………….........….……3 fl.
16. Paid for 50 pieces (Stik) of board and 500 nails….…....9 fl.
17. Paid for iron and hooks / pegs…………………………..........1 fl. 26 x
(Klamhogen,
Klamhaken, Zimmermannsklammer)
18. Paid for paint and linseed oil (Ferneus)…………….....….1 fl. 9 x
19. Paid for oil per pound (Pufut)………………………........……...fl. 32
x
20. Paid for ribbons (Bänner) for the music? (Mussig)……......40 x
21. Paid for boards…………………………………………..............12 fl.
25 x
22. Paid to the smith for making it………………….......……..
4 fl.
78 fl. 87 x
12
fl. 50 x
91
fl. 37x
After the handwriting was
judged, the pastor at the time added to it.
Certainly the note served as a clean copy for the cashier’s book.
On the 25th of October 1878 the Rev. Paul Schneider came, so
remembers Friedrich Scherer, after the administrator Draschkowitsch, as the
first Reformed minister of Beschka. He
worked here as pastor until his death in February 1923, after serving for 45
years. His wife Maria was born a Füstös
(pronounced Füschtösch). She was
a Hungarian Catholic who converted to the Reformed belief.
She died in 1926. Both of
the couple were buried in the Protestant cemetery in Beschka.
Unfortunately I (Lang) don’t know much about the work of Rev.
Schneider. I could not determine
with certainty who purchased the parsonage, prayer house, and belfry or had
obtained as a gift. It is accepted
that much later after the dissolution of the “military border” in 1871the
Reformed church gave up ownership of the house.
Whoever acquired the house did well because it was a very solidly built
beautiful brick building. It was unanimously reported that he has been a strict private
tutor. His barber said that Rev.
Schneider waited for him with clock in hand and if he came early the pastor went
for another walk, but if he came late, the pastor gave him a lecture.
Up to World War I the settlement of Moja Volja southwest of Beschka on
the India boundary also belonged to the Reformed mother community of Beschka.
This settlement lay on the property of Count Pejacevic.
His farm hands were predominantly Reformed Hungarians.
On the general staff card of Philipp Ewinger I counted 16 dwellings in
Moja Volja and in Pusta Gladnos (Gladnosch) west of Beschka there were another
15 dwellings where Reformed Hungarians lived.
They were all on best terms with Rev. Schneider.
In total 501 people, German and Hungarian, belonged to the Reformed
community in 1904. The Hungarians
did not take to giving a serenade to their pastor all year to Names Day.
They played other Hungarian hymns instead.
The
successor of Rev. Schneider was Rev. Johannes Stieb.
Already in 1925 Rev. Peter was the administrator, and remained so until
the election of Rev. Christian Jung. According
to the Torschau homeland book he was born in Tscherwenka in 1897.
After he attended the public school in Tscherwenka he went to the grammar
school in Neuwerbaß for one year and finally to Debreczen, Hungary where he
graduated. In World War I he was a lieutenant of the 6th
Honved Regiment and spent 23 months in Siberia as a prisoner of war.
In 1920 he also completed his theological studies in Debreczen.
From 1920 on he was administrator and after 1922 he was a respectable
pastor in Feketitsch. On the 11th
of October 1925 he was employed as pastor of the Bechka community where it was
given to him, a beautiful church under many strains, struggling, and prayers to
build to their honored God.
From
Beschka he got the Torschau community, where on the 28th of September
1933 he took over the leadership of his new community. After the people fled he was pastor in Württemberg and died
after his retirement in December 1969. His
wife Margarethe who was born Welsh, came from Tscherwenka and died ahead of him.
She had the children Henriette and Ernst.
The last is a veterinarian in Gammertingen.
Rev. Jung was the one who warned the members of the German Reading Club
with their extraordinary collection very convincingly against a merger with
their fellow Serbian citizens. That
was shortly before his departure to Torschau.
The Reformed prayer house was built up in 1932, that is, during Rev.
Jung’s time of service. The roof
and the ceiling of the prayer house were leveled.
After that the masons raised a concrete wreath some meters and on it a
stone tower was created. On a
beautiful sunny afternoon the star was placed on it ceremoniously by carpenter
Johann Pfaff (The Reformed have no cross and no cock for the steeple, but a
golden star instead.) Teacher Karl
Kniesel spontaneously sang this song with it, “How Beautiful the Morning Star
Shines on Us”. The 100 assembled
people happily and proudly sang along. The
consecration of the new church was the same as the old one, on the first Sunday
after All Saints Day. On the day
the Evangelicals also celebrated their church festival. So this was on the 2nd of November at the earliest
and on the 8th of November at the latest.
After
Rev. Jung, Karl Kniesel was the “Levit” in Beschka at least until 1936.
His descent is apparent from the personnel register under Reg. No. 1029.
He
was probably a teacher in Tscherenka before World War I and after that he was
director of the India Branch Bank in Beschka.
The bank was in his house at No. 11 Lange Street, and was until 1932.
In this year with the general world economic crisis the branch bank was
given up, and the businesses in India were exploited after that.
Karl Kniesel was from here on the book keeper in the Kniesel Mill.
After
the election of Rev. Bellmann he was the religious teacher in Torschau.
