Emigrants And Exiles
Book Three, Volume Two
by
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Arriving at the railway depot Elisabeth noticed there were a number of Russian officers present who seemed to be in charge. She was certain that would raise fears among the deportees. The column of cattle cars on the siding was so long that she could not see the engine although there was the telltale sign of smoke rising farther up ahead. Countless empty wagons were leaving the station after discharging the eight hundred Swabians from Döröschke who had been herded onboard the cattle cars. There was still some room left in one of them and Elisabeth and her family were ordered onboard. Her mother and grandfather tossed up their bundles to some men while she and the others climbed into the cattle car and the police officer handed some papers to a Russian officer. Taking one last hasty look over her shoulder Elisabeth could see the other wagons from Ecsény approaching the station. Her mother and grandfather joined them and then the doors were locked behind them. There was light enough to see and as they would later discover there were sixty occupants onboard. They were strangers but because they shared a common fate and heritage as Children of the Danube they were family.
Now the long wait began as the entraining of the families from Ecsény took place well into the afternoon. Unknown to them, before they were all onboard, the first wagons began to arrive from Gadács with four hundred and fifty expellees. It was only then when the order was given for the eight hundred from Bonnya to set out on foot for the depot except for several wagons provided for the elderly, infirm and nursing mothers with infants. As they passed by the Reformed Church Elias found the opportunity to get the attention of Catharine Ehl and what he was not allowed to say his tear filled eyes said clearly and she nodded that she understood carrying her grand-daughter in her arms while her daughter Elisabeth struggled with their two bundles. He wanted to offer to help but as he stepped forward a police officer pointed his baton at him menacingly and he kept his place with an arm protectively around his daughter’s shoulders.
The police officer who had threatened Elias smirked as he watched the solemn bundle-bearing procession pass by and could not resist taunting them.
“This is how your ancestors came to Hungary with only their bundles on their backs and it’s only fair that you should leave the same way,” he pontificated and in hearing that Johann Tippel finally understood what the others had meant on the day he had first heard about the coming expulsion.
After those from Bonnya were entrained the final arrivals from Ráksi, Vámos and Polány arrived and went through the boarding process. There were over two thousand five hundred Children of the Danube in the convoy. There would be seven hundred and fifty more from Szil a week later joining over two thousand others from the Roman Catholic villages in the area as part of this forced exodus into the unknown.
Despite her youthful optimism that the expulsion was simply a prelude to her finally fulfilling her childhood dream of going to Canada, Elisabeth became very much aware of the fragility of that hope now that she was in the cattle car. It had been hours since the doors had been locked. There was fear and apprehension around her, the ongoing sound of sobs and people crying out to God for their deliverance. Little children whimpered and older children whined about the cramped quarters and their lack of freedom to move about. No one spoke out loud afraid to bring attention to themselves. They whispered. Although the doors were locked they could hear the Hungarian policeman standing guard outside joking and laughing and making unflattering remarks about the Svábok onboard.
It was getting darker inside, a certain sign that night was approaching and Elisabeth began to grow uneasy. She tried to pray like her Bitze Fraache had taught her but it all seemed rather hollow in the face of the reality she faced. At first she thought she was just imagining it but then it seemed as if everyone in the cattle car were holding their breath as the sound of voices became louder and louder as one cattle car after another joined in taking up the refrain and joined in singing: Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten...
Tears came to Elisabeth’s eyes as she remembered what her Bitze Fraache had told her after she had learned the words of this hymn as a child. “...there will come times when you will need to know Jesus is with you even though He seems far away-times when you will want to give up but you will sing these words and find strength to believe that God will never abandon you.” That moment had come in Elisabeth’s life.
“If you but trust in God to guide you
with gentle hand through all your ways.
You’ll find that God is there beside you
when crosses come in trying days.
Trust then in God’s unchanging love
built on the rock that cannot move.”
The hymn reverberated throughout the entire convoy and the Hungarian police officers were not quite sure what to make of it but one of them was within hearing of Elisabeth and felt the need to give expression to what he was thinking.
“It’s no wonder we’re getting rid of this bunch. How could anyone in their right mind be singing at a time like this?”
He had no sooner spoken than the convoy was underway and headed out into the night.
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About the Book
The isolation the Children of the Danube experienced from the upheavals of history in the rest of Europe would no longer hold true in the second half of the 19th Century and beyond. At the outset, Emperor Francis Joseph’s attempts to preserve the position of the House of Habsburg in the face of the rising power of Prussia among the German states would inevitably lead to a disastrous war. Austria’s defeat set the stage for the rise of the German Empire and the struggle for supremacy in Europe among the major powers resulting in the catastrophic wars of the next century which would destroy the only life the Children of the Danube had ever known.
The agricultural sector was in a shambles in Hungary during the last decades of the century which had repercussions for the Children of the Danube among whom the landless were the fastest growing part of the population and among whom poverty had become a way of life. Land was expensive and simply unavailable. As in the past, the only remedy was emigration. The first wave of emigrants from Swabian Turkey sought their future in Slavonia recently opened for colonization. It was just the prelude for the massive emigration movement soon to take place to the New World.
Some of the surviving emigrants and exiles will meet in a railway station in a small town in Canada as the final phase of the Schwabenzug takes place and the Children of the Danube transplant their roots in their new Heimat.
About the Author
Henry A. Fischer was born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of Swabian immigrants from Hungary whose lives and family history form the backdrop for the trilogy Remember to Tell the Children that followed the publication of Children of the Danube, his original historical survey of the Great Swabian Migration of the 18th Century into Hungary. The trilogy is written in the form of historical fiction but it is based on extensive historical research and family tradition. Although it focuses on the author’s own extended family it is a reflection of the broader historical experience of all the families who shared it with them as Children of the Danube.
The Pioneers, the first book in the trilogy, dealt with the early settlement years of the first three generations and Strangers and Sojourners which followed highlighted their coming of age as a distinct society within the wider context of life in Hungary up until the mid 19th century. Emigrants and Exiles, the current work, is the last in the series and follows their ongoing quest for the Promised Land that leads to emigration to the Americas and the tragic fate and dispersal of the exiles following the Second World War.
He and his wife Jean reside in Oshawa, Ontario. Following his ministry as a Lutheran pastor he was a co-founder of InterChurch Health Ministries and introduced Parish Nursing Ministry to congregations across Canada during his first retirement. His writing career followed after years of historical research. He is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. His other vocation is being Ota to his four grandchildren.