Saturday, June 7, 2008

Thursday, June 5 Secanj

There was a bit of light drizzle this morning while we were driving, but nothing that slowed us down. Before long it was sunny and warm again, although not as warm as it has been, and humid. By the evening a light sprinkle began, developing into another light steady rain.

Stasa was on his cell phone all morning trying to make alternate hotel arrangements. There is some kind of conference in Vrsac and hotel rooms are scarce. We were keeping our hotel from last night in our back pocket as our ace in the hole. At about noon the manager called and said he had a call from another group and we had to put up or shut up, so we committed to him for tonight. Towards the end of the day we decided that we would go back to Zrenjanin for the following two nights. It adds about a half hour of travel each way every day, but we can get in there and we know it is very nice, although also more expensive.

We began our day with a stop in Samos for Mary Ann. It was a Serbian village and her family was only there briefly, so we only stopped to take a couple of pictures and moved on to Karlsdorf. We found the church and cemetery there and searched for Borschowas, but no luck Ray. It was a pretty big cemetery, well cared for, and there were still quite a few German stones in pretty good condition, but the lettering on the old stones erodes pretty badly over time.

Next stop was Georgshausen. We met up with Barbara Ann Daniels’ cousin who helped clarify some things for Stasa. We grabbed a snack and set out to take the many pictures we had promised ourselves and others.

We were operating with the information that they had built a school on top of the old cemetery. It turns out that there is a fairly reasonable explanation. In the early 1960s they decided to move the cemetery off the main street to a more secluded location. This is not the first time we have heard this reasoning, and not just in Serbia. Most, but probably not all, of the remains were exhumed and moved to the new cemetery where they were buried in a mass grave and marked by the crucifix on the left edge of this picture.


From Georgshausen (Velika Greda) we drove through Zichydorf (Plandiste) to Gross Gaj (Veliki Gaj). We had visited here in 2006 and had found a Serbian cemetery, but not the German one. We later learned that we had walked right past it, but it was now concealed by dense brush. We found the location and confirmed it with some locals that we spoke to. We hoped to penetrate the brush and find something, but we quickly grew discouraged. It was a large area and difficult to penetrate. We found no trace and eventually gave up. Maybe another time.

We then took a quick drive through Kriva Bara, where Mary Ann’s nomadic ancestors had briefly been, and on to Setschanfeld. We had been there on our previous trip, but an old lady we talked to wasn’t sure where the cemetery was and said it was totally overgrown. We decided we wanted a little more certainty, so, armed with a map that Mary Ann had found, we located the area and tried to investigate. But it was hopeless. There was a ditch around most of the perimeter and it was marshy and soggy everywhere else. It is totally overgrown by thick bushes and trees. This pipe stand may be a last vestige from the edge of the cemetery. In the town, we found that they had erected a monument where the church had once stood.

By now it was late afternoon and we returned to Secanj to close out an earlier than usual day. We first gathered outside for a drink, and then went inside for a feast of local fare.












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