Survey probes 1911 law, Pennsylvania German Program studying decline of Pennsylvania German
BY BARBARA MILLER
LEBANON - When William Unger of Annville was a youngster in the late 1940s, he recalls getting slapped and having his knuckles rapped with a ruler by a fifth-grade teacher for speaking Pennsylvania German. In first grade in 1943, he got beat up by a fellow classmate because he spoke Pennsylvania German, which was the only language spoken in his home. "When someone got me angry, I didn't know how to chew them out in English," he said.....more
December 20, 2006
Czechs becoming more critical to postwar Benes decrees - poll
published by Ceske Noviny
Prague- Czechs are becoming more critical than before to the validity of the postwar Benes decrees under which Sudeten Germans living in Czech border regions were expelled, according to a CVVM agency's poll released to CTK.
While some two-thirds of Czechs supported the validity of the decrees two or three years ago, now it is about one half of the respondents.
The number of those who do not have a clear view on the issue has increased....more
Deutsche Version
December 19, 2006 - New York Times
Bolivian Reforms Raise Anxiety on Mennonite Frontier
By SIMON ROMERO MANITOBA
Bolivia, Dec. 19 — With its horse-drawn buggies, farmhouses with manicured lawns and fields planted to the horizon with soybeans and sorghum, this Mennonite settlement in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands feels like a tropical version of rural Ohio or Pennsylvania.
That placid impression lasts until farmers here start talking about their fears of President Evo Morales’s plans for land reform.....more
December 17, 2006
The many faces of the Sudetenland
By David Vaughan
Usually in Czech Books we discuss poetry or prose, but for this week's programme we look at an intriguing book that fits neither category. Instead it is a collection of interviews, coming from a part of the Czech Republic that has gone through huge and sometimes traumatic changes over the last sixty or seventy years. I talk with two people who were very closely involved in the book, Matej Spurny and Ondrej Matejka.
Matej Spurny and Ondrej Matejka First of all, Matej, tell us a little bit about the book. Its title is "Sudetske osudy", which could be roughly translated as "Sudeten stories".....more
December11, 2006
Letter to George W. Bush
The German World Alliance (GWA), the world's largest human rights organization for Germans, with over one million members in the United States, Canada, Austria, Argentina, Columbia, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Serbia and Poland, strongly urges you to refuse to sign this bill into law. The focus of our opposition is that the bill, as written, does not preserve a single site where 11,000 German Americans were incarcerated in the United States during WWII......more
November 27, 2006
Participants wanted:
The German production company Janus TV GmbH is looking for German immigrants who would like to take part in a documentary.
We are currently producing a show airing every Thursday at 8.15 pm CET on “Kabel 1” called “Mein neues Leben”. The show is about German families planning to emigrate. We monitor all the necessary steps und witness their first couple of weeks in their new home countries. Now we would like to extend the concept to people who have already emigrated. We would like to know how they are coping with their new environment:.....more
Deutsche Fassung
Biel - Bienne, CH, Wednesday, 08 November 2006
South Tyrolean Parliament rejects abolition of fascist place names
by Peter Josika
A parliamentary motion by the Union for South Tyrol (Union für Südtirol-UFS) to abolish certain Italian place names in South Tyrol has been rejected by the provincial parliament (Landtag) on Tuesday (7th November).
The motion, introduced by the leader of the UFS, Ms Eva Klotz, was to abolish all topographic terms in South Tyrol introduced by two Royal decrees during fascist rule in the 1920s and 1940s. .....more
October 25, 2006
Exhibit examines an unknown story
By Katie Friedman,
Times Reporter
Between 1941 and 1948, the U.S. government rounded up anddetained 15,000 German-American civilians, disrupting thousands of homes.(Photos courtesy of the Traces Museum.) A traveling museum, dubbed the Buseum 2, will visit the Monticello Library Monday, Nov. 6.
September 24, 2006
Press Release
German Parlamentarian Erika Steinbach, President of the German Association of the 15-million community of Expellees in Germany will speak at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh on 29 September 2006. The event is hosted by the Institute of German-American Realtions (IGAR) and the Department of History of Duquesne University. Steinbach, a native of West Prussia (now Poland) will speak about the sucesses in the integration of the post world war II German refugees and expellees, including German President Horst Koehler, who was also born in Poland. Steinbach's Centre Against Ethnic Cleansing (Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen) in Berlin is hosting an exhibit in Berlin which is being visited by tens of thousands of visitors and generating much debate in both Germany and Poland....more
August 23, 2006
GWA commemorates the 65th Anniversary of the genocidal deportations of the Russian-Germans
By Dr. J. Otto Pohl
The 28th August of this year marks the official day of commemoration for the 65th anniversary of the deportation of the Russian-Germans. On 28 August 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued Ukaz no. 21-160, “On Resettling the Germans, Living in the Region of the Volga.” This resolution ordered the “resettlement of all the German population, living in the region of the Volga, to other regions.”
August 16, 2006
Czech Republic - do something!
Since the end of communism hundreds of conferences, seminars and workshops have taken place in which the post War treatment of 3.5 million Sudeten Germans has been analysed and discussed. Despite disagreements about the interpretation of certain historical events, there is an overwhelming consensus among Czech, German and international experts that a terrible crime against humanity had been committed.
Deutsche Version
June 6, 2006
54% OF GERMAN-SPEAKING TYROL WANTS SEPARATION FROM ITALY
For the last several years I have actively attempted to work with the State Department regarding compensation for German American victims of Ethnic Cleansing 1944-1950. I have written to both, you and your predecessor in this regard. Each time I write I am directed to another office, and that office like the one before it, simply leads me and German American victims on, doing nothing to assist us.
