Hi Nick! I am not "challenging" your expertise, not for a nanosecond. I am asking for you to help me understand my very own relatives. I do not have your first hand living experience in the Banat. I do have apparently just as many blood relatives coming and going from the Banat. And......you have now met at least One person and a very large family group of people who were born and came from the very same places you did....Nemetszentmihaly, Temeswar, Grossdorf, Hatzfeld, Arad, Nemetszentpeter, Budapest, Englesbrun, and on and on. And they all identified themselves as Hungarians, Banaters, Germans (in my family it was always referred to as German Heritage, not "ethnic Germans") and Romanians. And there are many of my family still in what is now Romania and the Czech Republic, and Hungary and Russia, and Austria and Germany and Italy. None of them used the term Swabian. So if I really am the "First" you have ever met.....can we discuss that please. Cause I seem to feel when I read the List, that lots of "US", you and me and all those folks, have lots of questions and are trying to understand this fascinating history. It just seems to me you are boxed into having an identity established by the agreed upon definitions and you are working real hard to have the evidence fit the end result that has already been decided. I am very aware that in all academic areas there is "established and universal agreement" on certain definitions for things. I am also aware that inside those definitions a great deal of diversity existed before a majority label emerges to become universal. It just seems to me that the "evidence" shows something else. As I said before, I was completely prepared to discovery "purity" in my own story, and was surprised by what I found. I Never Ever heard the term DS, Swabian, Swowisch, Swobe or any other spelling or tense, until I spent $900.00 25 years ago at Princeton University to have some of my material translated. And for all the "established fact" of DS history, I would still challenge that beyond our own community of interest.....cause Princeton University Language Department at that time had very little information about DS....it is not an established history. So tell me what I do with that? Careful?! :):):) By the way, nothing I have said or think for that matter is to "change" any definition of anything, or any one. I certainly do not want to change the reality of my very own relatives. And I certainly don't want anything to happen to this wonderful source called DVHH. What I have been hoping for since I am obviously passionate about all this, is that you folks with first hand information can enrich my secondhand experience, not just tell me that I am somehow illegitimate or incorrect. I have discovered with this LIST that I certainly am not alone in my experience. I can read all about the historical perspective that has been established so what I am hoping to find with folks like you is some real insight into for instance why it is that my Grandmother had to change religions 3 times in her lifetime in order to "get along"? That is real. You come back at me and say, "nope, no one ever did that in all the Villages", there is established fact about that!" Really?? My "sociologic perspective" is day to day. You are exactly right....it is not however irrelevant or incorrect, and has zero to do with reclassification. Remembering our relatives and ancestors is extremely important. But not as we decide to define them. It is most important to remember them the way they actually were. They in fact were not all Germans. My relatives came from areas in Europe that were forever moving back and forth geographically so their identity was very subjective to the areas they inhabited. My relatives were multilingual, multicultural, multireligious, and multinational, and there is nothing "amorphous" about being multiethnic. Quite the contrary, my genealogic story is much richer than just being "German". German is a part of the story. Not the beginning and the end of it. That is so much smaller than the reality. I am sure your experience regarding mixed marriages is true for you. That does not make it universal. Surprising to me upon reading and researching a vast majority of the FBs out there not just regarding my immediate branch family, was to discover the sameness of human nature. There were mixed marriages, many "illegitimate births", the frequent practice of "common law marriage", and the shunning of women when social norms of the village groups were breached, the ability of the fathers to create children and leave, and the protection of the first born male over all other siblings. Nothing new there, and those things happened as frequently as all other cultures. Finally, no one should redefine anything. And certainly not based on what I have to say. But my story is not so different than lots of other DS members....according to our LIst. Why in heaven's name is this so threatening....the recognition that this was a complex, and once they left Western Europe, multinational and multicultural group of people who to some extent became very unique in their