The Heretics' Hour: What is and isn't National-Socialism

I get so disgusted with myself the way I "forget" the details, which I haven't really forgotten but just lose sight of at times when I'm talking more than thinking. It's not important, but this evening, taking a walk, I remembered saying about my grandmother's sister Rose, "How did she get here anyway?" That was stupid because I know my grandmother Barbara came with her parents (mother and stepfather) when she was 12 years old. She told me that, plus I read about it in her obituary, I think. Therefore, Rose would have been 16 years old and that's how she "got here."

Another not so important detail I failed to mention is why no one had middle names. Ordinary Catholics at that time didn't get middle names at birth, but at confirmation (12 yrs?) they selected a 2nd name (usually a saint's name). My mother, who didn't have a middle name, chose JoAnne and then gave that to my sister for her middle name, too. For some reason, Joseph and it's female variations was real popular in the Reck family line. My mother's brother was named Joseph. His first-born son, also named Joseph, named his first daughter JoAnn. That's how it was.

Markus: I couldn't remember the name Arad on the program either, so thanks for posting something about it. It reminds us that Germans were always in that area in some capacity, as they are just about everywhere in the world.

I know the person who's responsible for this site, but he's not all that Hitler-friendly. My family would fit on the Germans of Hungary page, http://expelledgermans.org/hungarygermans.htm.

Quote: "This large-scale ethnic German immigration was in part intended to resettle the Hungarian cities of Buda and Pest that had been almost completely depopulated by the pillaging and displacement wrought by the Muslim janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. Most settled along the Danube river, coming primarily from Baden, Württemburg, Bavaria, and Hessen. As most spoke the Swabian vernaculars of German and came from the southwestern region of Swabia, the German settlers in Hungary became generally known as Danube Swabians (Donauschwaben), although their rural villages spoke a number of dialects and retained various regional traditions (Molnar 2001, 181). The prevalent majority of Danube Swabians were Catholic due to the compulsion of the Habsburg state and the religious culture of southern Germany."

"So too, nearly 200,000 Danube Swabians had emigrated out of Hungary from 1880 to 1910 in reaction to fiscal and political tumult (ibid)." My grandparents and great aunts and uncles were a part of that emigration.

I'm also familiar with the great artist of the Danube Swabians named Stefan Jaeger, the same as my grandfather, but there is no family relation that I know of. I've read all about him but I can't find any connection; however he was in that very same area.