To: Krasna Researchers
From: Ted
J. Becker and Rosemary (Ternes) Mack
Village
Research Coordinators for
Krasna,
Bessarabia, Russia
Emmental,
Bessarabia, Russia
Karamurat,
Dobrudscha, Romania
Date: Winter
2003/2004
Word from Max Riehl of Koblenz, Germany, is that he and
others from Germany
will again lead a group on a trek back to Krasna (Krasnoe,
Ukraine). Departure is planned for 16 August 2004 from Berlin,
Germany. Arrival back in Berlin,
Germany, is
planned for 26 or 27 August
2004. The cost of the
travel by train is estimated at 250 to 300 Euros per person. This is the cost ONLY for the travel by train
(sleeping compartment) from Berlin,
Germany, to
Kiev, Ukraine,
then from Kiev, Ukraine,
to Odessa, Ukraine,
and back to Berlin. He estimates that two days and nights may be
spent in Kiev. The group will travel from Odessa
to Krasnoe and back by bus. We have not
yet heard from Max about the remaining costs for the trip, that is, costs for
such things as hotel rooms and meals in Kiev and Odessa, money paid to host
families in Krasnoe, tips, museum entry fees, other meals, etc. If you are interested in learning more about
this trip, contact Max Riehl at Bisholderweg 95, 56072 Koblenz,
Germany
or by e-mail at Max.Riehl@t-online.de
or by telephone at 0261-41078 or by fax at 0261-41079. For those of you who
know only English, feel free to correspond with Max in English. He indicates that by May 2004, all details
for the trip should be finalized.
As of this writing, MITEK of Moscow
has set the wheels in motion to get for us copies of the extractions from the Tiraspol
Consistory group of church documents.
You may recall that we have been talking about this for the past several
years. Well, it appears that finally we
are going to get this project completed.
MITEK has been dealing with the staff at the Saratov
Archive in Saratov, Russia. It has
been a headache, to say the least. The
staff workers in many archives in Russia
just do not get into their work. The
result is that things just don’t get done.
MITEK now assures me that our project is on track for completion by
about 1 May 2004. We have had to put
pressure with a velvet glove on MITEK, and, in turn, the Saratov
State Archive; MAYBE
now we are getting results. You may
recall that when we first came to you asking for your
financial help with this project, we said that MITEK told us that the project
would cost about $9,000.00 U.S. MITEK has now revised that figure
downward. Recently, I sent them a down
payment of $2,700.00 U.S. It appears that this will cover the cost of
the actual work of finding the respective entries (for Krasna) in the church
books and then making photocopies of them.
The costs of the copies themselves, as well as “archive fees”, DHL
delivery costs, fax costs, telephone costs, etc., have yet to be
determined. Please keep in mind that the
Saratov State
Archive has a charge of $5.00 U.S per photocopied page! The down payment is being held by MITEK’s
American representative, and will be sent to MITEK when I authorize the
transfer of money to MITEK in Moscow. I will authorize the transfer when I can
confirm that I indeed have the materials I ordered. I ordered the extractions
for the years 1861 through 1922. We have
received kind and generous financial help from many of you. Thank you very much. To date we have received $3,475.00 U.S. You can see that we will need more money to
pay for copies, etc. Then, of course,
there will be the cost of translating these records once we receive them. There is no way at this point of knowing what
the translation costs will be. The
records are written in “old script” Russian.
The gentleman who has translated for us other records written in Russian
has done a commendable and professional job, and I will no doubt have him
translate the 1861 through 1922 records.
We estimate that the cost of translating these records will be
approximately $2,500.00 U.S.,
that is, about $500.00 U.S.
for every 10-year group. So, yes, once
again we are asking for your financial help.
When you do send your financial help, please make your check/money order
payable to Ted J. Becker. If you
make it out to anything other than that, my bank will not cash it. As in the past, please send your financial help
to Ted J. Becker, P.O. Box 1524, Williston, North Dakota 58802-1524 U.S.A. Please be certain that your check/money order
is payable in U.S.
funds. If you do send cash, please be
certain that it is U.S.
currency. May God bless you for any
financial help you may given, and thank you very much
from both of us for your continued financial support. All money is used exclusively for the purpose
of acquiring and translating such records.
It is with great sadness that Rosemary and I report the
passing of a dear, dear friend, Irmgard Gerlinde (Leyer) Stiller. She was born in Sofular, Konstanta District, Dobrudscha,
Romania,
and died in July 2003 in Bad Soden, Taunus,
Germany. We extend our condolences and prayers to her
children, Claudia, Wolfgang and Siegbert, as well as her grandchildren. It is only through her unselfish help and
generosity that the work we do has been able to advance so greatly. For over 45 years, she helped any researcher
who asked her for help, without hesitation or reservation. Her years of gathering data and information
about Germans – Catholic and non-Catholic – who lived in the Dobrudscha region
of Romania culminated in the two landmark books she co-authored with her
husband, Albert Stiller, and others – Heimatbuch der Dobrudscha Deutschen,
1840-1940 and Lebensweg Der Dobrudschadeutschen in Bildern. Data and information she
shared with us, from her files, have been incorporated into our database
“Krasna Master Census, 1814-1940.”
She shared the same vision and dream that we have, and felt that the
data and information she had gathered would be put to good use in our database
and be preserved in the Krasna Library for posterity. She has our eternal gratitude. We give special thanks to her daughter and
son-in-law, Claudia and Ulrich Feldman.
They perpetuate her dream by further sharing data and information with
us. Ulrich is also to
be commended for his humanitarian work through the Lions Club for the
collection and transportation of humanitarian aid to schools and hospitals in
and around Constanta, Dobrudscha, Romania.
