Wednesday, June 11 – Subotica to Deutsch Etschka

We had to start more than an hour late at 9:15 AM this morning to meet driver regulations because we had kept Johannes up so late last night, but several people offered to skip a stop or two. I plan to make all the stops, but some of them might be pretty brief. However, that was the plan yesterday too.

The late start allowed time for us to get some Serbian money to start the day. We then set out on the two hour drive to the three combined villages of St. Hubert, Charleville, and Seultour. After a bit of wandering around lost we got some pictures for Erv and Bonnnie. They had some old village maps and we were trying to translate them into the modern context. We are pretty sure we got some of them right, but we are not so sure about others. In some cases more modern houses had replaced those of their ancestors. Then it was on to Heufeld where Kathleen had promised to take pictures of some houses for a friend. We are pretty confident we got those correct. We went on to Deutsch Zerne for a couple of more house pictures for Erv and Bonnie and a light lunch at an old estate house converted into a hotel and restaurant. Very cool place.

After lunch we went to Kathreinfeld. We have been there on all three of our previous trips and met with disappointment at how badly overgrown it was. This time, we saw someone riding a bike in the distance and guessed that there must be another road over there. Sure enough, we were able to get into the back end of the old cemetery, immediately adjacent to the new Serb cemetery. It was still badly overgrown, but with grass instead of bush. Only a few headstones were visible and they were badly eroded, but we felt we had won a small victory just finding it.

We made a quick stop at Kleck for a photo of Ray and Carol. We had also been here before and found it badly overgrown. This time it looks like they are starting to clear it out, but it was still pretty inaccessible and we went on without investigating closely.

Next stop was in Gross Betschkerek for Barbara. Her father had served guard duty therein WW II as a seventeen year old conscript. He was assigned guard duty at the German army headquarters across from the church. As the Red Army approached, he thought the headquarters seemed pretty quiet. He went inside to find that all the officers had left. He laid down his gun and escaped across a pontoon bridge. After he was across, the German Army blew up the bridge with some of their own people on it and stranded on the other side. Many tried to swim across, even though they were poor swimmers. Between drowning and being shot at by the approaching Russians, many did not make it. This was a very important stop for Barbara to see the place where these events had unfolded.

Then it was on the Etschka for a tour of the church and cemetery before checking in to our hotel (next door to the church) just after 7 PM.  It is a very nice place first built as a hunting and vacation lodge for Hungarian nobility. We have stopped here for lunch before, but this is our first stay here. Nicely modernized. Wireless connectivity is again good. It seems that the western Europeans have something to learn from their eastern cousins.

Very hot again today. Terrian very flat. Saw a combine working in a wheat field today.