Endings and New Beginnings

It is the last day of our journey, and we have truly followed the footsteps of my father, from his birth in the town of Backi  Brestovac, to his high school experience in Sombor,  on to his university experiences in Subotica and Belgrade, his military experience at Zemun, and his time in Graz and Vienna. We have been guided throughout by his memories, his direction, and when we hesitated about our next step, we asked what would our father do, and we found our way each time. 

Salzburg was a wonderful place for my father. He received a scholarship to study at the Salzburg Mozarteum each summer for the three years he was Graz. He was able to take any course he wanted. We found the new Mozarteum today, which was obviously too modern to have been the place he had studied at in 1946. It is actually an eyesore next to the Mirabel palace and gardens, far to angular a modern building to fit into the rest of the quaint baroque town of Salzburg. We were redirected to the original Mozarrteum building, which was not too far away on Schwartzstrasse, where we wandered the halls and found the small recital room where he would certainly have listened to concerts. The Grosser Saal was closed in preparation for a concert tonight. We found the musicology lecture rooms and the library, which once held all the books but now was devoted only to Mozart. I imagine my father spent a lot of time in the library, and then walked over to the Mirabel gardens to read on a park bench. 

At the library, we asked the librarian about the Hotel Germania, which no longer exists. My father had told us that he always stayed at the Hotel Germania when he came for his summer studies. The librarian was able to find evidence of it once being on Faberstrasse, which turned out to be quite near our hotel. We retraced our steps to find the likely location of the hotel and found two possible candidates. One corner of the street was a church which had been badly bombed in the war and was almost entirely reconstructed, and not very attractive at all. The old photos of what it once looked at revealed a gorgeous 15 C altar that was entirely destroyed. Across from the church was a gymnasium with a plaque on the front announcing that Albert Einstein and given his lecture about relativity at the high school. The other corners had buildings that could have been hotels at one time. We asked a ‘buchhandler’ next door what the building covered with scaffolding had been(we asked the construction workers first, and they had no idea what the building once was!). It turned out that the building had once been the Bank of Austria, but before that, a very long while ago, it had been the Hotel Germania. A coffee shop was attached, and that was likely where my father went to eat and have a coffee and read the paper.

We had promised our father to visit cafes and eat pastries, one of his favourite pastimes, and we took him very seriously today. We wanted to try coffee shops that were likely present when he was there studying. For breakfast, where we had apfel strudel and topfen strudel, we sat at the Cafe Bazar with a view over the Salzach River and up to the Fortress on the hill. Later, for lunch, we tried the Cafe Tomaselli, which is one of the oldest cafes in Salzburg. There we finally tried the Esterhazy torte, layers of sponge cake, buttercream and hazelnuts, as well as poppy seed strudel. The poppy seed strudel was exactly as I remembered from my childhood. To top off our dessert obsession today, for dinner, we had Salzburger knockerl, a massive three mountain shaped dessert with raspberries on the bottom and whipped up eggwhites shaped in three peaks. One order took 25 minutes to make fresh, and was too much for the three of us. What a glorious day of eating just desserts!!!!

We have been lucky these past three weeks to have generally great weather, often very hot, and both hot and humid in Graz, but yesterday we had a frightening rainstorm and today it rained most of the day and was much colder. We spent much of the time trying to avoid getting wet. So although we walked through the town and saw the buildings and entered all the major churches (which is what my father would do), we did spend much of our time in shops and under cover. We found a ‘salt shop’, which presented salt in all sorts of ways; as a seasoning, as salt scrubs, as deodorant, as lamps, as wall coverings, as cooking plates; it is interesting to see how many ways salt can be used. The salt came form the mines in the Saltzkammergut. Next door was a ‘bio’ organic cream/beauty products establishment, and we asked about every product on the shelves, with creams for vein problems, muscle aches, bone aches, dry skin etc. We found the original Paul Furst chocolate store, where the Mozart kugeln are made by hand from scratch (all the others are copies and made by machines), so of course we had to try them and they were delicious. I am sure my father would not have spent time in a salt shop or a beauty shop, but most likely he would have tried the Mozart kugeln, which have marzipan in the centre surrounded by nougat and dipped in dark chocolate. 

Other than the horrible weather today (which we were told was quite typical of Salzburg in July——June and August are better, September is the best month to visit), everything about Salzburg was quite wonderful. My father loved it when he studied here, and when I talked to him this evening, he expressed  wish that he had come with us. He has been participating in this journey from afar, in a virtual sort of way, which is not quite the same as having actually been with us.

We had to top of our day at a concert. The Marmorsaal at the Mirabel palace had a violin and piano recital. The performers had been students at the Mozarteum, and had experience performing, but I noticed that the violinist’s music was covered with red corrections and marks and her teacher was in the audience, so I thought perhaps that the musicians were not professionals. They played well, but unfortunately the venue had poor acoustics for the particular performance, and the audience clearly were inexperienced with classical music. I had fun anyway, and expect that my father went to all sorts of concerts while he was here, both professional and otherwise, and enjoyed the music, which is the point of going to a concert.

We have been traveling three weeks, and driven over 3500 kilometers, to Celtic and Roman times  through thousands of years of history to the present. I understand my father’s interest in history, because by living in the Vojvodina in the time that he did,  he was participating in history. I believed that my father grew up in a small town, but I learned that Backi Brestowac was much larger both physically and figuratively. It was connected to other towns in the Vojvodina in areas that are now Hungary and Romania. It was connected to Vienna and Budapest and Bratislava and people were moving all over the area once upon a time. The city was full of artisans and engaged in production and manufacturing of hemp and tiles and other products, so that it was not just an agricultural town. It had a population that supported sports teams and cultural activities and brought in music and art and theatre regularly. Children went to school far afield and returned with new and exciting ideas. I learned that Backi Brestovac was not such a small town, and that the families lived big lives, connected to the towns and cities near and far, and was a place for ideas and ideals. This version of the story makes so much sense, because the father that I knew lived a 'big' life that would never have suited a small town, but would be perfect for the type of place Backi Brestovac was at the time.

I learned so much more about my family than I knew....

Ending Our Journey

We were too late last night to eat dinner, so we finally started on our watermelon we bought in Backi Brestowac. My father had always talked about the wonderful watermelons he remembered from his childhood. We saw watermelons for sale all over the Vojvodina, reminding us of our father and his love for melons of all kinds. We bought the melon from a very friendly mother and her two children after a wild rainstorm just as we were leaving Backi Brestowac after looking at the cemetery our last day in Serbia. It was a very satisfying melon. 