success as colonizers? While I am writing this it has occurred to me.....because I am rereading your message to try and be specific, Why is it that all these people who you seem to believe had such a tight grasp on being just "ethnic Germans", DID NOT at the time immigrate straight to Germany when things got bad?? Why did they think it was necessary to emigrate to Canada, USA, Australia, South America, and anywhere else they could get to as quickly as possible, but not back to their " Homeland", Germany? Could it be because after they had been born in a bunch of other places, had lived their whole lives some place other than Germany, and in fact no less than several hundred years had passed...... they just didn't feel 100% "German" anymore? Don't you have any curiosity about That?? I am zero threat to your definitions. I'm just an historical bystander. And....I am curious as hell and love all the stories that don't fit the mold cause they are far more real and infinitely richer than the definitions. Karen. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Tullius" <ntullius@rogers.com> To: <donauschwaben-villages@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2014 9:34 AM Subject: [DVHH] FW: German-Hungarians - Nationality vs Citizenship Hello Karen! You have not bored me and it is certainly not my intention to discourage you or anybody else from participating in the discussion or to have their own private opinion about nationality and citizenship. It just looks to me like your "sociologic perspective"(and DNA analysis?) leads you to a radical reclassification of the Danube Swabian identity. You can obviously produce a dissertation on the subject but "cui bono?" as the Latins used to say. But first to our points of disagreement. Yes, the DS were also called Germans (germani, nemţi, németek, nemci) by their neighbouring nationalities, and they frequently used that term for their own self-description. That has indeed been my personal experience, based on 25 years of living in a German Banat village (96 percent German population) and in multiethnic Temeswar/Timişoara. I remain in contact with a number of Banat Swabians currently living in Germany and Austria and I have read a fair number of Banat-Swabian literature, from history to poetry and prose, research papers and newspapers. I can assure that the group identity of the Donauschwaben as an ethnic German group is very well established and rests on a solid foundation, developed over their 250-year history. In my 53 years in Canada, I have yet to meet a single DS immigrant who was not aware of his nationality, or did not consider himself both a Swabian and an (ethnic) German. I do not have the statistics about the number or proportion of mixed marriages in the old country, but my experience in a few Banat villages indicates that until the end of WWII there were very few. The objective of DVHH is Remembering Our Danube Swabian Ancestors. It seems clear to me that our ancestors would not want to be remembered as something other than Germans, and certainly not as some amorphous multiethnic entity. Finally, given that the vast majority of our DS compatriots are now living in Germany and Austria, would it not be just a bit presumptuous for any one of us "North American DS" to redefine their nationality? Cheers, Nick Tullius -----Original Message----- From: islandkaren [mailto:islandkaren@bellsouth.net] Sent: 3-May-14 15:42 To: Nick Tullius; donauschwaben-villages@rootsweb.net Subject: Re: [DVHH] German-Hungarians - Nationality vs Citizenship Hello Nick! Wow, My apologies Nick! You have completely misunderstood my messages. I was not, am not "discussing" race. I was differentiating between DNA as a race definition in specifically determined analysis, and Nationality/and/or Citizenship which is geographic and historical and has nothing to do with genes. Anything I have said is NOT about "saving anyone from being German"! Why would I malign myself? As we say here, I are One. :) I apologize again if I try your patience or the "regular readers of this List" by posting on this list. That is certainly not my intention. I am just "Discussing". No one need agree with me, find any validity in what I have to say, or even read me. I thought dialogue was the point here. Your history is completely accurate and I am aware of it, as far as it goes. So I guess that begs the question....Are you telling me that I am not part of this community called Donauschwaben? Are you and the "well-established facts" telling me I do not belong on this list or in this community if I don't fit all of your list of "facts"? I would suggest we all find a way to include here because if there are those who object to inquiry and discovery on DVHH then it isn't where I will spend my time going forward, which I guess would be a good thing from your perspective Nick. 1. In the "well-established" history of the specific 3 waves of Settlers, the answer to #1. is Yes. 2. I do not doubt that wherever you are your neighbors and other nationalities use the word Swabian as part of their language over time. Where I am, and certainly evidenced by this list, very