Karl Kniesel was the “Grand-seigneur” and a good supporter who knew
all the folk songs by heart. Besides German he also mastered Hungarian, Serbian, and
Croatian perfectly. After 1931 he
was for some years the head of the German Reading Club of which he was one of
its co-founders. He was also a
member of other German clubs. After
the people fled he was a religious teacher in Waiblingen.
About 1950 he went into retirement.
Shortly after that he died in Kleinheppach, in the area of Waiblingen,
where he is also buried.
In
1936 Philipp Bellmann came as pastor to Beschka.
He was born in Feketitsch on the 22nd of February 1904.
After the public school in the birth village he attended the grammar
school in Neuwerbaß and took his A levels locally in 1923.
He studied theology in Zürich and Vienna.
The conclusion of his studies took place in Vienna in 1928.
He was vicar in Siwatz and Feketitsch and from 1930 to 1936 he was pastor
in Schidski Banovci. As the young
German teachers were inducted in the war in the Fall of 1941, he voluntarily
took over a teacher commission with love at the Beschka public school and yet he
took the first service examination at the German teaching institute in Essegg.
He did not have to do that, but he apparently wanted to do his best for
the school. After the people fled at first he actively helped out as
pastor in Dörna. In March 1946 he
was the scheduled pastor in Windeburg / Thüringen, where he officiated for 12
years. In May 1958 he resettled in
Görmar near Mühlhausen where he worked until his death on the 3rd
of December 1963. In the cemetery
at the old church in Görmar he received his final resting place between two
colleagues who have been buried there for a century.
He has left behind a son and a daughter. The son studied physics and already has a position at the
Energy Institute in Leipzig. The
daughter is a teacher and is married to a guidance counselor. She lives in her own home in Wertheim. The widow Bellmann worked at the homeland museum in Mühlhausen
– Address: 57 Mühlhausen / DDR, Ziegelstraße 45.
Since teacher Zert, who either died or went into retirement in 1920, the
Reformed have had no teacher. The
choir service was provided by master carpenter Johann Pfaff (Reg. No. 1415)
after World War I, assisted by the mill owner Franz Kniesel (Reg. No. 1033) and
Ms. Theresia Pill (Reg. No. 1501). Franz
Kniesel was also leader of the church choir.
A high point of this choir was when he performed an oratorio accompanied
by the artistic couple Peter Freund (on violin) and Theresia Freund (on
harmonium). That was about in the
year 1931. Who was on the church
committees is unknown to me. However
Franz Kniesel certainly played an important role in the church life.
He was also to thank for his quality education in the camp, as there was
much to do.
In
1931 there were about 500 Reformed Germans in Beschka.
In the year 1885 a fourth of the community funds of the Reformed church (Közalap)
was spent for mission work. The
pastor of Beschka (Paul Schneider) received 300 Guilders in financial aid.
The teachers in Betschmen and Dobanovci received about 150 Guilders.
Under
point 97 of the protocol from the academic staff of the mission committee it was
laid down that in the Beschka mission circle three teachers would receive
financial aid: the teachers in Betschmen, Dobanovci, and Moja Volja.
So Beschka was not only the mother community of Moja Volja, but for the
whole mission district of East Syrmia. So
it was of the same importance to the Reformed as Neupasua was for the
Evangelicals. The schools in
Dobanovci, Betschmen, Moja Volja were Reformed denominational schools, in which
religious services were held by the teachers (Levits).
The people of Dobanovci have built there own school, for which they
received 200 Guilders in financial aid.
From
1892 to 1904 the following belonged to the Beschka Reformed community :
Krtschedin, Maradik, Nikinci, Belegisch, Beocin (cement factory), Bukovatz,
Cortanovci, India, Kamenica, Karlowitz, Ledinci, Altbanovci (Old Banovci),
Altpasua (Old Pasua), Altslankamen (Old Slankamen), Peterwardein, Surduk,
Neupasua (New Pasua), Neubanovci (New Banovci), Neukarlowitz / Sassa,
Neuslankamen (New Slankamen), and Vojka. All
of these communities were lokked after by Rev. Schneider. His achievement deserves attention.
In
1864 an assembly of the South Baranya Reformed Seniorats took place.
The assembly commissioned the Rev. Kelecsenyi Mihaly and Manyoki Imre to
inspect the schools. From these
drawn up by the two pastors it was determined that there were 112 Reformed
Germans in Neubanovci, of which 45 took Holy Communion.
In Neubanovci the Reformed had a caretaker, besides the teacher Franz
Krob and a denominational school.
In
1880 the Agram pastor, Rev. Kolatsek Gyula, formed a common diocese for all
Protestants in Croatia and Slovenia with Syrmia by the government in Agram.
However this proposal was not successful.
It all remained in Budapest. After
World War I there was a Slovakian-Evangelical bishop (Bishop Veres), a German
Evangelical bishop (Bishop Philipp Popp), and a Reformed diocese (Bishop Agoston
in Feketitsch).
At
the conclusion of the report about the Reformed community in Beschka I would
also like to also share the following statistical data:
In
the year 1911:
477
Reformed (with Hungarians), 15 cases of death, 15 births, 5 marriages.
In
the year 1912:
44
births, 11 cases of death, 11 marriages, 24 confirmations, 96 students.
[Published at
DVHH.org by Jody McKim Pharr, 2005]
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