^{The News}
Dedicated to Austrian-Hungarian Burgenland Family History

Gustav Rehberger A Riedlingsdorf emigrant child became a 'Vulcan Expressionist' Gustav Rehberger was born in Riedlingsdorf in 1920. When his parents went to the USA in 1913, the three Rehberger children stayed with their grandparents. After the parents were only able to return in 1920 due to the First World War, the family decided in 1923 to emigrate to the USA for good in order to settle in Chicago. Gustav Rehberger soon won several competitions and thus financed his education. In the 1930s he worked as a designer, and his honeymoon also took him back to his birthplace in 1937. After painting patriotic pictures for the army during World War II to promote the sale of war bonds, Rehberger made a name for himself in the 1950s designing movie posters for Hollywood classics such as Moby Dick. The state of Burgenland acquired one of Rehberger's pictures in 2020 for the exhibition "Our Americans". In the last decades of his life, Rehberger passed on his knowledge to numerous art students. When he died in New York in 1995, Kultur Austria described him in an obituary as a "volcanic expressionist" because of his expressive painting style.

The Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):

Greetings, Burgenland Bunch!

I hope that this update finds you well! We had a great month in our Facebook group. We welcomed 20 new members. Several members have recently taken trips to Burgenland. They have been sharing lots of great stories and photos with us. Come visit us if you haven’t done so - we have a lot of fun! facebook.com/TheBurgenlandBunch

We had a wonderful thing happen this month in our group. Member Ed Gomboz posted a message informing the group that he would soon be traveling to Burgenland. Member Kurt Weisz responded, stating he was a cousin of Ed’s living close to Sankt Michael im Burgenland and would love to meet up with him! Fast forward a few weeks, and the cousins got to meet in person.

Ed writes, “Yesterday I was able to meet up with my cousin Kurt Weisz while we were visiting the St. Michael im Burgenland region. We share the same great grandparents, Franz Weiss and Anna (Karausz) Weiss. We had a great time meeting in person in St. Michael, seeing the church that my ancestors attended, visiting the family graves in the cemetery, and seeing the location where my grandmother and great-grandparent’s home one stood. It was also a great honor to meet Kurt’s parents, Erich and Gertrude Weisz.”

I am so happy that this connection has been made. I’m sure their great-grandparents would be thrilled to know that their grandchildren found each other, in spite of all of the time and space between them.

Member Gerhard Lang shared a video from a performance at "Woodstock der Blasmusik" at Ort im Innkreis, Upper Austria, on Burgenland Day.

Member Hermann Schabhüttl shared lots of great videos from Marktmusik Rudersdorf, too.

BB Staff member Patrick Kovacs was kind enough to share his expanded transcription of the Großpetersdorf marriage records, including Jabing, Miedlingsdorf, and Kleinpetersdorf. He added the marriages from 1797-1827. He also added the parents for the 1843-1852 and 1860-1864 marriages. Great job, Patrick!

Patrick also made us aware that FamilySearch has started to index Catholic death and marriage records for the 1828-1895 period. He also noted that Ancestry.com has added indexed Catholic records for the Diocese of Vienna. This will definitely be helpful for many of us!

Member Liz Hubner shared lots of great photos with us from her trip to Deutsch Tschantschendorf. She took time to photograph the gravestones there, which is greatly appreciated by our members researching their families there. She also shared photos from the 60th Auslandsburgenländertreffen picnic held July 3rd at the Weinmuseum in Moschendorf. A big “thank you” to Liz for sharing all of this information!

Member Judi Balogh Berggren recently visited Schachendorf and Rechnitz and photographed the Schachendorf Cemetery. She also shared photos of the war memorials located in Rechnitz and Vienna. Thank you, Judi, for sharing these wonderful photos with the group!

CONNECTIONS:

Member Annette Andrews is looking for information about the family of her grandmother, Anna Marlovits of Durnbach. She writes “Anna (Marlovits) Werderits was born 19.9.1890 in Durnbach. Her mother was Aloisia Marlovits born 1870 in Zuberach. She was unmarried so father’s name is unknown. My grandfather Georg Werderits was born 7.4.1885 in Hannersdorf and died in Durnbach in 1949. His parents were Georg Werderits born 9.1.1848 in Hannersdorf and Maria Marlovits born 4.8.1846 in Durnbach. I am especially interested in Aloisia Marlovits and her ancestors. I think this might be a Jewish heritage for me. Thank you for your help and interest.”

If you have any information that you’d like to share with Annette, lease let me know and I’d be happy to pass it on to her! Please contact me at HooftyRN@msn.com and I’ll send the info on to her.

Until next time, be well!

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 1675 copies, as interested people purchased 12 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: We have used up our stash of unpublished Burgenland-related recipes, thus we offer none this month.

As noted below, if you have a Burgenländische family favorite recipe, please consider sending it to the BB via the email link found by clicking Alan Varga's name below.



