Cikó in Tolna County

The following article is a summary of
"Cikó:  Ein Heimatbuch über die Ortsgeschichte unsere Dorfes in Ungarn" compiled by Adreas Reder and published in 1999.

Translated by Henry Fischer
Published at dvhh.org 19 Oct 2020 by Jody McKim Pharr

  Located in the lofty hills of southern Tolna County, Cikó lies six kilometres away from Bonyhád to which it has gravitated throughout its history.  To the east are the villages of Ófalu and Zsibrik but there was very little intercourse between them.  The rolling hills are fertile and vineyards abound.  Its settlement took place in the early 18th Century and was carried out by the nobles and estate owners that possessed it at various times.  Cikó lay in the heartland of what once was Swabian Turkey.  All of that is from its nearer past.

  In the 11th Century at the time of the death of King Stephen, the first Christian King of Hungary in 1038, he died without an heir and was succeeded by pagans.  His Bavarian widow, Gisela, was the patroness of numerous monasteries and churches she had established and endowed and she became the target of reprisals by the members of the pagan royal court.  She was imprisoned, tortured and abused.  In 1045, Henry II of Germany, freed her and she returned home to Passau and later she served as the Abbess in the Benedictine cloister in nearby Niedernburg. 

  Stephen I had established the County system in Hungary modelled on that of Bavaria.  He also created two archbishoprics: Estergom (Gran) and Kolocsa as well as eight bishoprics (dioceses): Csanad, Erlau, Grosswardein, Raab (Gyӧr), Djakovo, Pécs, Neutra and Veszprém.  These religious and secular administrative units would remain in place until the Treaty of Trianon in 1919 dismembered the ancient Kingdom of Hungary.

  It was during the reign of Geza II from 1141-1146 that the first large scale immigration of Germans into Hungary began and they would become the Zipser Saxons in Upper Hungary (Slovakia) and the Saxons of Transylvania.  After the Tartar invasion in the 13th Century Béla IV had to rebuild the devastated nation and called for German settlers to establish the future towns of Buda (Ofen), Sopron (Ödenburg), Koloszvár, Pozsony (Pressburg) and Kassa.  The German character of these communities would be retained  well into the 19th Century in their culture, architecture, community life and language. 

  The first references to Cikó in historical documents are in state records from 1334 which identify the community as a functioning parish.  In 1432 and in 1466 it was listed as an uninhabited village.  No reasons are given why the community was abandoned. 

  The Turks appeared on the scene during the 15th Century.  The Hungarian commander, János Hunyadi, defeated them in countless battles as they attempted to enter and take the Balkans.  His last victory was at Belgrade in 1456.  For the following fifty years Hungary was relatively safe from the Turks.  In 1458, Hunyadi's son, Matthias, was crowned King of Hungary and launched a golden era in the life of the Kingdom.  His successor Ulaszlo II ended the taxation of the nobles which led to the Peasant's War in 1514.  The leader of the peasants was Gyӧrgy Doza and he and his followers were dealt with mercilessly.  Soon after the uprising, the Turks took Belgrade without any opposition.  This eventually would lead to the disaster at Mohács on August 29, 1526 when Louis II of Hungary and his army were totally vanquished by the Turks.  Not content with that Suleiman sent the feared Pasha Achmet to conquer wider regions of Hungary in 1553.  The area around Bonyhád and Cikó were occupied by the Turks.  All of the villages in the area fell victim to destruction by the Turks.  Suleiman gained access to all of Hungary and his armies plundered, robbed, enslaved and destroyed.  The area around Cikó was liberated from the Turks in 1686.  The area was now virtually uninhabited except for a few nomadic Serbs.  Following the Turkish occupation the entire region was devastated again during the Rákóczy  Kurucz Rebellion against the Habsburgs  from 1703-1711. 

  In 1715 the population of Tolna County was overwhelmingly Hungarian along with Germans and various Slavic peoples.  The Magyars (Hungarians) were serfs owned by their landlords who were members of the nobility.  The Slavs were recent arrivals and most of them were nomadic.  In 1720 there were five Serb families, four German and two Hungarian households in Cikó.  The mass immigration of Germans into Tolna County began soon after 1715.  The first signs of it occurred early in 1714 when 127 German families from Bibierach were settled in Tevel.  They were not serfs but were free peasants unlike the Magyars. 