few immigrants to Canada, the US and other places mentioned, were aware of, or considered themselves "Swabians". I have volumes of letters from my Grandmother's siblings and not one time in any letter is the word Swabian used, mentioned or referred to. That is antidotal, but based on the List chatter I would say it is not unique! It seems to me it would be interesting to do some study of that phenomenon for this List. And also, not mentioning it does not mean by me that it is something to be ashamed of. None of that is the point here, and no one is trying to malign anyone else. We are just asking WHY?? 3. Two answers....1. is Yes! 2. The dialects arrived in the Banat, and then they were enhanced and changed again by influences in the Villages from the new environment of people and from intermarriage and integration. 4. Okay, in the towns and villages that were majority DS.....they then were majority German speaking of whatever dialect they used. How about the towns and villages where the DS were not majority, color coded vividly by the DVHH map? Several branches of my family lived in one village and worked in another, lived in villages that were majority Serb, and converted from Catholicism to Lutherans for about 20 years in order to conduct business with Serbs, Croats and Russians in their vicinity as it worked out better for business? And they intermarried. But they considered themselves "Banaters" through and through. 5. Yes.....so isn't that what I described....what am I missing? 6. "Well-established" facts are universal, but your number 6 is not that. In your "opinion" what you state in number 6 is so. I for one would disagree with your opinion on that. Inside each of those homes where mixed families occurred, all the influences of the mixing was indeed passed on to the children of that mixture and the next generation were in fact "different" from the previous. That my friend is well-established Sociology. Perhaps in your village or town outside of those homes you or others were not aware of changes. From a scholarly perspective traditions were sacrosanct, but from a sociologic perspective everything was in upheaval going into the 20th century and change was the order of the day. The participants on this List evidence the change, not the constant traditional you describe. I expected all you describe to be so when I got into this. But as I researched and discovered and then began to really read this List, I began to realize that of course there is no purism. Everything and everyone are always nuanced. And considering the history of the region, frankly it is a wonder any traditions were saved. I salute you Nick and everyone else living through all that to actually come out the other end in one piece. Hope I haven't bored you again. Karen. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DONAUSCHWABEN-VILLAGES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Germany, after the 2nd world war, I am talking now West Germany not East Germany. West Germany was the biggest confusion and chaos after the war because they bombed the crap out of West Germany. The native Germans that lived there were homeless. And on top of that food supply and business was not even existing. They had to start from scratch over there. And then came one train after another loaded with immigrants, ethnic Germans, that were forcibly kicked out of every part of Eastern Europe, Central Europe including Russia. And the whole world was allowing the ethnic Germans to be kicked out. In this existing chaotic after war, and setting up camps for the immigrants, there was shortage of everything. Water supply, food supply, electricity, heating supply. There were people living in receiving camps for many years. It was a hardship season for them, but they were happy to be alive. With all those that had been deported and sent back to Germany it was overcrowded. The hardship of the war, the bombing and destruction, the living in the camps. Why did they want to leave Germany? They had gotten beaten up. They lost all their properties. Europe was on shaky ground. The ethnic Germans did not want to live in unsafe conditions anymore. Eventually, many places like Canada and the USA were offering them a better living standard and a more secure living in those countries. Every country had representatives there helping them to resettle in new lands. This is why my parents left Germany, Daniela Ivkovic Showley -----Original Message----- From: islandkaren <islandkaren@bellsouth.net> < Why is it that all these people who you seem to believe had such a tight grasp on being just "ethnic Germans", DID NOT at the time immigrate straight to Germany when things got bad?? Why did they think it was necessary to emigrate to Canada, USA, Australia, South America, and anywhere else they could get to as quickly as possible, but not back to their " Homeland", Germany? Could it be because after they had been born in a bunch of other places, had lived their whole lives some place other than Germany, and in fact no less than several hundred years had passed...... they just didn't feel 100% "German" anymore? > Karen.