My father was born when it was Austro Hungary, it changed shortly there after. When he became of age he served his country - which was Yugoslavia. In 41 he was conscripted back into the Yugoslavish army and was in Belgrade when it was bombed. He thought he was done with war then and moved to the village of Indija and set up house with mom and his first child. Shortly after he was told he was back in the military - by German military - because he was part German and part Hungarian and had served for Yugoslavia this surprised him, but he went and served because that was what he was told to do. He was fortunate as he was railroad protection and didn't have to go far from home. Now onto language - and none of this is expert opinion - just personal experience/opinion. My father spoke 7 languages because of the diverse area he lived in. I realized with time that many of those languages were very similar. English was probably his worst language LOL. It seemed to us kids that in times of stress it was Serb/Croatian he seemed to revert to - after his stroke in 85 the only one who could understand him for a few days was mom. Because of this we always thought that was his "first" language. Jump ahead 20 years and he struggled to remember Serb words and was speaking almost entirely German. I was totally fascinated - the human mind and how it works. I am very thankful that even though my parents lost all of their possesions - including the 15 joche of land, new home and farm animals in Indija, they were able to escape and not suffer the loss of each other or close family members. Eve On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 9:10 AM, <aztec2564@verizon.net> wrote: > > My Father, Josef Hutflus and my Grand Parents Felix and Sabina > Hutflus,born > in Krusevlje, Yugoslavia considered themselves German. > > They spoke German and taught us German growing up. Some of my Family > Hutflus > members were put in the Gakova Death camps and starved or killed because > they were German by Tito's partisans, " not because they were considered > Yugoslavian." > > My family Hutflus were drafted into the German Army, because they were > considered German by the German Government. > > My Hutflus family escaped during the night to Hungary, stayed there for > a > month or 2 then went to Austria, because they were German. > > I consider myself German-American, just as others consider themselves > African-American, Irish-American, French-Canadian, etc. > > Joseph Hutflus > New Jersey, USA.... > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > ------------------------------- > 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 > -- Syrmia Regional Coordinator http://www.dvhh.org/syrmia