  An action had been taken in 1689 to launch a recruitment of colonists from the Holy Roman Empire for the redevelopment of Hungary by Emperor Charles VI and the Hungarian Landtag.  Special advantages and privileges were promised to those who responded to the invitation to settle but later on July 4, 1724 the Emperor ordered that all persons without sufficient funds or property be excluded.  The mass migration occurred between 1723-1726.  Baron Schilson like many of the other nobles and estate owners in Swabian Turkey sent recruiters and emigration promoters to Germany for that purpose and in 1722 he sent Andreas Szӧcs.  The pamphlets he distributed indicated that colonists would be exempt from paying taxes for one year and no robot (free labour service to the nobles) would be required of them.  Then some duties were identified such as a tithe of one ninth of their crops.  Kun was another noble who operated alongside Schilson.  Kun resided at his Hidas estate and Schilson at Lower Bӧrszony. 

  The emigrant convoys that arrived lost up to a quarter of the would-be settlers through accidents, attacks, raids, a variety of typhus-like illnesses due to a lack of planning and vision often causing some of them to quit and return home shortly after arriving and came back paupers.  Most of the original German settlers in Cikó were Franconians although some were from Bavaria and Swabia, Fulda and the Odenwald (Hessen).  Cikó was virtually located on the border of Tolna County with Baranya.  The neighbouring villages of Hidas, Ófalu and Zsibrik were all in Baranya County. 

  On October 15, 1723, Kessnerich, the owner of the "Bonyhád Domains" sold his estates to Baron Schilson and Franz Kun.  Schilson came from Sopron County where he had estates at Egyed and Szecsény.  The former owner, Michael Kessnerich, came from Sopron County as well.  Franz Kun was a rather worldly man while Schilson was very "spiritually minded" and was related to the Cardinal and administrator of the diocese of Raab.  Schilson played the leading role in the settlement of Cikó. 

  The settlement of Cikó coincided with that of Nádasd.  In 1718 the bishop of Pécs, Franz Johann Bertram Nesselrode who had been born in Westphalia, invited German settlers on his diocesan estates.  Most of them came from Franconia and the Spissart.  Kun and Schilson tried to entice them to settle on their lands.  At that time no one paid much attention to the confessional (denominational) allegiances of their colonists as we will notice that was also the case initially in Cikó.  At first the village would be a filial congregation part of the parish of Nádasd and then later Bonyhád.  It was only in 1751 that it became an independent parish of its own with a resident priest. 

  The population grew steadily.  In 1729 it stood at 284.  In 1755 it had risen to 680.  In 1769 it had reached 907.  In 1811 there were 1,235 inhabitants.  By 1828 there were 1,382.  The population declined in 1838 to 1,365.  By 1880 it had risen again to 1,501.  In 1890 the village reported a population of 1,744.  

  During the 18th Century the Bishop of Pécs had jurisdiction over the Counties of Tolna and Baranya as well as a portion of Srem and Slavonia.  It appears that Schilson and Kun were successful in recruiting settlers already on the estates of the Abbot of Pécsvárad and the Bishop of Pécs.  Twenty newly settled communities were located on these two church domains.  The domains of Kun and Schilson were much smaller and they had to entice colonists who were close by because they could not afford to pay the transportation costs of would-be settlers.  Because of that they paid little attention as to whether they were Lutherans or Reformed instead of Roman Catholics. 

  The Minutes of the County Administration in 1702 noted that the Serbian population was abandoning the area and moving farther into Hungary or the Batschka and Slavonia.  They had been plundered by the military coming from and going into battle with the Turks.  Then later there were brigands and robber bands and finally Kurucz rebels.  In 1709 the Batthyáni estates that stretched from Pécs to Mohács included 42 villages of which only three had any resident population.  In Tolna it was the same thing.  Of all of the counties of Hungary, it was Tolna and Baranya that were the most heavily devastated.  During the Synod of Pécs it was reported that during 1714-1723 following the expulsion of the Turks there were only 21 priests in the entire diocese. 