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, whenever we use up our unpublished recipes, this recipe section will become dormant. 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!



Cartoon of the month:

In the item relating to reasons Burgenländers emigrated one referred to a 12-year military commitment. Do you know who mandated that and to whom it applied? Family tradition says my grandfather left Jánossomorja because he didn't want to serve in the military but he was married and had children at that point, which may or may not have made any difference.



Both comments above were in reply to the last newsletter. While I can heartily suggest all of you consider visiting the Nationality Rooms at Pitt if you get the opportunity, I chose to publish Arlene's note and my reply (below) because I think an understanding of the military service issues and its possible impact on encouraging emigration is worth having. So...



I replied: Hi Arlene, The Nationality Rooms were a treat… but as you suggested, I was one of the many who knew nothing about them before Anna proposed going there.

On the conscription question, the quote in the newsletter was dated 1882, which was during the era of the Dual Monarchy (1867-1918) under the Habsburg’s monarch Franz Josef. During that time, Franz Josef ruled as Emperor of Austria over the western and northern half of the country that was known as the Austrian Empire (Cisleithania, or Lands represented in the Imperial Council) and as King of Hungary over the Kingdom of Hungary (Transleithania, or Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen) in the eastern and southern half. Both halves enjoyed a great deal of sovereignty with only a few joint affairs (principally foreign relations, finance and defense).

To explain the complexities of military service during that era, I’ll quote from “The Whirlpool of Europe: Austria-Hungary and the Habsburgs” [Archibald R and Ethel M Colquhoun. Dodd Mead & Company, New York, 1914].

In the quote, the authors refer to “special armies” …think of these as the national militia or home guards (one for Austria and one for Hungary). There is also mention of “colours” …think of this as active service in a home guard. The “common army” is yet another army (and navy) under the full Dual Monarchy (i.e., under Franz Josef’s direct control).

“The third department of State which Austria and Hungary share in common is that of Defence. The geographical position of the two countries gives them an immense stretch of frontier to defend, they have three powerful States as neighbours, and it is not surprising to find that the military spirit is highly developed and that the whole social organisation is built up round the army. As in Germany and France, the system of defence rests on universal conscription. Practically from the age of nineteen to that of forty-two, all able males are liable to military service in one form or another, and even those exempt in time of peace are liable to be called out in wartime.

"There are three classes of service: the common army of the Dual Monarchy, the special armies (Honvéd of Hungary and Landwehr of Austria) and the levy-in-mass. The term of service is twelve years, of which three years are passed with the colours, seven in the reserve (common army) and two with the Honvéd or Landwehr. Conscription for the common army begins at twenty-one years of age. In addition to the men recruited under this regulation, the Honvéd and Landwehr have the right to recruit independently a yearly contingent which serves two years with the colours and ten with the reserves. The peculiar significance of this regulation is that it establishes the principle that the two national armies are entirely separate from the common army though they are linked up for the purposes of defence.

"Besides the ordinary service of twelve years, all males between the ages of nineteen and forty-two, whether belonging to the exempt classes or not, are liable to be called out by the levy-in-mass, unless (of course) they already belong to the common army or navy, reserve, or special armies. This levy-in-mass cannot, however, be sent beyond the country except by statute, and it forms in reality a reserve which would only be indented upon at a national crisis. It must be noted that the “exempt” classes (elementary school teachers, single men supporting mothers, and others) are not released from all military obligation. They are formed into a supplementary reserve called the Ersatz, and are liable to eight weeks training and four weeks’ manoeuvres in the year. Moreover, those who have adopted the military profession are not exempt from service after the age of forty-two, and both they and civil officials in retirement may be called on to serve in the levy-in-mass until the age of sixty.”

Despite the statement above of “universal conscription,” only about 1 in 5 eligible males were eventually conscripted into active service. However, there was nothing to say you had to be conscripted at 19… so the unconscripted never knew when they might get called into active service. Thus it was hard to start a life with that uncertainty hanging over you. Worse yet, if you were not eventually conscripted into active service, you were given 4 weeks training and placed directly in the reserves, which turned out to be a disaster for these undertrained men when they were sucked into an active war.

Thanks for the kind words on the newsletter! Tom



The book I quoted from, The Whirlpool of Europe: Austria-Hungary and the Habsburgs, is available for free as an ebook on Google and was published in 1914. The authors were British and the text was clearly intended for British readers.

Some 460+ pages long, it nevertheless reads quite quickly. However, it is sometimes almost hilarious (and even disgusting) given the degree of British "superiority" lurking in the text and the amount of social and class bias evidenced in its "evaluations" of peoples and countries. Regardless, it still manages to present the flavor of the era, being both prescient in regard to what was coming concerning national independence movements and woefully blind to the looming WW-I. It also presents a coherent rationalization of why the European peasantry became increasingly anti-Jewish.

Over a couple of days, I read the complete book; perhaps you too might find it worth your time, despite its many flaws.
 

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