TO:  KRASNA, BESSARABIA, RUSSIA/UKRAINE/ROMANIA RESEARCHERS

         EMMENTAL, BESSARABIA, RUSSIA/UKRAINE RESEARCHERS

         KARAMURAT, DOBRUDSCHA, ROMANIA, RESEARCHERS

 

FROM:  TED J. BECKER, Krasna/Emmental/Karamurat Research Coordinator

                Web site:  http://14ushop.com/krasna/

 

DATE:  SPRING, 2008

 

It has been since the fall of 2006 that you have received a “newsletter” from me.  Since that time, Rosemary (Ternes) Mack has withdrawn from work on the Krasna Project.  Her health no longer allows her to share her passion with us.  If you would wish to include her in your prayers, I would be grateful.  She and I worked on the “project” for around 25 years.  Without her invaluable dedication and hard work, the database we have now would not have been created.  Future generations will know of the work she has done.  Her legacy of dedication and hard work will stand the test of time.

 

Eduard Volk has completed work on his monumental history of Krasna entitled Krasna, Die Geschicte eines deutschen Dorf in Bessarabien (Krasna, The History of a German Village in Bessarabia).  The book is written in German.  It is hardbound, with 362 pages, and contains many photos and maps.  The price for the book is 25.00 Euros, plus shipping and handling.  So far as I know, no English translation is available.  Copies of the German version of the book are available at the following web site: http://www.cardamina.de.  The publisher’s mailing addresss is:  Cardamina Verlag, Susanne Breuel, Willibrordstr. 11a, 56637 Plaidt, Germany.  To contact the publisher by e-mail, their e-mail address is:  kontakt@cardamina.de.  Their telephone number, calling within Germany, is:  0700 / 2827-3835. 

 

Eduard graciously allowed me to help with some of the research for his book.  I was also able to provide him with a number of photos, from the Krasna Photo Collection.  I consider it an honor to have been a part of his work and am humbled by this honor.  It has been nearly 50 years since the last major effort to produce a history of Krasna based on new research.  Eduard is to be complimented and congratulated on his hard work and the excellent result.  The book stands as a milepost in the ongoing research into the telling of the story of Krasna and the unique Germans who lived there for 125 years.  I highly recommend a copy for your reading, your enlightenment and your library.

 

I have plans to translate the book into English.  When this may happen is difficult to say at this time.  I must find a competent translator and also raise funds to pay that person to translate the book.  As in the past, whenever your help was needed to further the research of Krasna and its daughter colonies, I called on you to give that help. 

 

You may have noticed that my mailing addresses have changed.  My e-mail address is now tjb@scc.net.  My mailing address is now 2929 21st Avenue South, #411, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55407-4564 USA.  I moved here last summer.  I am not getting any younger.  My children live here and it was time for me to start “eating off their tables” to make up for all of the times they ate off mine!  :-) 

 

I continue to add data and information to my database.  Twenty-five years of accumulated obituaries were recently placed into the database, to make it even more helpful.  Also, I continue to add generations, which were born after 1940, to it, as that information and data becomes available to me.  If you would want me to add such data and information, please feel free to contact me.  I am still offering to help you with your research as it relates to Krasna, Emmental and Karamurat.  If you feel that I can be of help, please feel free to contact me.  I am more than happy to help.  Rosemary and I spent these past 25 years placing the data and information we found into the database.   I can provide you with family group charts, individual informational charts, pedigree charts, ancestry charts, and the like, as they relate to these villages and their former German residents. 

 

For those of you who use computers, a relative of mine is scanning the Krasna Photo Collection.  We will place the over 6,500 photos plus identifications onto a DVD when he is finished.  The DVD will also contain the index I have developed.  It may take quite some time yet to complete this project.  When it is finished, though, I will make copies of the DVD for anyone who wants a copy.  For many years I have wanted to make the Krasna Photo Collection available to anyone, and believe that this method may be the best way to do so.  In the meantime, if you are looking for a photo of someone associated with the above-mentioned villages, or of the villages themselves, I would be happy to see if I do have such a photo.  If I do, I would then make a copy for you and send it to you.  Just contact me!

 

Over the past several years, it has been my pleasure to correspond with Ivo Schroeder and Florentina (Müller) Gruhlke, among others, of Brazil.  They told me of the Landsmannschaft der Bessarabiendeutschen and its gathering held last fall in Itapiranga, Santa Catarina, Brasil.  The majority of people who attended have their roots in Krasna.  Some of them are related to former Krasna residents who immigrated to Canada and the USA.  I was honored to have shared with them photos from the Krasna Photo Collection, which were shown at the gathering.  The event was a very successful one and I wish them many more.  Florentina is working on the development of a film about the people from Bessarabia and their lives and influence on that region of Brasil.  I look forward to seeing the film when it is completed and wish her the best of luck in its production. 

 

Ingo Isert’s Bessarabian organization in Stuttgart, Germany, is very active.  For those of you who use computers and the Internet, you may wish to go to the web site http://www.bessarabien.de/.  There you will find information about the Bessarabiendeutscher Verein e.V.

 

Ernst Schäfer of the Bessarabiendeutscher Verein e.V. Landesgruppe Rheinland Pfalz, Rauscherstrasse 40, 56626 Andernach-Miesenheim, Germany, continues to work very hard to gather and preserve the story of Krasna as well as other Bessarabian villages.  He can be contacted at schaefer.Ernst@freenet.de.  His organization offers several very interesting and important books and CD’s.  Two of them, both in hard copy and on CD, contain respectively 380 and 270 photographs of Krasna and of Bessarabia.  Many of the photographs were taken in the early 1900’s.  One of the books is a treasure of poems as well as songs sung in Krasna.  Paul and Margarete (Erker) Wingenbach worked hard to transcribe the poems and the songs, with musical notes, for our posterity.  I highly recommend this songbook.  These songs are the old German songs many of us remember singing and being sung.  If you are interested in these or other materials, please contact him.  He will send you a listing of books and CD’s for sale. 

 

Eduard Volk informs me that a recording of music, which was done by Krasna singers in the  resettlement camp in Pirna in 1940/1941, has been found in an archive in Berlin, Germany.  Michael Ziebart, former music and choir director in Krasna, leads a group of singers.  Eduard is working with others to see how best to make the recording available to anyone interested.

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