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THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS - No. 332 June 30, 2022, © 2022 by The Burgenland Bunch All rights reserved. Permission to copy excerpts granted if credit is provided. Editor: Thomas Steichen (email: tj.steichen@comcast.net) BB Home Page: the-burgenland-bunch.org BB Newsletter Archives: BB Newsletters BB Facebook Page: TheBurgenlandBunchOFFICIAL Our 26th year! The Burgenland Bunch Newsletter is issued monthly online. The BB was founded in 1997 by Gerald Berghold, who died in August 2008. |
| Current Status Of The BB: * Members: 3134 * Surname Entries: 9127 * Query Board Entries: 5896 * Staff Members: 13 |
This newsletter concerns: 1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER 2) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES: - A CHANGING NATION 3) ETHNIC EVENTS 4) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (courtesy of Bob Strauch) |
1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER (by Tom Steichen)  This
month's random bits and pieces (Article 1) starts withan initiative designed to keep more Burgenländers working in Burgenland, provides a bit about a Burgenland-born lady celebration her 100th birthday, discusses Burgenland's continuing efforts to provide solar-powered energy, and ends with an update to one of our house lists. Our regular tidbits include the monthly BB Facebook report, book sales, a recipe and a humor item. The remaining articles are our standard sections: A Historical BB Newsletter article, Ethnic Events and Emigrant Obituaries.  Commuting From Burgenland: The Burgenland state parliament president, Verena Dunst, is promoting an initiative called "Being Back Home" that is intended to reduce commuting. Currently, about 85 percent of Burgenländers have to leave their home village to go to work, with some 15 percent commuting weekly to Vienna, 
Graz or beyond. Many weekly commuters live in southern Burgenland, the area of Burgenland furthest from major employment
destinations. Nearly one in five southern Burgenländers are weekly commuters.Having more time for family, friends and hobbies instead of spending several hours a day on the highway is what the initiative wants to achieve. Dunst argues that the situation has changed: "The land of emigrants, the land of emigration, all this has long since changed. Now it is a country where there is the highest quality of life and sufficient jobs." She notes that, in the district of Güssing alone, there are currently 325 vacancies advertised, even though there is record employment in Burgenland. Companies and businesses are desperately looking for new staff and with ever-improving pay. "They now get paid the same as in Vienna... one no longer earns much less at home than in Vienna or Graz," explains Dunst. "You no longer have to leave your own environment for office or craft professions." An example of this is the Burgenland public transport company – 9 Burgenländers who worked in other federal states were brought back here. "The most important thing for us is that people can work from here, that they clear their heads and do not have to keep thinking about the fact that they now have to drive two hours to Vienna or Graz," says Wolfgang Werderits, Managing Director of Verkehrsbetriebe Burgenland GmbH (Burgenland Transport Services Ltd). It appears that the explicit step the initiative is taking to accomplish its goal is the creation of new "flyers" that will appear on the buses of the Burgenland public transport company to inform commuters of the initiative. Dunst says that "About 25 people come to me every month during my consultation days, a large part of them are looking for a job in the region and want to return to southern Burgenland after years of commuting," said the President of the Landtag. "With this initiative, I want to show where the vacancies can be found. No one should necessarily have to commute if he or she does not want to." Celebrating 100 Years: Mrs. Anna Pfeiffer-Matzelle (née Sulyok), of Glendale, Queens, New York, recently celebrated her 100th Birthday. In honor of that, her daughter, Annemarie Sobetz of New Paltz, NY, wrote the following:   Born on April
20, 1922 in Mischendorf, Burgenland, Austria, Anna was the fourth of eleven children of Christof and Stepfanie (Pomper)
Sulyok. Her father worked in the fields growing food and raising animals to feed his family. Her mother Stepfanie always
made sure her children were clean and well groomed before leaving the house, and Christmas presents were hand-made with