The Krasna web site continues to attract Krasna
researchers. For those of you who have
computers, you should now be able to go to your search engine, type in “Krasna,
Bessarabia, Russia”
and be directed to the site at
http://www.14ushop.com/krasna
We note that Krasna researchers of whom we knew nothing
before are finding the web site and are coming to us for help. We are happy that we can help.
The Germans from Russia
Heritage Society will hold its annual convention in Bismarck,
North Dakota, U.S.A.
from Thursday, 22 July 2004
through 25 July 3004. It will be held at the Ramkota Inn and
Convention Center there. Rosemary and I
will once again host a Krasna Supper during the supper hour on the
evening of Thursday, 22 July 2004. We
would be happy to have you attend. It
will be held at the Ramkota Inn Restaurant at the convention site. The supper will be informal and is meant to
get Krasna researchers together to just visit and get to know each other
better. You would order your meal from
the menu and pay for your own meal. It
will be great to see all of you. Please
let Ted know whether or not you will be able to attend so that he can reserve
space large enough to accommodate for the meal.
If you wish to send him an e-mail message to that effect, send it to him
at
tbecker@dia.net
or write to him at the
address given earlier. We plan to bring
to the convention much of the Krasna Library, and will be available
throughout much of the convention in the Germans from Russia
Heritage Society library space, to visit and to share with you.
Let me remind you that you have access to the Krasna
Photo Collection, if you wish. The
Collection contains over 4,500 photos of people born in, married in, and/or
died in Krasna, Emmental and Karamurat.
There are also a number of photos of their descendants. The Collection has been indexed. If you would like a copy of the index, just
let Ted know. He can provide either a
paper copy or a copy on a floppy disc for you computer users (in the Microsoft
Excel program). Thank you to all who
have shared photos with us over the years.
The Collection is one of the most valuable of genealogical materials.
In the December 2003 issue of GRHS News (quarterly
newsletter of the Germans from Russia
Heritage Society of Bismarck, North
Dakota, U.S.A.)
we read the following:
“Katherine
(Wessels) Burgess from Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A.,
has a remedy her grandmother Angela
Kahl used a lot. When someone had an
infection, especially perhaps on a finger, her grandmother
would take some
white bread and soak it in fresh milk. Then she would leave the bread quite
moist. She would pack
the moist bread on the infection and wrap it all up
with a clean bandage.
It was to be kept warm overnight.
By the next
morning, usually all the infection was drawn out.”
Angela Kahl is Angela (Tischmak) Kahl (Mrs. Lorenz
Kahl). She was born in Krasna in 1887,
immigrated to North Dakota, U.S.A., in 1908, married Lorenz Kahl (his second
marriage) in 1911 in rural Shields in a Catholic church located just across the
Cannonball River in Sioux County, North Dakota, U.S.A. She died in 1954 in the state of Washington,
U.S.A. Two sons of Angela lost their lives in World
War II. Katherine “Kay” continues her
deep interest in preserving our common Germans from Russia
Heritage. (Angela was a sister to Ted’s
maternal grandfather Emanuel Tischmak.)
Ukraine
Tours that Include Bessarabia
(Krasna area)
Are you planning to visit ancestral villages in Ukraine,
Moldova
or Crimea in 2004? Please consider joining SCHNEIDER LLC spring
or fall tours, 25 May to 10 June or 14 – 30 September 2004. These are reasonably priced 17-day tours that
include all meals, lodging, transportation to and from and in Ukraine
and Ukrainian English speaking interpreters and tour guides. The Krasna area is located in Ukraine. Unless you plan to visit the Emmental (now
Pervomaisc) and other colonies in Moldova,
only a visa to Ukraine
is required. The tour itinerary is
arranged according to the villages tour members want to visit. If possible, two visits to your ancestral
villages are allowed. However, during
the tour the group may spend four or five days visiting former German villages
in various areas of Ukraine,
including Crimea. Besides visiting ancestral villages,
SCHNEIDER LLC tours are planned to provide cultural and educational
experiences, including an overnight stay in a village with Ukrainian host
families, city tours, museums, art galleries, meetings with Ukrainian German
Societies, sight seeing along the beautiful southern Crimean coastline, and
much more. For information about a tour,
write to SCHNEIDER LLC, Robert R. Schneider, Mgr., 1649 N. 3rd
Street, Spearfish, SD 57783, or
e-mail: rschneider@rushmore.com or phone 605-722-7712, or check the web site: http://members.rushmore.com/~ukrainetours/index.htm
Thank you to Sybille and Ambrose Leinz of Colorado,
USA,
for their continued help translating the newspaper articles from the Staats
Anzeiger newspaper. I may have
mentioned previously that I have made paper copies of over 750 newspaper
articles from this (German) newspaper, which was published in North
Dakota in the early 1900’s. The articles are written by and about Krasna,
Emmental and Karamurat, its residents and former residents, those who lived in
these villages and those who emigrated.
They are proving to be a mini-history of these villages.
Thank you Faustina “Deana” (Dirk) Chandler
for continuing to place the Staats Anzeiger English-translated newspaper
articles, as Sybille and Ambrose translate them, into files in her
computer. The plan is that when all
articles have been translated and input into the files in her computer, the
translated articles will be available to interested researchers and others.
Alois Speicher of Germany indicates that he has found the
location of Chitonitz, Poland, one of the villages from which the original
group of settlers of Krasna emigrated, as well as copies of church records for
the town. I await copies of these records,
which he said he would share with us.
His find is very exciting news for us researchers, for we have been
looking for the location of this town and also that of Orochowin/Oroschowin, Poland. Thank you, Alois, for agreeing to share
copies of these records with us.
May 2004 be better for you than
2003! Peace.