Those of us who have early memories of life in the Donauschwaben settlements will agree that our people never called themselves Donauschwaben. I for one don't remember ever hearing that word back home, or even in the post-war years in Germany, for that matter. We simply called ourselves Schwowe back home; the Serbians called us Švabe. When we arrived in Germany we called ourselves Volksdeutsche, or ethnic Germans. The coining of the term Donauschwaben is attributed to Robert Sieger of Graz, Austria around 1922. But the fact that it is widely used today is mainly due to the efforts of geographer Hermann Rüdiger. It's a sad fact that even today many people in Germany have not heard about the Donauschwaben. Rose