We were surprised that we saw almost no vegetable gardens in Serbia, and when we ordered salads or vegetables in the restaurants, they never tasted very fresh. Perhaps they were imported from far away (much like our veggies and fruits in New York). The fields we saw were all soy, sunflowers and corn (or kukuruz as the DonauSwabians called it) Even when we bought apricots and peaches and plums on the side of the road outside of Belgrade, the fruit was a disappointment. It was surpassing that we saw so few livestock while we were driving through the countryside. We saw some sheep and goats, but no cattle. Since the menus were very meat oriented, where did the meat come from? Our best meals were fresh fish from the Danube; the catfish in Smederevo, the carp and Zander we had at Zemun. The fish goulsasch at Apatin should have been amazing, but the fish parts in the goulasch were too explicit, and altered the experience. I wish we had enjoyed the goulasch more than we did; my father and his father and his grandfather were all enthusiastic about their goulasch.

According to Francoise, our French friend from Belgrade, the poor quality of Serbian food is likely due to the struggling economy. The country is simply poor, and cannot afford to import the best quality ingredients. Perhaps the fish was good because it came directly from the river nearby.

We are happy to be in Austria and enjoying the wonderful desserts. We are always trying the poppyseed cakes and strudels. We tried them in Hungary and in Serbia, but they are best in Austria, and we are taking advantage by entering every bakery and looking for thick juicy chunks of poppy seed. We tried a cake with poppy seeds, rhubarb and meringue, but only the poppy seed part was good. We will definitely keep trying, although we are in Salzburg today, and there are very particular Salzburg desserts which require tasting. 

Lunch is usually a picnic for us. We take all the cheese and meat offered at breakfast and each make a sandwich to eat on the road. We stopped in Bruck an der Mur today and sat on a bench in the town square, admired all the gothic and renaissance buildings (the town traded with Venice and amassed great wealth) and reflected on our journey. We have been on the road for 20 days, but on the one hand it feels as if we just started, and on the other hand there is a sensation of being on this journey forever. We are all amazed that we have traveled so far and seen so much and learned more than we knew when we started, and each of us wishes to return and see and learn more. It is our last day tomorrow. We travel to Munich to catch trains and planes and return to our ordinary lives. Yet nothing will ever be ordinary after this experience; we are different people than when we started, aware of many more layers about the past and our present. 

Before we end our journey, however, we have a last day in Salzburg. My father received an scholarship for the Mozarteum in Salzburg each year he was studying in Graz, and was able to take any course he wanted and attend all the concerts there each summer. It was heaven for him. He stayed at the Hotel Germania, which we have been unable to find. We arrived late this evening in Salzburg, because our first goal this morning was to find Krottendorferstrasse near Graz, which we did, and it was not too far from the cable car, so we knew that this time, we were probably at the right place. He lived there with his parents and grandmother, because he found a job for his father at the British military installation. We drove the length of the very long street looking for likely places for the Brits, and found some likely possibilities including a castle at the very end. We did not have a number of a house, but it may be that Loni will know, because she would send mail to the address and remembers the name. We will have to ask her.

After leaving Graz, we looked for a monastery that was within a short distance and which had public transportation access, and decided on Stift Rein, an absolutely stunning baroque church and attached buildings, which was the oldest Cistercian abbey anywhere. It was exactly the sort of place my father would visit. 

He had also advised us to visit the Salzkammergut, which has been economically significant for thousands of years due to its salt mines. There was so much to see and do in the area, but we were limited both by time and a frightening rainstorm that made it impossible to see or move forward. Traffic was almost completely stopped for over an hour. We limited our viewing to the Dachstein mountains towering over us, and stopped at a couple of the lakes. Grundlsee and Wolfgangsee were arbitrary  stopping points; there were many more places we could focus on. We will leave that for our next visit. Austria is so very picturesque and clean and well kept, and very much on the agenda for our next trip. We ate at a gasthof with a great view of a lake, and enjoyed carp and spinach knoeldel and our poppy seed strudel. 

It is hard to believe we are almost at the end of our journey. We are settled in our hotel in Salzburg, marveling at what we have seen and done in such a short time. When we are driving we are reviewing all sorts of family stories, examining all the layers, anticipating all the meanings, wondering what more we can learn. We have one more day to imagine the life of our father when he came to Salzburg each summer to immerse himself in music. We walked along the quiet streets of the old city, which is a pedestrian zone now, and was probably not much different in my father’s time. The Salzburg castle towers over the town, the Salzach River runs through the middle, massive churches are used for concerts in the evenings, and the cafes and restaurants are full of excited patrons enjoying themselves. My father would listen to music above all else, so we will look for a concert to attend tomorrow in his honour. We feel so very lucky to be here walking in his footsteps.

Arsenal, Palaces, Parks, and Music

I felt a profound sense of sadness today, after having an absolutely wonderful day in the delightful town of Graz. We were able to get tickets to a concert tonight as part of the summer festival season. It is almost the last concert of the season. The opera and all the concert venues in town are closed until September or October, but festivals are happening everywhere, and the tickets are affordable. We were entirely inappropriately attired for the event. The Austrians were dressed their best, but we had been seeing sights all day in the 32 degree humid weather. We got seats in almost the last row, and tried to blend into the scenery without being noticed. The programme was all Beethoven piano sonatas by Markus Schirmer and was called ‘Der Sturm’. It was marvelous. But I started reflecting on the stories I have been hearing from my father, from his parents and his cousins and his aunts and uncles, and the incredible tragic experience they carry with them. 

I remember my grandfather Jakob, a proud but modest man at the same time. He was the son of an Anton, a landowner in Backi Brestovac;jakob was the mayor of the town and had political aspirations. My father had expected to return to Backi  Brestovac and follow in his father’s footsteps. As a 20 year old, he was only interested in completing his studies. Instead, he was drafted into the army and sent off to the Eastern front. My grandfather was drafted later in the war, and ended up in a Russian POW camp. When dysentery spread through the camp, the Russians left in fear of being infected. Jakob was able to find his way to Hungary to stay with family friends who nursed him back to health. He had been on his way back to Backi Brestovac, but was advised at the border that going to his home was dangerous. How he found his way to his family is a miracle. My father left his American POW camp to find his family in Upper Austria. When he arrived,, he found his mother very ill and in the hospital with an infection. The doctors did not know how to use the Penicillin that my father was able to procure to save her. The penicillin was diluted and so she lost her finger, her lower leg and part of her skull. When my father went to Graz to study, he was able to arrange for his father to work as a maintenance man at the British military establishment, so he was able to move with my grandmother and my great grandmother Eva. 