  According to the canonical visitation at Cikó the settlers had built a wooden church and construction had begun in 1725.  The Roman Catholics in Nádasd brought their own priest with them from Germany.  The Bishop of Pécs, Franz Count Nesselrode (1703-1732) had been chosen by the Emperor because he felt loyal foreigners would be his allies against the Kurucz rebels.  It would only be during the reign of Maria Theresia that there would be Hungarians appointed to such important positions.  He carried out many projects and was extremely militaristic.  His successors were only able to attain what they did on the basis of the foundations Nesselrode laid in terms of the material and financial resources that he accumulated in his position  But he was also a churchman and carried out canonical visitations in 1721 and 1729.  A seminary was first established in 1746. 

  By 1713 the diocese was in need of German-speaking priests--but where would they come from?  A few arrived with the settlers from Germany.  The bishop often secured them from Pressburg.  He even installed an agent to recruit priests.  He enticed priests into coming to Pécs who were not tied to any bishop or diocese.  Some of them were charlatans and it was only after 1750 that priests native to the diocese became available.  The bishop turned for help to the monastic orders in Pécs, the Franciscans, Capuchins, Dominicans and Augustinians.  In Tolna County there were only Franciscans. 

  The Spring canonical visitation in 1729 was carried out by Matthias Domsics on behalf of Bishop Franz Nesselrode.  His report deals with the church building and furnishings and notes that there were complaints about the 31 year old teacher, Johann Heinrich Scheiler who had served in Cikó for six years and spoke only German.  The parish as a whole felt that he was negligent in his work.  On the positive side he was a good singer and his handwriting was at least average.  He promised to improve in the future. 

  His report continues:  "The population of the village is German-speaking and Roman Catholic with the exception of thirty-one Lutheran families who number 124 souls out of a total village population of 284.  All of the families participate in worship and pay towards the priest's stipend.  But they are very poor.  The Lutherans also have a church in the village also made  of wood and plaster with a small tower and one bell.  The interior was completed by the members.  The Lutherans belong to the nearby Lutheran parish in Majos.  An Imperial decree from the Emperor forbids the Lutheran pastor in Majos to set foot in Cikó.  The Lutherans have a teacher who also serves them as a worship leader.  I have forbidden him to continue to do this and he promised to obey my orders." 

  Another visitation took place on January 20, 1730 by the Roman Catholic priest in Bonyhád, Johann Draksics.  In passing he mentions, "The bells in the tower now include the bell of the Lutherans many of whom have "converted" while those who did not sold their houses and land and moved elsewhere."  (Translator's Note:  Johann Veil (Weil) was among those who left along with most of the other families and settled in Gyӧnk and some of them later established Mekényes in the Baranya.)  It was later noted in 1755 there were still four "hard headed" Lutheran families (16 persons) still residing in Cikó.  After 1769 there is no longer any mention of Lutherans living in the village.   

  During the Russian/Turkish Wars 1735-1739 in which Austria participated as an ally of the Russian Czar, German settlers in the Banat fled to Hungary as refugees.  One of their new settlements was at Németboly and they brought the plague with them.  A quarantine of 42 days was ordered by the Royal Hungarian Chancellery and County administrations in Tolna, Baranya and Somogy carried it out.  By February 25, 1739 the plague appeared in Mohács and in Tolna County in Varsád.  Sixteen households in Cikó fell victim to the plague of whom 53 perished.  In comparison there were 249 deaths in Varsád.  There were at least 1,200 deaths in the region.  This was but one factor with which the early settlers contended with in the years in which they established themselves.  On September 15, 1739 Joseph Purczel the Vice-Governor of Tolna County was informed that in the city of Dunafӧldvár no one reported to remove the corpses or take out the coffins for burial.  Corpses lay in houses for days.  On April 24, 1740 soldiers stationed in Bátaszék brought the plague to the local population.  Wherever the plague appeared the community became isolated.  In Paks-on-the-Danube looting and plundering were rampant.  No sooner had someone died than their furniture was dragged off and the house was robbed.  Between 1738-1743 there were in the neighbourhood of 6,000 victims of the plague in Baranya, Tolna and the Batschka.  This was a large portion of the population at that time. 