love. Anna still has siblings and many nieces and nephews in Burgenland and Vienna.Anna married Rudolf Pfeiffer of Felsorönök (Oberradling), Hungary, where she lived with her in-laws and gave birth to her two sons, Rudolf Jr. born in 1942 and William, born in 1945. When WW-II broke out, the Russians invaded her village and Anna struggled to feed her boys while often having to hide from the Russians to protect them. After the war, her family was deported to Germany, where they settled in the small town of Löchgau near Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg. In Germany, they were designated as "refugees" and lived on rations from the government in an attic apartment for several years. Rudolf eventually found work and Anna worked as a housekeeper. Rudolf also helped organize a committee to help other displaced people find jobs and homes. Anna’s older sister Martha and brother-in-law Frank Adlowitz were living in New York City at the time and would write to Anna encouraging her to come to America to have a better life. In 1949, Anna’s daughter Annemarie was born in Löchgau and 2 years later, in December 1951, they set sail for New York with their 3 young children. Rudolf worked on the ship to help pay their passage. Anna was immediately happy and grateful to be in America where she could "feed her children." She never regretted their decision. Once in America, Anna worked nights cleaning offices while Rudolf worked in a factory in Brooklyn. They also both worked as janitors in their apartment building to save money on rent and were able to save enough money to eventually buy a house in the Bronx. Even though life had become easier, they both continued to work hard for their family. In later years, Anna was also a cook at Castle Harbour Casino in the Bronx. Rudolf Sr. passed away in 1966. Anna eventually married Alfred Matzelle of Glendale, Queens and they have been happily married for the past 43 years. Sadly, Anna has outlived her two sons but enjoys spending time with her daughter, 8 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. Although Anna has lived through many hardships and heartbreaks, she is known and loved for her zest for life and positive outlook which inspires others to live life to its fullest. Anna is known for her wonderful cooking and baking, especially her strudels. Anna's happiness shines through her smile, which her family and friends hope continues to bless them for many years to come. Solar (Photovoltaic) Systems in Burgenland: As part of Burgenland's goals for energy independence, climate neutrality and fossil fuel use reductions, there is a continuing push to increase the use of solar panels, or photovoltaic systems in Euro-speak.  In mid-June, there was a
ground-breaking ceremony in Nickelsdorf for what will be Austria's largest photovoltaic park. The €150
million system, which is expected to be commissioned into operation in December, will cover 1.5 sq km and produce around
165,000 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to supply more than 40,000 households. Burgenland Energie is building the "SonnenPark," which will combine solar power and wind energy to produce a more consistent supply. Governor Hans Peter Doskozil and Burgenland Energie CEO Stephan Sharma spoke at the ceremony, with Sharma saying: The unique thing about the project is that we combine the gold of Burgenland, wind energy, with the gold of Burgenland, solar energy." Doskozil stated that "We want to become completely energy self-sufficient by 2030 despite increasing demand and thus declare war on climate change – and we also want to take the population with us by directly feeling the financial benefits." One point that was made was that the construction method does not cause "soil sealing," as the panels will be placed on stands and spaced to allow light agricultural use below, such as mowable crops. A few days later, it was announced that a much smaller system at the Punitz Airport in the Güssing district was being commisioned into operation. This system can supply around 1,200 households with electricity generated by a photovoltaic system with almost 9,500 panels. The electricity produced is fed into the local grid via the train station connection. Like the bigger system under construction in Nickelsdorf, this plant was built on stands and the unsealed soil can be used agriculturally for the production of grass crops. Burg Houselist Update: The BB's Houselist for Burg (Pinkaóvar), in district Oberwart, has been updated to add Parzelle (parcel) numbers. These Parzelle numbers are what were assigned to plots during the Cadastral surveys of the late 1850s. Such numbers can be seen on maps such as this: https://maps.arcanum.com/en/map/cadastral/, and allows the locations of the old house numbers to be found. Unfortunately, this particular map had a label added right across the middle of Burg and obscures some of the Parzelle numbers. For most of our Houselists, we have the Parzelle numbers in the work files used to create our Houselists. However, the earliest lists that were made available, those being for villages in districts Güssing and Oberwart, did not retain the Parzelle numbers. For that reason, Patrick Kovacs has been providing the numbers for villages of personal interest to him, Burg being one such village. So credit goes to Patrick for this update!  The
Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):Greetings, Burgenland Bunch! I hope that you are all staying well. I just had a brush with Covid and it was no picnic! We had an great month in our Facebook group. We welcomed 7 new members! Lots of music and photos were shared from our members' recent trips to Burgenland. We had some fun stateside at the Coplay Sängerbund’s Stiftungsfest, too. If you’d like to join us, please follow the link facebook.com/groups/TheBurgenlandBunchOFFICIAL. Member Fred Knarr shared lots of wonderful photos from his recent visit to Burgenland and Slovenia. He shared many cemetery photos which were extremely helpful to many members. He also shared the story of his paternal grandfather Josef Knar, of Neuhaus in der Wart, who was killed in action and buried in a mass grave in Yugoslavia. Years after the war, his remains were relocated to Celje, Slovenia. Through lots of detective work, Fred was able to locate Josef’s grave and lay flowers on it. It was a truly heartwarming story, to know that a grandson’s love would not be diminished by distance or time, and that his grandfather will never be forgotten. Member Franz Stangl shared some beautiful videos of a performance given by the students of Ms. Elisabeth Unger of the Musikschule Güssing. They played for the residents of the retirement community at the Haus St. Franziskus. He also shared photos and videos of the Corpus Christi procession held in Güssing. Member Gerhard Lang shared a video of the performance of the brass band Musikverein Oggau at the 70th anniversary of the Austrian Brass Band Association. Member Martin Wolf shared a reminder about the upcoming picnic to be held this Sunday, July 3, 2022 at the Weinmuseum in Moschendorf. Member Natalie Norman shared an inspiring post related to her recent trip to Steinberg. She writes: “I just wanted to share a full circle moment and thank those of you who continue to keep the Burgenland Bunch alive. When I began this journey from the US, I had no idea I was connected to the Burgenland, let alone Austria. While researching my family history in 2015, I came across an archived Burgenland Bunch newsletter with the email of a man who shared a unique last name in my line: Tillhof. Lo and behold, I had found a cousin! And not just any cousin, but an incredibly knowledgeable and passionate one! Otto and I became fast friends and I finally made it to Steinberg last month. We had a whirlwind of a trip, learning about and seeing so many things, including the 100 Years of Burgenland exhibit at Schlaining Castle. Otto gave a special presentation in Steinberg, followed by a celebration where we met many cousins! I’m a Tillhof, Faymann, Hauser, Hatz… It was a life changing trip and I now feel a deep love and connection to a place and people I never knew were part of me. So, thank you for all the time and resources you continue to pour into this endeavor! It made a world of difference for me.” Never be afraid to reach out - it could change your life! Member Hermann Schabhüttl shared lots of photos and videos of a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of Marktmusik Rudersdorf. Mayor Manuel Weber highlighted the importance of the local music club. At the end, the guest bands who arrived played music together at the Kirchenplatz. CONNECTIONS: New member Caro Basile Cheek writes: “I am a very amateur but very eager family historian seeking to get more information about my father's maternal great grandmother: Theresa Acs neé Bogath. I know Theresa Bogath was born/baptised in Jabing (Vasjobbágyi) 31 Jan 1879 to Joseph Bogath and Aloisia Simon (though a relative swears her name was Theresa too). She came through Ellis Island 22 May 1906. There, Theresa gave the name 'Anna Kerki' on Jersey St, Newark, NJ, as her contact in the US. At some point, Theresa met and married? Wendell Acs and their 1st child Joseph Francis was born in 1908. They moved to the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and had Maria Theresa (Mary Rose, aka Grammy Mary, as we called her) 1910, Julius Stephen 1912, Christine 1915, and Theresa 1918. I know from family lore that Theresa had a number of brothers but, in her obituary in 1943, only Michael Bogath was listed as a "half brother." I would dearly like to gather more information to share with my beloved grandmother who was largely raised by her grandmother and is now aging and forgetting some of the stories and traditions she loved. I am also hoping that finding more information on Theresa will give some more information on her husband, Wendell, who's been a bit of a dead end for me, as well as provide some clues about the man Maria Theresa had my grandmother with in 1929. Thank you in advance for any help out there!” Member Ellen Schieber writes: “Hello everyone, I'm planning a trip to Lockenhaus area looking for family members. My Grandfather was born there. His father is somewhat unknown, the records say Stephan Leher or Lehor. Wondering if any still live in the area.” We didn’t have too much information for Ellen within our group, so we were hoping to find some family here within the newsletter’s membership. If anyone has any information