My grandfather, who had lived in a grand home, a leader in his community, never hesitated to work as a janitor, a maintenance man, both in Graz and later in Dietlingen Germany. My grandmother, once the matriarch of the community, adjusted to her prosthesis and supported her husband and her children. My father’s brother Tony, spent ten years in a POW camp in Hungary, and likely survived because he was very good at fixing things and always had a job at the camp. He finally moved to Germany to join his family after losing years of his life.

My father focused on his studies in Graz, and spent every free moment listening to music. He heard concerts in the Burgarten, at the music halls all over town. He has always loved his music. He could no longer play the violin after being injured in the war, but studied musicology and went to Salzburg each summer to study.  Hearing the concert today had me thinking of the role of music in his life, perhaps the activity he loved most of all.

This journey has been so much about loss. I have known the general story and most of the details all my life, but traveling to the places that were so important to my father, has brought depth to his story. I hope I understand better what his former life was, what he lost, how he survived. 

Graz was healing for my father, for us. He insisted today that we go to the Arsenal museum, a massive collection of medieval armaments. There were arsenals in every town in the middle ages, so that when attacked, the townspeople could be armed and ready to defend the town and the castle. The armoury in Graz has been perfectly preserved, and is the largest collection there is.  We walked through the medieval part of the city, and admired the houses and courtyards of the palaces. We trekked back to the university to find the music hall in Mozartgasse where my father listened to music most regularly. We drove out to Schloss Eggenberg, which is just outside the city, and took a tour through the state apartments. Maria Theresia had stayed for a week at the schloss, and her bed is the only one that was not destroyed in the Second World War. The rooms are well preserved, because the castle was left undisturbed for 150 years, after the last Eggenberg had ho children and the family died out. The best part of the schloss were the peacocks, who were screeching and displaying their feathers for us.

We went on a wild goose chase looking for the street where my father lived with his parents. He had given us the name Krottendorfergasse, so we went to the town of Krottendorf, which was far south of Graz on narrow country roads near a monastery, St Ulrich in Wassen. It was clearly not the right place, since my father had a 20 minute ride to the university from his house. Later, we learned that there was a Krottendorfergasse closer to the city and we will check it out tomorrow. Meanwhile, we had a lovely view of Styrian countryside. 

We rushed back to Graz to get to the concert with no time to eat or change our clothes, but the concert was well worth it, and we reminded ourselves that our father would have made sure to be a the concert too. We are guided each step of the way by the question; ‘What would our father do?’, which helps us focus on our journey. Otherwise we would be pulled in too many directions; there is so much to see, so much we have missed and must return to visit next time.

Time and Place to Recover

In late 1945, my father petitioned the American military, who were in control of Upper Austria at the time, to study in Graz, and when he received permission, he moved to Marschallggasse in Graz, and attended the university to study political economy and music. Shortly thereafter, he was able to move his parents from the farm in Unterolzing to a new home in the outskirts of Graz on Krottendorfgasse. They stayed with him until he finished his PhD. He then moved to Vienna and they were sponsored by the German government and moved to a place near the Black Forest in Dietlingen. His incredibly brave grandmother Eva died in Graz. She had driven the cart (with my grandmother, great aunt and uncle and their child) from Backi Brestovac to Unterolzing, taking almost a year to reach her destination, avoiding Russian troops from the east and encountering obstacles with every turn toward the west. Graz, for my father, was a peaceful refuge from years of war and tragedy. He loved his time in Graz, changed his course of study, studied and listened to music, decided to work with the Danube Swabian group with the aim to return to the Vojvodina, and moved to Vienna after finishing his doctorate in 1948.

For us, after the frenetic pace of the last two weeks, and our own challenges and fears and anxieties, we are feeling much calmer and more relaxed, and Graz offers us chance to recover, recharge, wind down, before we end our journey. Graz, with its parks and palaces and churches and statues of the Virgin Mary at every corner, is the perfect place to quiet down, return to our normal selves. Or perhaps, after all we have seen and learned in these past days, we will never quite be the same as we were before.

Again, we followed the footsteps of our father. We started at the Mausoleum, which was built by Emperor Ferdinand II. We learned that Graz had been the residence of the Hapsburgs since 1379, and became an imperial city when Friedrich the II became the Holy Roman Emperor. Until 1619, when the capital was moved to Vienna, it played a significant role in defending the realm against the Turks, as well as the French. In addition, Graz played a role in the Counter Reformation in the 1500’s, after three quarters of its residents became protestant, and the Jesuits were called in to re establish Catholic beliefs. The city is full of churches and statues of religious figures.  

The mausoleum introduced us to the Austrian baroque, which was less exuberant than the churches in Vienna. it was curious that the marble was painted on; rather than using marble, which may not have been available, wood was painted to look like marble, which was not altogether convincing at times. Otherwise the baroque was not overdone, and often quite lovely. My father was most interested in music, and attended church to hear the organ or the choir or the musical mass, so he became familiar with all the churches in the city.

We climbed up to the Schlossberg, the fortress at the top of the hill in the centre of town. My father told us that he walked often to the park above Graz, to read, to look over the town, to relax. It was hot and humid and a very long hike up to the top to see the clock tower. The fortress was impregnable, and withstood the onslaught of Turks and the French, who attacked in massive numbers  unsuccessfully. The skies opened up while up at the top, and we found ourselves in an open air theatre constructed out of the ruined cellars of the old castle, where we found protection from the rain. Perhaps my father came to watch performances at this venue. He describes Graz as a place where he listened to music as much as he possibly could. He went to the opera, and we visited the opera house. He listened to music in the gardens, in the theatre; we tried to find all the places he had described as destinations to  listen to music. We grew up with him listening to classical music nonstop, and this was his great interest in Graz as well. When studying at the university, he was able to attend classes at the music school, which we visited as well. It was a great disappointment to him to give up his violin studies. He had taken lessons all through high school in Sombor, and expected the violin to be part of his life forever.

