Thank you Aida for this wonderful history lesson. I am just beginning to research my German-Bohemian ancestor's and learning alot right now. I know at some time I will need this list's help. Thank you. Linde ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aida Kraus" <akibb1@verizon.net> To: <GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 8:42 AM Subject: Re: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Boehmerwald >I doubt it that there are lists of person that went with the Americans to >West Germany. Americans knew what was coming and took anyone with them who >wanted to leave. Those German Bohemians having some ties to the Nazi >Regime left on their own and took the chance to hop on the American trucks. >But here it must be explained here that German citizens were unable to >continue their profession under the Hitler regime (like as a doctor, >lawyer, industrialist or businessman) if you did not belong to the NSDAP, >the Nazi Party. All of these party members on the transport trucks of the >Americans were handed over at the border to the courts where they were put >into "Denazification" camps. They enjoyed there very decent treatment and >three full meals a day with classes during the day....and for us >Non-Members this seemed like a "cushy existence." The rest of us stayed >at home, we had nothing to fear, we just waited that the "old republic" >would establish itself again. Or so we thought...... > There must be deportation lists of all Germans in the Czech > archives, because everyone expelled went through a local camp and name > lists were checked off as the people were put into transports. > This process happened after most of the people had been thrown out of > their house and fleeced for their valuables. Most of our people found > shelter with neighbors or friends, who in turn were also booted out of > their homes and many of us saw these cruel displacements more than once. > The nicest homes were appropriated first in quite a horrible manner (spare > me the details!), then the next best category was selected for a > convenient location, the least desirable places were left to the last. > Into these abandoned garrets the remaining German population huddled > together, but there was no chance for invisibility, because every German > had to wear a white arm band when going out of the house. You never knew > when they "grabbed" you. Eventually, all of us were chased into camps and > sorted out for transports to either East or West Germany. The expulsion > was pretty much completed in 1947, the year the Czech people voted for a > Communist Regime with a sweeping majority. > What was left in the Czech Republic of our German Bohemians were > either mixed marriages with Czechs, or anti-fascist Germans, or those very > few that had belonged to the Communist Party before Hitler's occupation. > Then new transports - for these remaining people who had been loyal to the > Czech Republic - were formed. But these were transported to slave > labor - oh horror! - into the Interior of the Czech Republic .... and > promptly forgotten. It would have been better, had they been expelled. > It was my father and his friend, a Czech Police Director who > helped these scattered people. Our friend searched for our family in all > the expulsion transport records - and this is why I know that they exist - > and found us as slave laborers in the Interior. He and my father worked > together in making lists of Germans on these farms to be rescued. At that > time, Czechoslovakia no longer supported the expulsion, because they had > realized that mass transporting German people from their ancestral > homeland had left a horrible void very visible in the countryside and it > was quite near a collapse of their entire economy, because the industrial > section of the Czech Republic is mainly in the area of the Sudetenland. > The interior of the Czech Republic is mostly agricultural. What followed > in the years to come, was just a "real mess!" > Only 800,000 Czechs were taking over an area from where 3 > Million Germans had been expelled and that mistake was all to obvious in > 1948. I was able to remain in my homeland until December1948, so I have > seen the "aftermath" and it was not pretty: it was a decaying vacuum. > Then, the Czech government made it very difficult for anyone to leave. > German people had to pay for their release and their transport to Germany, > they were "held" rather than "expelled," but what was left of our group > was only a sad remainder. In other words who was still there were those > old loyal Republicans badly abused by the Country they supported. There > was no reason any longer to remain in a homeland that was highjacked by > Communists and slowly it dawned even on the Czech people that all this was > a bad mistake. > As we were able to gather information into what corners of the > Czech landscape our people had been scattered, my father and his Czech > friend (a Police Director loyal to the old Republic) tried desperately to > find them and rescue them. The news traveled steadily by word of mouth, > one person knew where another could be found. When we had a few together, > I typed transport lists in the office of my father's friend Velitel > Zlatohlavek at Maierhöfen near Karlsbad......... and I would say, that the > Czech Republic must have these lists in some archives somewhere!???!!! > After that, many like-minded Czechs followed their German > brethren in escaping from the Communist regime, and in most of the cases > they had to establish German connections to be able to leave to West > Germany. Many of our German Bohemian people had to go before the German > courts to vouchsafe the character of their Czech friends or families in > order that they were accepted in Germany. > A crazier scenario could not be contrived. > There is another later chapter to this. After the Prague Spring > another exodus started to West Germany from the Czech Republic, when > mostly "mixed marriage couples" were granted a leave for Germany, that is, > if they could bring proof of their family's connection to West Germany. > Between 1965-1968 another group, mostly of Czech ethnicity, escaped their > Communist country. It is a tragedy among all our Bohemian people, German > and Czech alike! And this tragedy for so many million of people was > contrived with a fewbold signatures on a document in Yalta and Potsdam by > politicians who let their hatred rule over their conscience. May future > politicians learn from this! > Aida > > --------------------------------------------------- > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Veda Anderson" <anderv@cyberlodge.com> > To: <GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 7:09 AM > Subject: Re: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Boehmerwald > > >> does anyone know if there is a list of surnames availa ble of those who >> were displaced by the allies. Germans moved to Germany?????????????? >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Aida Kraus" <akibb1@verizon.net> >> To: <GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 10:35 AM >> Subject: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Boehmerwald >> >> >>> For anyone who wishes to look at some of the farms in the Boehmerwald, >>> (Bohemian forest, Sumava) >>> here is a link where you can see how some of the larger farms (Gutshof) >>> looked when the German owners lived there and what they found when they >>> came back to visit... Go to this link, it is one available in English. >>> Those of you who are from the Egerland, these larger farms had the same >>> architecture there and the tenant families lived there sometimes for >>> centuries with the owners. >>> On this page, there are also a few village names given and names >>> mentioned, just in case it would fit into your family. Forgive the >>> bitterness on this page, but a person robbed of their ancestral home >>> becomes "homeless" until the next generation plants their own roots into >>> a new homeland, wherever the wind of fate has scattered them since the >>> expulsion between 1945-1948, after WW2. German Bohemians lived for >>> centuries on their farms and each generation built on this inheritance >>> and "made it prettier" than it was before, this was their pride. Ours >>> was not a "moving or wandering" society, but a very earthbound one, and >>> the expulsion has impacted very harshly on these families. >>> Aida >>> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jschopper/englisch.htm >>> >>> >>> ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== >>> Would you like to see messages that were posted before you joined the >>> list? To browse the archives, go to: >>> http://archiver.rootsweb.com/GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L/ >>> >>> >> >> >> ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== >> Forgotten how to UNSUBSCRIBE? >> Visit http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/mailinglist/mailinglist.html >> > > > ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== > Visit the German-Bohemian Heritage Society Web Page! > http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ >