The Way of the Schwabenzuges
A View of the Old and the New Homelands
In the aforementioned nine
communities the ancestors of the Germans of Feketitsch also settled, mostly from
Sekitsch, a large part from Crvenka, many from Torscha, Vrbas, Sivac, and some
individuals from the other villages. Here all of our ancestors were
residents for 30 to 50 years and divided the good and the evil for the first
decade among the settlers. The firm hand of the Swabian tilled the hard
ground with the plow here. Most of the ground had never come in touch with
a plow since the Great Flood and the hardest work often only amounted to crop
failure. Potatoes were completely unknown in this land and had to be
acquired from the old homeland. The trip went, as J. Jauss reported, on
foot with little money.
The
inhospitable climate would decimate the settlers here. One proverb
handed down to us from this difficult time tells us of the whole tragedy
of the first generation.
"The first had the death
The second had the need
The third were the first to have the bread."
From the unending marsh the air and the water were polluted and because
of it illnesses resulted such as malaria, tuberculosis, typhus, cholera,
the plague, etc. and most of the settlers acquired one of these in their
best years. So many a heart would be gripped with homesickness
because of this great misfortune, or when their last hour came.
The Batschka was called at the time "the grave of the Germans." In the
first settled community they gave their best to contribute to the
development of this village. Schools, community centers, and the
prominent churches of today in most communities were not built until
1820. The churches in the German Protestant communities were built
in the following years: Torscha evang. 1811, ref. 1811; Neu Sivac 1811;
Crvenka evang. 1812, ref. 1813; Sekitsch 1817; Neu Vrbas evang.
1816-1820, ref. 1820-1824; B. Dobropolje (Kischker) 1818; Buljkes 1820.
They worked and sacrificed because the rulers gave no help in the
building of the churches.
Of the villages we considered coming to the first place that came to
everyone's mind was Sekitsch from where half of the Germans living in
Feketitsch today descended from. Eimann reported that the
inhabitants of Sekitsch in 1820 diligently tackled all branches of
farming. About Crvenka he wrote the same: the largest German
village where most of the Protestant members of the Empire descended
from the area between the Mosel and the Rhine. The village lies deep in
the Teleschkaer Hills with beautiful displays of vineyards. In
general this principal village had a number of beautiful brick covered
buildings. Trade and change and business on the canal, grain and
wine growing "nurturing make the place very capable and there is no
doubt this village will soon be the most significant in the whole
Comitat.
The
prosperity of the settlement communities would become ever larger, the
Hotter would soon be too small and the fields too little. Yes, an
enormous amount of work must be achieved there to bring about this great
change. One may not forget that because of the many bad fields at
the many settlements and from the burdens connected to them the people
became scared and burnt out.