Since the university had been the focus of his life in Graz, we wanted to find exactly where he attended classes, and at first believed it had been at the oldest university in Graz, which had been started by the Jesuits in the 1500s. We had a special tour of the old university, which has not been a university for over a hundred years. It is now used to host events. It was a library and archive for many years, but was not a good venue to store papers and books, and eventually the contents of the library and archives were moved to a climatically controlled location, and the old Jesuit university was restored and managed by a private company. It turned out that my father had in fact attended the newer old university a little outside of the Altstadt, so that was our next destination. 50, 000 students attend university in Graz, and the Franz Wilhelm it is one of the oldest universities in the country. 

The university was empty of students and faculty, but we were able to walk the halls and imagine my father studying political economy. When he finished his Phd, he returned to study philosophy for a short time before moving to Vienna, so we visited the philosophy department as well. The building is beautiful, with a renaissance courtyard, lovely halls and wooden doors and wrought iron finishes. The main ‘aula’ is stunning, and that is where my father received his diploma. We were unable to see much of the music school, and had to imagine his experience there.

To find the Marschallgasse, where he first lived when he moved to Graz, we had to cross the river Mur, and pass the awful modern ‘Kinsthalle’ which from afar looks like a blue breast with lots of nipples, quite the eyesore in an otherwise consistent style of architecture. Graz was not bombed extensively, so the medieval part remains intact, as do the baroque churches and renaissance palaces, and the result is coherent and not overly renovated, and easy on the eye.

My father insisted that we visit the arsenal museum, the most extensive collection of armaments from medieval times. That seems entirely out of character for my father, who has never expressed interest in military activities. We have the visit on our agenda for tomorrow. Today was about immersing ourselves in the relaxed tempo of this beautiful city. We lingered in parks, sat on benches, stopped for a coffee near the Freiheitsplatz, ate dinner over hours at the Glockenspielplatz eating Styrian specialties and drinking dry white wine. It was Karen’s birthday, and as a surprise, a cherry strudel came with a firecracker sizzling and the whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday for her. 

We are very different people than we were three weeks ago when we started this journey. We have learned so much about the history of my father’s people, and of the many ethnic groups that made their way into and out of the Vojvodina over the centuries. We have struggled through the despair and the tragedy of so many, and tried to understand and empathize with the travails of those who have come before us. We have faced our fears and come to a more complete knowledge of our past. We are relieved to be here in Graz, where my father was able to move forward from his past, and where we have relaxed and started to absorb all that we have seen and learned in our travels.          

Heading West

I am feeling sad for Serbia today. With 50 % unemployment, and so many wars to survive recently, the economy is depressed and there is no money to take care of the people, let alone the buildings or the history of the place. This is in remarkable contrast to Hungary, which is already part of the EU and has not had to deal with any recent conflict. The towns are well kept, and the city of Pecs was stunning. We saw that last night, as we wandered throughout he lit up streets. Today, we again walked through the central pedestrian zone, and were again amazed at the difference with Sombor and Subotica and Belgrade. These were once important cities, with trade and manufacture and culture and presence. I imagine that is what they were like in the days of the Hapsburgs. Now, the Serbian towns are falling apart, and there is no money to renovate or restore. These places were important to my father, and impressive once, and could be today. 

Pecs was perhaps excessively renovated. Every building was well kept and impressive alone, but all together, it was almost too pristine. There was even a mosque, which felt right, because so little of the Turkish reign is evident in the places we have visited. When we told that to a Serb, we were corrected, and told that there are many Turkish words in the language, as well as Turkish food and products. The mosque in Pecs was being renovated, so we were unable to enter. The main cathedral had been almost excessively renovated. The original structure was a simple Romanesque style, but it had been restored and altered so many times, there is a mishmash of styles which altogether do not quite work. Nearby evidence of the original medieval walls and fortress were rebuilt, and the walkway along the walls was of beautiful travertine marble. Nearby, the remains of third and fourth century Christian graves are accessible to the public, and are covered with chapel like structures, and full of frescoes inside. 

There was much more to be seen in Pecs. Tara always tells us, when we choose not to see a site, that we have ‘travel insurance’, and have a reason to return. I feel that in every place we have been, we have so much more to see, and will have to return. Now that we are out of Serbia, I am eager to revisit, and head more southward, see more Roman ruins, find more Turkish remains, perhaps even visit Backi Brestovac again and enter one of the houses. We have had a very positive experience in Serbia; considering how fearful we were in Timisoara, when we considering canceling our trip altogether, and took hours to convince ourselves to follow our itinerary, none of our worries came to fruition. The police did not ticket us for speeding (we never sped!), we were not robbed, our car did not disappear, we did not crash; nothing untoward happened to us. We were warned in Romania that driving in Serbia was inadvisable, the internet was full of scary stories; but we learned that such stories are told of the Hungarians when in Serbia, of the Serbians when in Romania. Our freed Francoise, who has lived n Serbia since 2001 warned us of driving in Hungary!

Our experience with the Serbs has been very positive. Sometimes upon approach we encounter a scowl, but the minute we smile, or engage, or make an effort to communicate with gestures and facial grimaces, the response is always friendly and helpful. I think the Serbs expect a negative interaction and are always so relieved when they encounter some friendliness or kindness, and always respond in kind. 

We drove forever today. Our destination was Graz, where my father went to university after the war. He brought his parents to Graz from Unterolzing in Austria, and studied economics and music. He tells me he loved his time in Graz, and it changed the course of his life in many ways. We took seven hours to get to Graz however. We drove to Lake Baloton, the riviera for landlocked Hungarians. It was full of sunbathers, sailors, windsurfers, fisherman, all enjoying the heat and the sunshine and working on their summer tans. The countryside through Hungary was hilly, such a contrast to the pancake flat plains of the Batschka. There were storks in every town, and in one particular place, we looked for the black storks, but did not see any. We crossed the border into Burgenland, Austria, and noted immediately how much advertisement and strip malls there were compared to Serbia (almost none) and Hungary. It appears that Austrians shop a lot. Life appears busier and more consumer oriented in Austria. I felt as if we were entering civilization again’ Serbia was so much calmer and quieter and relaxed. I almost miss the place

Hidden Graveyards

My birthday celebration today included a visit back to Backi Brestowac to look at the town cemetery. We had not found it during our last visit, and felt that we could not leave without searching for it. We mentioned not finding it to Anton Beck who had assured us that it was still there and visible. 