for Caro or Ellen, please contact me at HooftyRN@msn.com. I will be happy to pass along the information! We had a wonderful time celebrating the Coplay Sängerbund’s 105th Stiftungsfest on Sunday, June 26. The Heritage Committee did a fantastic job, once again! Performing at the Stiftungsfest were: The Coplay Sangerbund Chorus (under the direction of Emil Schanta), The Reading Liederkranz Chorus, The Lancaster Liederkranz HobbyChor, The Joe Kroboth Band, and our own Bob Strauch. It was a beautiful day, filled with lots of great music, delicious food, and tons of fun. If you are in the Lehigh Valley area and are able to attend an event at the Sängerbund, please take the opportunity to do so. You will not be disappointed. They really do a fantastic job of promoting our Burgenland culture! Here are a two quick clips of some of the singalong and button box performances. https://youtu.be/uwDTmLHNiAE https://youtu.be/n1wQg7-wu2I Enjoy! Vanessa  Update
for book "The Burgenländer Emigration to America": Here is this month's update on purchases of the English issue of
the 3rd edition of Dr. Walter Dujmovits' book "Die Amerika-Wanderung Der Burgenländer."Current total sales are 1663 copies, as interested people purchased 2 more books during this past month. As always, the book is available for online purchase at a list price of $8.12 (which is the production charge for the book, as we purposely choose not to make a profit so we can avoid dealing with the income tax consequences and so you can obtain the book at as low a cost as possible!), plus tax & shipping. See the BB homepage for a link to the information / ordering page and for information about current discounts (there is at least one discount on price or shipping available most of the time... if not, wait a few days and there will be one!). The book is an excellent read for the Burgenländers in your family. Burgenland Recipes: Editor's note: Stephanie Bundschuh mentioned last month that her Kürbis recipe was a fantastic accompaniment to a pork roast and bread dumplings. Member Christian Geosits was kind enough to immediately send this month's recipe for semmelknödel. Enjoy! From Christian Geosits: Our family has used this recipe for the last 50-60 odd years. Please note that as a Geosits family variation, we do add some nutmeg. Meticulous respect regarding the relation between bread, milk, eggs and flour has proven the best way to avoid the Knödel (dumpling really is an odd word) falling apart once being put in the boiling water. (Ed: Keep in mind that the metric measurements in this recipe have been converted.) 
Semmelknödel (from Christian Geosits) Ingredients (approximate conversions): •7 oz stale bread (or 4 old rolls) •4 Tbsp flour •3-1/2 Tbsp butter •1/2 medium onion, finely chopped •1 tsp green parsley, chopped •1 tsp celery greens, chopped •1 tsp salt •1 cup milk •2 eggs Preparation: Lightly brown the chopped onion, add the vegetables to that and let them simmer. Next blend the cubed bread well with flour and onion. Whisk the milk, eggs and salt well, stir in the bread, and immediately form into ball-shaped Knödel (8 pieces). Bring the water to a rolling boil, add salt, drop in the Knödel and let them cook for 10 minutes.  Note:
Our recipes sortable list has links directly to the recipes or food-related articles published
in our past newsletters. You can access the list by clicking our recipe box (to the right). Thanks to the contributions of
our members over the years, we have quite a collection of Burgenland recipes, some with several variations.However, we have now used up our unpublished recipes... thus this recipe section will be dormant whenever we have no recipe to publish. So, if you have a favorite family recipe, please consider sharing it with us. We will be happy to publish it. Our older relatives, sadly, aren't with us forever, so don't allow your favorite ethnic dish to be lost to future generations. You can send your recipe to BB Recipes Editor, Alan Varga. Thanks! Humor of the month:  |
2) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES Editor: This is part of our series designed to recycle interesting articles from the BB Newsletters of 10 years ago. Back then, I wrote an article about US population racial breakouts. While I do not have new data at hand to compare to that of 10 years ago (and obtaining such might be a good idea), for now I'll let you have a second look at what those data said and to ponder what political movements of the last 10 years might be tied to them. THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS No. 222 June 30, 2012 A CHANGING NATION We BB's are used to thinking about the large impact our emigrant ancestors had on the ethnic make-up of their adopted countries. However, that change continues today and in ways that differ greatly from the time of the Burgenländische Auswanderung.  On
May 17th, the US Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program (PEP) released a report providing the latest estimates