 On May 28, 1743 Baron Schilson sold his holdings to Joseph Perczel that included the villages of Bonyhád, Majos, Cikó, Ófalu, Mocseny, Zsibrik and Palatinca.  The Perczel family was one of the richest nobles and estate owners in Tolna and Baranya Counties.  Their ancestors like many of the nobles had come to Hungary from Germany centuries before but had become full blooded Magyars and fervent Hungarian nationalists.  The bill of sale was signed in Simontornya and identified the purchasers as Joseph Perczel and his father-in-law Alexander Gaal from Gyula.  The estates were in both Tolna and Baranya Counties and were sold at a cost of 45,000 Gulden. 

  The Perczel estates were registered in 1745 and the pusztas of Zsibrik, Eszter and Ófalu were later registered in Baranya.  Joseph Perczel settled the village of Zsibrik first.  After its settlement he applied for a tax exemption with the County.  By 1752 there were 35 German-speaking families in Zsibrik.  Ófalu was settled in the 1750s by Hessians from the bishopric of Fulda.  Bonyhád belonged to the Kessnerich family up until 1723 when it fell into the hands of Baron Schilson.  He immediately brought in German settlers.  Franz Kun also had land in the area and settled German families at Moratz (Móragy) and Hidas.  At the time of the sale to the Perczels in 1743 the village of Kéty belonged to the Bene family as well as Fonyo, Eperjesy and Szalai.  When Ófalu and Zsibrik's first settlers arrived from Germany is unknown but it was probably in the 1720s. 

  In 1751, Joseph Perczel, the new owner of the estates established the Roman Catholic parish of Cikó and recognized the parish of the "hangers on" of the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran) in Batáapáti and those subscribing to the Helvetica Confession (Reformed) in Morágy and the Lutherans in Zsibrik as well.  From 1741-1751 he was the County deputy in the Hungarian Landtag and he erected a family residence in Cikó but his chief homes were in Bӧrszony and Bonyhád.  He sired a large family of sixteen children. 

  Following the Revolution of 1848 and the defeat of the Hungarian revolutionaries and the later subsequent Compromise of 1867 and the establishment of the Dual Monarchy Austria-Hungary, the Nationalities Law (Regulations) went into effect in 1868.  The language rights of the minorities were guaranteed in the administration of the Counties, in the lower grades of the schools and the life of the church.  This was really only on paper. The planned assimilation of the minorities was set in motion and was referred to as Magyarization.  The new measures were undertaken, developed and carried out and supported by the government and had a political objective.  As a result all of the Minutes of the local Community Councils had to be written in Hungarian and signed by all present whether they could read and understand Hungarian or not.  At first the clergy were able to withstand Magyarization of worship but later it became a vehicle for the process which was not true among the German Lutherans who had the option of choosing the language of instruction in their schools and their worship life. 

  After the First World War, Hungary had been truncated and large swaths of its territory and population were annexed by the neighbouring successor states.  Dr. Jacob  Bleyer would become the "awakener" and champion of the German minority in Hungary.  In 1921 he founded the newspaper, Sonntagsblatt.  This newspaper did not have any political objectives but was a vehicle to call for the maintenance  of the traditions, culture, language and heritage of the German minority in Hungary.  In 1924 the Ungarndeutsche Association (Hungarian German) was established.  It was a linguistic and cultural educational society.  His Heimatblätter (pages from the homeland) were  research studies into the early history of the German immigration and settlement of Hungary.  The role they had played in the life of the nation greatly offended the pride of the Hungarian ultra-nationalists who perpetrated the Great Magyar Myth that the original German settlers had been the riff raff of Germany who had become parasites on the body politic of Hungary.  These nationalists were not prepared to permit the minimal rights guaranteed to the minorities in the Hungarian Constitution.  Jacob Bleyer died on December 5, 1933 totally disillusioned by the Horthy government policies of which he had played a part in forming.  Bleyer was a neo-conservative anti-Semite just short of being a full fledged Fascist.  Bleyer's road led to a dead end because the nationalism of the Magyars would not tolerate minority rights, especially in terms of language in the German schools. 