We spent the morning in Subotica,. We climbed  to the top of the Rathaus tower for a view over the city, and wandered through the streets admiring the secessionist art nouveau architecture. The style is charming and whimsical, and sometimes too much so, that it becomes ridiculous. Occasionally,  it all comes together beautifully; the synagogue is one such example. There were once 4000 Jewish people in the city, before the Second World War, but they all left, so the building is no longer in use and is not well kept at all. But it is an absolutely gorgeous building. The Ferenc Raichle house is another wonderful example; crazy a bit like Gaudi in Barcelona, but very entertaining. The pedestrian zone in Subotica is full of cafes and bicyclists and people walking, talking, eating, drinking and shopping; the city feels very much alive, yet most of the once stately and stylish buildings are falling apart. Subotica was once the capital of the region, and rich with factories and exports, but has lost its importance since the war, and had been left to deteriorate.

My father was at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade at Subotica. We went on a hunt for the building of the law school, and asked five people and received five different answers. The tourist office sent us to an elementary school, which was a lovely building, but was not the same one we had seen online, so we returned for clarification, and learned that the old law school was not a high school and was being renovated. We found the building, but it was not in the process of renovating at all; it was falling apart, and required scaffolding to protect the passersby from being hit on the head by bits of the stonework.

It is not difficult to imagine Subotica as the town my father chose to study at; dynamic, energetic, connected, entertaining. Today it is faded and worn, and is only recognizable as having once had importance. 

When we returned to drive off in our car, we discovered that the street leaving away from the parking spot had been dug out and we could not leave the way we arrived. I talked to the construction workers with hands and gestures, no one speaking one word of any language I spoke. I was directed to drive int he opposite direction over the sidewalk. I was worried about the police, but they laughed at me. We drove down the length of the outdoor market, which was closing up for the day, until we reached a barrier, where usually parking is paid. Once again we tried to explain our situation without being understood at all. The man at the booth finally decided we were looking for our hotel, and lifted the barrier and gave us extensive instructions to return to the hotel. i did not have the energy to explain our circumstance any more and let him believe he was being awfully helpful with directions. We did not have to pay our way out, which was the goal. All our interactions with the local people have been entirely positive. They are often gruff at first, but a smile is all that is needed to soften their gaze, and then they are very helpful and accommodating. We have only had good experiences with the Serbs.

We all decided that we needed one more visit to Backi Brestowac before we left the area, so we drove down to Sombor, through Stapar and on to the country town. We could not find the cemetery, although we had a map that clearly delineated the area. We walked around the fields in the hot sun for a while, and finally asked a lady who was working in her vegetable garden. I am not sure how we communicate; she spoke no English or German, but we were able to express ourselves, and she sent her rather unwilling young son to guide us. We encountered a sheepherder on the way, as well as an elderly woman who was picking fruit from the trees. All three helped us find the very large and overgrown cemetery. Most of the headstones were buried or covered with thick brush. We found one standing, with the name Krewinka on it. We were rather horrified with the state of the graveyard. My father was excited last night to describe the Richter headstone. I imagine it was taken to be reused somewhere else. Perhaps if the area was excavated, many of the original headstones would be found, but for now they have disappeared. I felt sad to spend my birthday wandering over the graves of my forefathers, their existence entirely erased by time and circumstance.

We walked to the Jewish cemetery, which had been sizable at one time, and were even more horrified to see that the original cemetery had entirely disappeared, and new headstones had replaced the older ones. There had never been many Jewish people in Brestowac; in 1944, there had been only two families. My father’s first violin had been bought from a Jewish man in Brestowac; my grandfather helped finance his trip to America when he did not have enough money for the fare, and the violin was part of the deal.

We drove through the town again, visiting the Richer houses, my grandmother’s house, the church. We all wanted to find a way to get inside the closed gates, but were too uncertain about asking for access, and then the skies opened up again and we sought shelter and decided not to push our luck. We stopped on our way out of Brestowac to buy a watermelon. My father had always talked about the delicious watermelons of his home town, but we have hesitated buying one because we do not have a knife, but that is not a particularly good reason not to get one, so now we have a watermelon without a way to open it.

We followed the wagons fleeing the Russians and the partisans out of town. My father walked to Sombor after finding his family had left Brestowac in October of 1944, and followed their trail, hoping to catch up with them. He found transport in Sombor, and was planning to return to his regiment, until he found his father along the Danube, and stopped to share the only thing he took from the house when he left. His grandfather Anton had been so proud of the wine that he produced, and my father took two bottles from the sand where the bottles were buried to keep them cool. We followed the trail of the wagons as well, all the way to Baja across the Hungarian border, where the refugees had hoped to cross the Danube. They found the bridge blown up, so had to go further north to Dunafoltwar, where they were able to cross over. We crossed the Danube at Baja, and drove further to Mohacs, where the Austrians and Turks had signed a peace treaty after years of hostilities, and on to Pecs, or Funfkirchern, which is a lovely city, with well preserved buildings and an extensive pedestrian zone in the centre. 

We celebrated my birthday with Weinerschnitzel and spinach, relieved to finally have tasty food again. My cake was a panna cotta with two candles. I am feeling strange after a day of sadness and loss.

Cockroaches

I am staying up too late watching for cockroaches. Three have visited me so far. Yuck. And it is my birthday today. 

Somber Day in Sombor

A somber day in Sombor. We met with Anton Beck, the director of Gerhard, the Donauswabian community association in Sombor. They have many purposes; to represent the Danube Swabian community, to provide aid to the elderly and poor Danube Swabians, to provide activities and interaction between the community members, to teach German to those interested, to stay connected to the Danube Swabians who left the region, and probably a list of other functions. We saw the community centre, and talked with Anton and a young woman who worked with Gerhard. She spoke Serbian, as did Anton, as well as German, and it turned out that she was Bosnian in origin and her grandparents had come to the Banat when the Danube Swabians had been removed. Anton had not known that he was Danube Swabian until he was in his thirties, in fact, his father had never mentioned anything about his background. Anton's mother was Hungarian and that is why the family survived. Interestingly, Anton had known nothing about the concentration camp fifteen minutes from Sombor, where all young and older Danube Swabians from the Batschka had been interred, and where they had been starved to death. We had met a woman at the museum in Branau, who had grown up in Indija, a town we drove through in the Batschka, and survived Gakowo.  She described how horrific the conditions were. For the first few months, the prisoners had received no food, and when they did finally receive nourishment, it was clear soup with little else. It was the coldest winter ever in the region, and there was no heat. When people died during the night, their bodies were placed outside the houses, and were picked up in the morning, frozen in the cold, and dumped in mass graves nearby.