18 May 2006
Germans of Slovenia demand official recognition
by Peter Josika
On the 10th of May 2006 the umbrella organisation of the German minority in Slovenia, "the Association of German cultural Organisations in Slovenia", sent a formal letter of request to the government demanding official recognition. A copy was also sent to the Austrian embassy in Ljubljana. The minority also appealed for Austrian government support to achieve this objective.
May 11, 2006
Delegation to Deliver Report to U.S. Congress
A newly published report, HERE IN AMERICA? Immigrants as “The Enemy” During WWII and Today, will be pre-sented to the U.S. Congress next week by representatives of the Assembly on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (AWRIC). The report documents a public event held last year and provides background information about the WWII Enemy Alien Program and its relevance for all Americans today.
Mai 3, 2006
Montana Does The Right Thing After 88 Years
Pardons Granted 88 Years After Crimes of Sedition
By JIM ROBBINS HELENA, Mont.
When Steve Milch found out recently that his great-grandfather, an immigrant from Bavaria, had been convicted of sedition in Montana during World War I, he was taken aback. It was something no one in the family had ever talked about.
For the past 88 years, a lot of secrets have been kept in Montana families, especially those of German descent, about a flurry of wartime sedition prosecutions in 1918, when public sentiment against Germany was at a feverish pitch.....more
April 27, 2006
Letter from Congressman Becerra
Dear Dr. Schemm,
Thank you for writing me to express your views on my legislation. I appreciate hearing from you on this matter and welcome the opportunity to respond.
As you are aware, I have introduced the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Latin Americans of Japanese Descent Act (H.R. 4901). I understand your concern that German and Italian Latin Americans, who also experienced similar abduction and internment as Japanese Latin Americans, were not included in my bill. ....more
April 27, 2006
Excerpts published with a twist
German Community shocked by National Geographic's comment to GWA Letter
As a response to a story about genocide in its January issue, Kearn Schemm, President of the German World Alliance, wrote a letter pointing out that the article did not mention the genocidal expulsoin of the easten European Germans.
National Geographic did publish a short excerpt of the letter in its May issue. It then quotes "Yahuda Bauer" as saying that the expulsion was not genocide, leaving the reader with the impression that the 100% expulsion of a people from their homeland could somehow be something othe than genocide.
Dr. Schemm's comment: "I am truly shocked at NGs dishonesty. There is truly a double standard for acts against Germans, be it expulsion or internment or whatever."
April 18, 2006
Letter to the Secretary of State
Re: Justice for German Victims of Ethnic Cleansing 1944-1950
Dear Madam Secretary,
For the last several years I have actively attempted to work with the State Department regarding compensation for German American victims of Ethnic Cleansing 1944-1950. I have written to both, you and your predecessor in this regard. Each time I write I am directed to another office, and that office like the one before it, simply leads me and German American victims on, doing nothing to assist us.
April 11, 2006
Westchester Man To Take Possession Of Dracula's Castle
By DAVID LOMBINO - Staff Reporter of the Sun April 11, 2006
A Westchester County man who is a descendant of the royal family of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Dominic von Habsburg, is waiting for the Romanian government to hand him the keys to Dracula's Castle, the 13th-century palace where he grew up before the property was seized by communists.
Mr. von Habsburg fled the communist takeover of his homeland in 1947, when he was 10 years old, and has never returned to his former home, living in Switzerland, Argentina, Italy, and elsewhere before settling permanently in America eight years ago. Last week, Romania's Ministry of Culture said it would return the castle to its previous owners.....more
The Prague Post - March 01, 2006
It's no easy task dispelling the myths about Sudeten Germans. But in order to move forward, this country needs to address its past.
Villains or Victims?By Peter Josika
Two different messages about the Sudeten Germans confront Czechs in their day-to-day lives. They are still taught about the German colonialists who turned Nazi and wanted to destroy the country. And yet one cannot escape reports of postwar death marches, expulsions and mass graves, where Sudeten Germans were victims not perpetrators.
While some politicians prefer to talk about gestures of reconciliation, others stress the irrevocability of the postwar order, and with it, the country's No. 1 taboo issue: the Beneš Decrees.....more
German World Alliance
Press Release
For imitate Publication
(Arlington Feb. 14 2006) The German World Alliance/Deutsche Weltallianz, the world's largest international human rights organization, protecting the rights of Germans, is proud to announce that the "Verband der deutschen Sozial-Kulturellen Gesellschaften" in Polen, the umbrella organization of the German ethnic group in Poland, with 10 constituent organizations and 800,000 members, has joined the GWA/DWA network....more
January 4, 2006
Ohio town rallies behind German student facing deportation
Unable to produce visa, teen is jailed
*GILBOA, Ohio (AP) -- High school student Manuel Bartsch is facing deportation to his native Germany after discovering that his American step-grandfather never completed paperwork eight years ago to make his stay legal in the United States.***
Bartsch, who has been jailed since Christmas, is set to appear at a bail hearing Wednesday in a Cleveland federal court. An immigration judge last week stopped him from being deported until he can have a hearing before an immigration court.....more
December 2, 2005
History Matters: Few know of World War II massacre in Salina
Pat Bagley
- The Salt Lake Tribune
The sound of machine-gun fire jolted the young lieutenant from his cot. He stumbled outside, trying to make sense of the pandemonium that greeted him.
Screams and moans carried clearly through the night as the chattering gun stopped. Glancing up at the guard tower, he saw smoke rising from the gun barrel.
He looked in horror at the riddled tents of German POWs. He shouted to the guard to cease fire - too late - and to come down.
"Send up more ammo!" the guard shouted back. "I'm not done yet!" ....more