  With Hitler's take over in Germany in 1933 a bitter wind began to blow in German circles in Hungary.  These radicals gained influence after Bleyer's death so that a breach occurred and split the old leadership under Gustav Gratz and the radicals under Franz Basch in 1936.  The radicals under Basch operated a somewhat illegal Volksdeutsche Kameradschaft (Folk German Brotherhood).  (Translator's Note:  Their use of the term Volk had strong racial overtones.)  The Hungarian government opposed the organization until the Vienna Accords when Hungary annexed parts of Slovakia and later Northern Transylvania with Hitler's assistance and accepted the newly formed Volksbund of Basch as the legitimate spokesperson for the entire German minority in Hungary.  On April 30, 1939 a festival was held in Cikó to celebrate the formation of the Volksbund.  According to their official newspaper there were 30,000 participants at the event which was a stretch of the imagination.  Other observers suggest there were 10,000 which is still a sizeable number.  The tone of the event is best described in some of the statements made by the leadership of the Volksbund.  Dr. Fausstich commented, "True to our ancestors' aspirations we remain loyal and true to the Hungarian State and our love for our Fatherland."  Was that a code word for Nazi Germany or their Hungarian homeland?   

  Despite all of the talk about loyalty, after two hundred years of their common life together, the population of Cikó was split into two opposing camps.  After the founding of the Volksbund there was a concentrated campaign and effort to form local branches.  The Counties hindered this as much as possible as did the courts and the district governments.  They saw this as the first step towards treason.  The propagandists promoting the campaign were mostly men of the younger generation who quickly radicalized the movement itself.  More oil was poured on the fire in the parliamentary elections.  They exerted extreme pressure against those in the German minority who opposed them and were not above using terror to further their aims.  On April 30, 1939 the local branch of the Volksbund was founded in Cikó, the first to be established in all of Hungary.  In one short week there were close to 1,000 members and an executive was elected and positions  were established and officers were appointed. 

  Following Hungary's entry into the Second World War as an ally of Adolph Hitler's Third Reich a series of recruitment drives for volunteers to serve in the SS and German military units were carried out in Hungary under the auspices of the Volksbund with the tacit approval of the Horthy government.  There were forty young men from Cikó who volunteered to serve in the Waffen-SS in the local recruitment on April 1, 1942.  During the second recruitment carried out on October 1, 1943 there were an additional thirty-three volunteers.  As a result of an agreement reached between the Third Reich and the Horthy government of Hungary the Volksbund and the SS carried out a compulsory recruitment drive of all men who were part of the German minority from 17 years to 50 years to serve in the Waffen-SS.  This also included those men who were serving in the Hungarian Army.  The mustering took place on June 6, 1944 that was not only D-Day on the beaches of Normandy but also for all of the remaining men in Cikó. 

  On November 29, 1944 the Russians marched into Cikó after some minor skirmishes at the outskirts of the village.  Plundering, looting and raping followed.  One young woman was shot to death in her attempt to escape being raped.   On December 31, 1944 the first convoy of men and women from Cikó was assembled and consisted of those persons aged from 17 to 45 years (women) and 17 to 55 years (men) who set out on foot for Székszárd which was about 30 kilometres away under heavy Russian guard.  There were about two hundred persons involved.  They would be interned there for ten days. 

  On January 10, 1945 they were taken to Baja where they were entrained and taken across Romania in cattle cars to the coal mines in the Donets Basin of Ukraine.  The trip lasted three weeks and two of the Cikó deportees died on the way.  One was a man and the other a woman.  

  From February 18-21, 1945 a second convoy of men and women was assembled in Cikó.  They were transported to the assembly camp at Dombovár.  They numbered about fifty persons mostly women.  The writer was uncertain of the exact date when the convoy left for the Soviet Union. 

  There were forty-five of the deportees from Cikó who perished in the labour camps.  Thirty of the men would never return home and fifteen of the women, six of whom were mothers who had left small children behind. 