The thought that people could live nearby and not know anything about what was happening is not an unfamiliar story.

We visited Gakowo in the afternoon after it had rained and the sky was dull and threatening, and the ground muddy and wet. I expected the town to be empty, after having hosted such horrors, but it was an ordinary town, in the usual Hapsburg design, with people on bikes and farm vehicles parked in front of the homes. The original Danube Swabians had been removed before the town was circled by a fence, and ready to receive the prisoners. The usual population of the town was 400, but 60,000 prisoners were packed in the houses, piled on top of each other, and left to die.

The Richters had left before the partisans came. My father arrived a day later, after getting leave from his regiment precisely to help his family with the move. He tried to convince his mother's family to leave as well, but they chose to stay. Most went to Gakowo and perished.

I learned that my father's aunt and uncle, who lived in Johannesfeld in the Banat, which is now in Romania, were sent to work camps; his uncle and cousin to the coal mines in the Ukraine, and his aunt (my grandfather's sister) to a work camp in Baragan in Eastern Romania on the Black Sea. I remember meeting my great aunt and my father's cousin when we lived in Germany in 1975-76. I distinctly remember noticing that his aunt's  hands were crippled from the forced labour. His uncle died in the coal mines just before the German government arranged for his release. His cousin survived.

As we walked through the Serbian cemetery to the memorial erected to honour the Danube Swabians who died at Gakowo, a snake blocked our path. We had no idea if the snake was poisonous or not, so we stepped back and turned around. We waited for several minutes, until the snake decided to cross over to the other side and disappear into the grass. Only then could we walk over to the huge cross and read the writing on the base. What an odd and possibly significant moment.

Our morning was devoted to a long talk with Anton Beck, and a ride around Sombor to see the music school that my father attended during his eight years at the gymnasium, as well as the high school. He loved playing the violin and was devoted to his violin studies. He also experienced his first crush at 14, when he played with a pianist at his coed Serbian high school. He had attended the German grade school near the church in Backi Brestovac his first four years. His father decided he should learn Serbian,  so he was sent to  Sombor to attend the Serbian high school. He may have lived initially in a dorm at the school but most of his time there, he lived with a Hungarian family nearby. It was tough for him because he did not speak Serbian at all before high school. He moved from a town where he knew everyone, which was German speaking and intimate, to a bigger city, which was far less homogeneous.  There were sizable populations of Serbs, Hungarians, Croatians and Germans in Sombor at the time.

The city was Hapsburg from 1687, and the architecture is representative of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Much of it is rundown and poorly maintained; that is what we have seen in most of the towns in the Vojvodina. We met with an American woman who had been coming to Sombor several times a year since 2006, in an effort to reclaim what her family had lost. Serbia has to fulfill all sorts of EU prerequisites, one of which is to offer restitution to those whose lands and homes were confiscated during and after the war. However, we have been told that there are so many obstacles to success in restitution, that it is not worth the effort. This woman describes herself as a 'bulldog'. She has signed papers of 'confiscation' written by the Russians who claimed her father's and aunt's properties both in Sombor and in Backi Brestovac. She has the original claims as well. She had employed several lawyers over the years and has overcome all sorts of roadblocks in her efforts and truly believes that she will succeed in her efforts. However, she is so tired of her endless struggle, she may decide to sell her claim, and walk away. I admire her idealism and her perseverance. She is unusual in that she has all the original papers necessary to make a claim. None of the people in Backi Brestovac received papers of confiscation, nor were they able to bring their deeds with them to the work camps or to the concentration camps, or as refugees. The Serbian government is going through the motions to appease the EU, and has no intention of satisfying those who lost their lands or homes after the war.

What was disconcerting about our discussion with this American bulldog, was her entirely negative perception of the Serbs, of Sombor, of everything about this place. She talked about the mafia, the corrupt political system, the local people trying to take advantage of her; she had nothing positive to say about anyone or anything here. She appeared to have little appreciation of the beauty of the buildings or the history of the people. And although I admired her for her energy and her boldness, I felt deflated after our long talk, after lunch and our walk through the town, which was once beautiful, with trees and greenery everywhere and the faded beauty of the homes that were once grand and impressive, but left to deteriorate, much like the homes we have seen all over the area.

We drove north to Subotica, where my father had attended the University of Belgrade at Subotica his first year after finishing high school. He was supposed to fulfill his military duty in Zemun starting in June of 1938, but his school year ended the 28th of July so he was too late. The best choice for him was to devote a year to university studies, which he tells me he enjoyed thoroughly. Subotica is full of charming art nouveau buildings, which were not evident when we first arrived at out hotel. Such unfortunate concrete apartment blocks surround the charming city centre. In fact, we were questioning our choice to come to the town at all, until we walked through the rain to the very beautiful and imposing secessionist synagogue. At one time, there were 4000 Jewish inhabitants in Subotica, but they are all gone now, and the building is no longer used and is starting to look worn down. The pedestrian area of the town is full of both art nouveau and baroque buildings. The particular style of art nouveau is charming and almost fairytale like.

Our hotel had recommended a restaurant in town, where the food was not great, but the atmosphere quite perfect. We sat out on the street and watched the world go by. We have not been lucky with Serbian food. The fruit we bought on our way to Belgrade our second day was not good. Yesterday, we ate at 'Slon', supposedly the best restaurant in Sombor, but struggled in our efforts to please Tara's vegetarian taste. I had fried cheese, which was almost inedible, the ayvar was not quite right, the bread was white and tasteless, the cheese odd, the vegetables not tasty. Our lunch in town today was tasteless too. The fish goulasch in Apatin just had too many brains and other fish parts that were difficult to stomach. The cevapcici in Belgrade was just too much meat and not enough to balance it. We did like our Turkish desserts in Belgrade and the fish we ate in Zemun as well as at Smederevo. But generally the vegetables have not been a success. Interestingly, we have never seen a vegetable garden on our travels. Soy and sunflowers and corn are the usual crop. There are watermelons everywhere for sale, but we have not seen any offered in the restaurants. After our lackluster salads today we splurged and had palacinke with nuts and whipped cream, and it was delicious, so we ordered a second one to share. Perhaps we need a food guide to lead us through Serbia so we can be more successful with ordering.

We all want to go back to Backi Brestovac tomorrow to visit the cemetery. The Richters had a huge marble gravestone, made from stone from Sweden. I do not think it will be there, but for closure perhaps, we need to check it. My father also mentioned that he was called up to the Yugoslav army in 1944 in Backa Palanka (or Backa Topola), so we may take a moment to explore the town. We may then take the refugee route up to Baja, where the Richters had hoped to cross the Danube, but found the bridge destroyed and had to head further to Dunafoltwar.

