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Situation
in the (Romanian) Banat in the 1945 to
1950
by Nick Tullius
Published at
DVHH.org by Jody
McKim Pharr, 2006.
Regarding the first paragraph of
The
Deportation to the Baragan – 50
Years On,
Lenauheimer
Heimatblatt 2001,
I would like to add a few comments
hopefully to clarify the situation in
the (Romanian) Banat in the 1945 to 1950
period. The following comments
reflect mainly the events in the village
of Alexanderhausen, less than 10 km (or
six miles) from Lenauheim, and I was an
eye witness (a young one!).
As I remember it
(and verified it on other sources),
expropriation of DS property took place on
1945.10.18. The only people allowed to keep five
hectares of land were those who had served in
the Romanian army (as opposed to the German
army). In our village, over 80 percent of the
men had chosen the German army; they did not
retain any land whatsoever. All that was left
for them (or their family members, since the men
were often in prison or doing slave labour in
Romanian mines) was to work for meager wages at
the new 'State Agricultural Enterprise' set up
on the portion of the land expropriated from
them, that had not been given to the Romanian
'colonists'. To my recollection, the colonists
also were given five hectares per family. The
offices of the State Agricultural Enterprise
were set up in a couple of large houses in the
centre of the village (Rondell) after the
residents were thrown out for being Kulaks (chiaburi;
Großbauern). The 'tractor centre' was set up in
a large house previously owned by a DS family
that did manage to flee in the fall of 1944,
just as the Red Army was arriving. Many young
boys found work as 'tractorists' [note to fans
of literature: in the 'socialist-realist'
literature, male and female tractorists were
frequent heroes]. As I recall, horses and cows
were simply 'expropriated', that is taken away
by the colonists and given to their own
people.
Those retaining the five hectares of land (all
Romanians and a few Germans) initially were the
new rich people in the village, lovingly called
"nine-Joch-farmers" (5 ha = 9 Joch). But they
had to deliver a part of every crop (called
"quota") to the government, at prices set by the
government. Since that quota was set without
consideration of factors such as weather, soil
conditions, etc. it sometimes exceeded the total
crop harvested, and the farmers had to pay the
difference. Collectivization' was decreed by
'the Party and the Government' (official lingo)
in 1948. All nine-Joch-farmers 'volunteered' to
donate their land to the newly formed
'Collective Agricultural Enterprise' as did the
majority of previously landless Germans. Now
they worked the land in common, in organized
teams, and supposedly rewarded with money and
products, in accordance with their productivity.
It appears that at some point in the sixties and
seventies this system improved the life of our
DS somewhat (until Ceausescu got entrenched?). I
know that there was what turned out be the last
flowering of German-language newspapers,
literature, and theatre. Sorry I cannot report
on that period, since I had already left the
country for the new world. It would be nice
indeed if another eyewitness would tell us about
the sixties, seventies, and eighties.
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