about the population of the United States. Among key findings were that, for the first time, the proportion of
children younger than age 1 who are considered to be of minority birth exceeded 50%. The precise proportion was
50.4% as of estimation date July 1, 2011. Correspondingly, the proportion of children younger than age 5 who are considered
to be of minority birth rose to 49.7%.The Bureau defines a minority as anyone who is not single-race White and not Hispanic (i.e, is not a non-Hispanic White). More completely, a minority is defined as someone who reported on the census form a race or race combination that was or included a race other than White. Hispanics (an origin, not a race) may be of any race, including white, but this definition places all of them as minority, even if they report themselves as white (which over 88% do) or see themselves as part of the majority white group (percentage unknown and unestimated). The Bureau reported that there were 114 million minorities in 2011, or 36.6 percent of the U.S. population. However, there were five majority-minority states or equivalents in 2011: • Hawaii (77.1% minority), • District of Columbia (64.7%), • California (60.3%), • New Mexico (59.8%) and • Texas (55.2%). A population greater than 50% minority is considered “majority-minority.” On the other extreme was Maine, with 94.3% of its population being non-Hispanic White. Nationally in 2011, Hispanics are the most populous minority group at 52 million, with African-Americans second at 43.9 million. Non-Hispanic Whites, at 198 million (63.4% of the nation), are the largest current group, though projections have them falling to under 50% by 2042. However, if you ignore the Hispanic White / non-Hispanic White divide, Whites number 243 million and are 78% of the US population. This is not an unreasonable thing to do, says Robert Lang, sociology professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas: "What's White in America in 1910, 2010 or even 2011 simply isn't the same." He cites the many different groups of European immigrants in the early 20th century who later became known collectively as White and conjectures that the majority of Hispanics will assimilate into the majority in the future. (By the way, circa 1900, Austro-Hungarians were still considered to be something "less than white" by the "native" white Americans [i.e., by the earlier immigrants].) The other key item in the Census Bureau report concerned the aging of the nation. The nation's median age (the age where half are younger and half older) rose slightly to 37.3 in 2011. However, since the 2010 census, the 65-and-older population increased from 40.3 million to 41.4 million (a 2.7% rise and now over 13% of the population). The bigger concern is that, as the "baby boom" generations ages, this over-64 group will become over 20% of the population before the bulge works through. That means we will have a predominantly non-Hispanic-White majority older population along with a minority-majority younger population. How this discrepancy works out politically and socially over the coming years will be interesting! (Truthfully, though, this nation has been in similar social situations before... I think we will work it out.) |
3) ETHNIC EVENTS LEHIGH VALLEY, PA Friday, July 1: Josef Kroboth Orchestra at the Evergreen Heimatbund in Fleetwood. Info: https://www.facebook.com/evergreengermanclub/ Sunday, July 3: Dave Betz Band at the Coplay Sängerbund. Info: www.coplaysaengerbund.com Friday, July 8: Kermit Ohlinger at the Reading Liederkranz. Info: www.readingliederkranz.com Friday, July 8: Dave Betz Band at the Evergreen Heimatbund in Fleetwood. Info: https://www.facebook.com/evergreengermanclub/ Sunday, July 10: Parish Picnic at Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Egypt. Music by the Josef Kroboth Orchestra. Info: www.holytrinitywhitehall.weconnect.com/ Sunday, July 10: Emil Schanta Band at the Coplay Sängerbund. Info: www.coplaysaengerbund.com Sunday, July 17: Josef Kroboth Orchestra at the Coplay Sängerbund. Info: www.coplaysaengerbund.com Friday, July 22: Kermit Ohlinger at the Reading Liederkranz. Info: www.readingliederkranz.com Sunday, July 24: Parish Picnic at Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in Nazareth. Music by the Josef Kroboth Orchestra. Info: www.holytrinitywhitehall.weconnect.com/ Sunday, July 24: Maria & John at the Coplay Sängerbund. Info: www.coplaysaengerbund.com Friday, July 29: Kermit Ohlinger at the Reading Liederkranz. Info: www.readingliederkranz.com Friday, July 29: Maria & John at the Evergreen Heimatbund in Fleetwood. Info: https://www.facebook.com/evergreengermanclub/ Sunday, July 31: The Jolly Bavarians at the Coplay Sängerbund. Info: www.coplaysaengerbund.com NEW BRITAIN, CT Friday-Sunday, 1-8 pm: Biergarten is open. Austrian Donau Club, 545 Arch Street. ST. LOUIS, MO (none) UPPER MIDWEST (none) |
4) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (none this month) |
| END OF NEWSLETTER (Even good things must end!) |
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