It took us two weeks to reach our destination, but we are treading water now, and it is difficult to leave the beginning to reach the end.

Backi Brestovac, Where My Father was Born

It is past the middle of our journey, but we arrived at the beginning (or perhaps the end) today. We woke up in mist as the fog rolled in and out and the sky cleared over the Danube. Our hotel was at such a perfect spot on the river. In the evening, we watched a glorious sunset and then the sky was on fire for over an hour. This morning, the river was calm and the sun was shining brightly as we had our breakfast with a view.

Before leaving Apatin, we went searching for my grandmother's girl's school, where Loni went as well. Loni described the confusion she felt when she was told in 1944 that she had to return home from boarding school. She did not want to leave all her clothes behind, and did not understand why she had to leave at all. As she was hustled off to Batsch Brestovac, she believed it would be a short visit home, and that she would be back at school soon. It was a sort of finishing school for girls, where useful skills such as sewing and embroidery were in the curriculum. We encountered a Serbian man on a bicycle. He had worked in Germany for many years, and had married a German woman who had died of cancer at age 38. His two sons lived nearby in Serbia, and he was retired and comfortable but looking for a new wife, preferably rich, but well endowed was even better. He saw us looking around at a Cathoic church on the outskirts of the town, and suggested we follow him on his bike to the Rathaus to inquire as to the location of the school.

We agreed to go with him, but with trepidation. At the Rathaus, we were directed to another city administrative office where we waited for the officials to finish with other business and then asked where they thought the girl's school would have been in 1910 or so. They really had no idea and were too young to know anyway. We retraced our steps through the pedestrian zone of the city, to the central Catholic church, which was locked, and the next door priest was out. We found the music school nearby, which was likely the girl's school before the war, but the only staff in the building only knew that the music school had been housed in the building for a certain number of years. When we return to Munich, we will have to ask Loni whether the building we believe was her school is the right one.

It felt as if we were avoiding this last/next step on our adventure. It was past noon when we cruised by the sign to Backi Brestovac. We stopped on the side of the road to photograph the fields of corn and sunflower seeds and soy reaching out in all directions. The land is flat, but not as flat as I expected. I understand why the prairies suited my Dad when he moved to Edmonton; they reminded him of home.  Big and beautiful and spectacular skies happen here, much as they do in western Canada. The cloud formations are dramatic and the sky goes on forever. We wondered which fields were Richter fields; Loni was proud that the Richters had 108 hectares, more than anyone else in the town. The hemp factory was in ruins on the edge of town; Jacob had owned an eighth of the enterprise. The Catholic and Jewish cemeteries had disappeared. I saw a photograph of the gravestone for the Richters, but no one knows what happened to it.

The town has the usual Hapsburg layout, with broad spaces between the houses. The asphalt is narrow, but there is a big green expanse in front of each house. The courtyards are gated, but sometimes one sees into the spaces inside, with columns and an open porch on one side and the farming part of the compound opposite the entrance. Many houses are tiled; we were told that the tile industry was prominent in the town before the war. We met with Stephan Stampfer, one of only two Donauswabians who stayed in the town after the war. He was 11 when he was sent with his parents to a labour camp near the Rumanian border. He worked in a gold mine/factory for three years before being released, and returned to Brestowac because his sister had married a Serb and was still living there. The Germans had been forced out and their homes given to Serbs or to other people who had been left homeless. His wife came from Croatia after she and her family had lost their home. She spoke a little of the dialect, and Mr. Stampfer was very difficult to understand. He showed us the church, which is closed most of the year and only opened once or twice yearly to show to the Donauswabians who come to visit. It is poorly maintained and much of the former beauty is faded and worn. Mr.Stampfer does what he can to keep it clean and prevent vandals from defacing it. He receives no funds for his efforts, but does it to keep the story of the Donauswabians alive.

The Richter pew was the front one on the right, in front of the right apse altar. Apparently my grandfather was not religious, but contributed to the church and attended regularly, as did all the other Donauswabians in the town. The rumour is that he was not really Catholic, that the family had changed religion to marry a woman sometime after their arrival in the town. Jacob would not allow my father to be a an altar boy; and my father would hear comments about his father not being Catholic, but no one would actually say that to his face.

Mr. Stampfer tells us the story of the statue of the Virgin Mary that used to stand on a marble base in front of the church. It had been buried to save it from being destroyed. Much later, Mr. Stampfer had found someone who had a device that could trace the location of the statue and dig it up. The Serb who helped him then reburied the statue in concrete, which was devastating for Mr. Stampfer, but then the perpetrator was left crippled, which Mr. Stampfer believes was just punishment for such a sacrilege. It was certainly challenging to be one of the only Donauswabians left in the town.

My grandmother buried all her household goods when she left, believing she would return to dig them up and use them again. I wonder who is using her precious things now.

We visited the original Richter house, the Leinweber house, Jacob's house, Loni's grandparents' home. None of the houses  has been kept up, several are abandoned and falling apart. I can understand how sad it feels to see the condition of the homes. The Donauswabians were proud of their town and kept it clean and organized; nothing is well kept anymore. Except the Serbian Orthodox church, which is even older than the Catholic church. We met with a Serbian man who lived in Munich for 40 years and knows much about the town and is very helpful to the Brestowac old-timers who come to visit.

I could not understand how my father would have been content to stay in this small town for the rest of his life. But he tells me he had every intention of returning and staying there forever. The town had everything that was necessary to live, both culturally and as a community. The most significant loss for my father is loss of his community, a way of life that was working for the Donauswabians, a culture, a people,  a community that has disappeared forever. Mr. Stampfer informed us that the town had every sort of artisan working in the town. It was well known for tile work and many of the houses were decorated with colourful tiles. There was a rich cultural life, with music and literature and travel. My father tells me he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father and involve himself in politics.

I felt sad today. So much loss. I learned about the 900 Brestowac inhabitants who fled and the remainder (3500) who stayed and were sent to Gakowo (concentration camp) or labour camps in Rumania and Russia. My great grandmother Elizabeth was shot by Serbian partisans; why would they kill an old grandmother in her home? Out of thousands of inhabitants, only two Donauswabians stayed. The homes and lands of all Donauswabians were taken and distributed to the local Serbs and other families who had been forced out of their own homes elsewhere in what was to become Yugoslavia.