  The deportees to the Soviet Union were assembled and sent in three directions:  the coal mines in the Donets Basin, the Ural Mountains and Siberia.  One route was Baja-Szeged-Romania-Russia; another was Bekescsaba-Elek-Gyula-Arad-Tovis-Brasso-Russia; and finally Szabolcs-Szatmar-Szernes,-Nyigyhaza-Solymar-Russia.  The largest assembly camp was located in Solymar.  Those from the area around Budapest were brought there.  Altogether there were 65,000 members of the German minority in Hungary who were involved.  In total there were at least 140,000 Danube Swabians from Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania that were sent to slave labour in the Soviet Union. 

                                    Hungary                          65,000

                                    Yugoslavia                      25,000

                                    Romania                          50,000 

  It is estimated that 20% of them perished.  The last of the deportees to return to Hungary from Russia arrived in 1949 and 1950.  Countless others who had become sick and unable to work had been sent in the convoys of returning German prisoners of war and arrived in Frankfurt-an-Oder in the Russian Zone of Germany.  Many of those who returned to Hungary discovered that their families had been deported to Germany and tried to escape from Hungary to join them.  A small group were allowed to rejoin their families legally in September of 1950.  The soldiers from the German minority who were prisoners of war in the Soviet Union were interned on their arrival in Hungary.  Most were sent to labour camps in Hungary and were only released in 1952. 

  The Hungarian government issued the Land Reform Act on March 15, 1945 that called for the confiscation of lands and property of the large land owners, members of the Volksbund and war criminals and traitors.  The carrying out of the Act began in Tolna County at the end of April 1945 as the war still raged.  The organizer of the action in Swabian Turkey (Tolna, Baranya and Somogy Counties) was Dr. Bodor Gyӧrgy an attorney who was a Szekler (Magyar tribe) from Transylvania.  He came to Bonyhád on April 24, 1945 from Budapest with the goal of resettling displaced Bukovina Csangos (Asiatic Magyars) in Tolna County.  He set up headquarters to carry out his assignment.  He decided that two thirds of the Swabian population were members of the Volksbund and had them brought to Lengyel where the Apponyi castle was used to imprison and intern them.  Within five days there were 1,500 Csango families, some 6,000 persons who were settled in Swabian homes and their villages in the area. 

  On May 27, 1945 Bodor was recalled to Budapest and never returned.  The internment of the Swabians was carried out by squads of political police officers.  Because there were no records to indicate who was a Volksbund member the local officials declared who they decided were and sent them and their families to Lengyel.  By May 1945 there were 20,000 Swabians from the Bonyhád district who were interned in Lengyel. It was the largest internment camp in Hungary.  Between 1945-1947 the number of Csangos settled in Tolna County amounted to 2,605 families, 716 families in Baranya and 490 families in the Batschka.  The tragedy struck in Cikó on April 17, 1945.  Almost the entire German population was thrown out of their homes and was force marched under guard by Hungarian police to the former Apponyi castle. 

  At 8:00 a.m. the Klein Richter beat his drum at the main intersections of the village and announced that all persons were to quickly assemble in the village common in the centre of the village just as they were.  Everyone came as ordered without any luggage or provisions.  Later they learned that the secret police and military units had surrounded Cikó during the night and in the early morning.  They were also isolated shots.  This was intended to create fear and prevent any opposition. 

  The commons was fenced in.  An entrance way was made through it.  On the street just before the "gate" a table had been set up.  As individuals and families reported they were either sent into the commons or the yard of a nearby house.  The men at the table were men from Cikó who were to judge which of them were members of the Volksbund and those who had been loyal to Hungary.  But that was not the real issue.  Cikó had to provide housing for the quota of Csangos assigned to them. 

  Those in the common were force marched in the direction of Bonyhád on the same day.  They were not allowed to return to their homes or take anything with them.  They were declared "outside of the law."  (Out-laws).  They spent the night in the out-of-doors and left on foot with a few wagons for the sick and elderly.  Next day they arrived at Lengyel.  Over time internees escaped and left the area to avoid apprehension.  Those who were able to work were sent to Székszárd and many later returned to Cikó attempting to find a place to live and make a living. 

  The first expulsion convoy of the German inhabitants from Cikó took place on June 5, 1946 and involved 260 families (1,170 persons) who were sent to the American Zone of Germany.  A second group of ten families were expelled on June 7, 1946.  In February 1948 an additional two families were expelled to the Russian Zone of Germany.