It is depressing to see this once vital town (as evidenced in the memories of my father and Loni and Adam, and in photographs of the inhabitants prior to 1944) destroyed and left to deteriorate. Batsch Brestovac is really entirely gone. I understand why my father never returned.

After having been given leave from his unit to help his family leave the town, my father arrived to find that his mother, Richter grandmother, aunts and uncles and cousins had left, and tried to convince his other grandparents to leave, but they resisted. He was told by his Serb friends to stay, that he would be well treated, but he walked the three hours to Sombor, following the tracks of the wagons that were fleeing.

We drove to Sombor, in the path of the wagons, on the route my father may have taken, but stopped in somber to overnight and spend some time tomorrow visiting his high school and the music school which had great significance for him.

Closer to the Beginning

It feels as if we are circling as we near our goal, closer and closer as we approach and retreat, move forward, and back pedal. We passed seven kilometers from Backi Brestowac today, but drove on, holding off the final step until tomorrow, tomorrow. This is our purpose, and we are so near. Only one more day.

Meanwhile, we are sitting and watching the final world cup game between Argentina and Germany, while my father thousands of miles away is watching the same game. We called him while we were waiting for our fish paprika; it was cooking on the fire nearby for 45 minutes as the restaurant emptied, with all the patrons leaving to watch the game. We could only order it for three persons or more, and had a choice of heads or no heads in the goulasch. My great grandfather Anton would go out in the morning to shoot game, and ask my great grandfather Eva to cook it for his breakfast goulasch. Goulasch was the preferred dish, and my father would always praise his mother's goulasch. Fish goulasch is a specialty of Apatin, not too far from Backi Brestowac, on the river where the original settlers landed when they first traveled to their new homes in the Batschka. Loni was very enthusiastic about the fish goulasch, and advised us strongly to try it at this restaurant. Karen discovered that there was a hotel at the same place, so we are staying right on the Danube, with an incredible view of the sunset to the west as the river bends from the west to the south. Loni went to boarding school here, as did my grandmother Anna. Our hotel looks out exactly where the boats landed in the 1700's. This is all incredibly meaningful to us, and prepares us for our visit to my father's home town tomorrow.

But we circled today, avoided our goal, enjoyed Novi Sad and the monasteries of Fuska Gora.  We were slow to move this morning, after the excitement of the Exit Festival. We had missed the monasteries yesterday; we find ourselves behind on our schedule each day, because we get distracted, diverted, engrossed, and consequently making decisions constantly about where to direct our attention.

We were worried about the weather, because the prediction was for rain. We were so lucky it did not rain last evening at the festival, and this morning, it was sunny and warm. The streets of Novi Sad were quiet; the festival goers had been up all night and were still sleeping, the church was full of worshippers, and the cafes were just starting to open as we wandered into town. Our hotel had been advertised as being close to the centre, and even when we asked about the distance when we arrived, we were told it was a short 20 minute walk, but in fact it was much further. We took a taxi there and back yesterday. We learned from our taxi driver that the festival was far smaller than it had been at its peak, when 200,000 attended in the first few years, where it was more of a political movement against the strife in Yugoslavia. More foreigners would come as well, but today, the numbers were a fifth of what they used to be.

Our day began with strong Turkish coffee. The Serbs do not have a coffee tradition, but learned to make coffee from the Turks, and it is powerful and bitter, and is a different product than Italian or American coffee. So little of the Turkish rule survives anywhere, it appears that an effort was made to erase their presence after they were repulsed by Prince Eugen and the Austrians. But coffee and wonderful desserts survive.

Novi Sad is the capital of Vojvodina, and is the second largest city in Serbia. It is full of horrid looking Soviet era apartment buildings, but the centre is well preserved and the trick is to ignore the ugliness surrounding the centre. The city has always been a centre of learning and culture, and characteristically looks more westward for inspiration. Much of the centre looks Hapsburg in style, with some art nouveau and 'eclectic' buildings. The central square is pleasant and open, and most of the streets off the main piazza are pedestrian only. The neo Gothic  Catholic cathedral on the main square was full of worshippers on Sunday morning. My father had mentioned the beauty of the church choir, and they were singing as we entered. We looked for the synagogue , but apparently it is no longer in use as a place of worship, since most of the Jewish population had migrated to Israel after the Second World War.

We spent some time in the Vojvodina museum, which was well put together and displayed a very comprehensive history of the area, from neolithic times to the Second World War. Most impressive was an entirely golden Roman helmet found nearby, as well as an amazingly rounded female cult figure of neolithic origin. The area has been occupied since 6000 BC, and people from the east and the west have been moving through the Vojvodina and settling and conquering and leaving and disappearing for thousands of years. The Scordisci, the Dacians, the Romans, the Huns, the Ostrogoths, the Langobards, the Avars, the Franks, the Moravians, the Serbs, the Ottomans, the Hapsburgs, all left their mark on the area, and the list is much longer than that. My father knows so much about the history, and I have heard so much of it from him through the years, but only recently does the story come together. It helps me understand his love and passion for history, and gives perspective to his origins. His family came from Silesia and Lorraine in the 1700's at the invitation of the Hapsburgs after the Turks fled, and stayed for 150 years or so, and then were forced out and replaced. It is amusing though, to read the tourist information about the area, touting the multiethnic character of the place and stressing the tolerance and acceptance of all ethnic groups, never mentioning the expulsion of the Donauswabian population. Peoples have come and gone through the region, and each will leave their stamp on the place and move on, as has happened to the many tribes that have come before them.

Last night we had wandered all over the Petrovaradin Fortress, which is MASSIVE. We could not enter it today, since it was the site of the festival, and was quiet for now in preparation for tonight's festivities. It is mostly an 18th century structure, built as a barrier to Turkish attack, but by the time it was built, the Turks were no longer a threat, and essentially the fortress was redundant. The town around the fortress is delightful, and merits another visit.

Fruska Gora is a hilly region to the south of Novi Sad. Grapes are grown in the mountainous terrain, and there are dozens of wineries to visit. We focused on the monasteries, which were built between the sixteenth and eighteenth century,  when the Turks invaded from the south and the Serbian Orthodox communities sought out safer places to worship, keep their relics and maintain their independence and freedom from the invaders. There are much older monasteries in the centre and south of Serbia, but we were happy to see three of them in the region; Novo Hopovo, Krusedol and Ravanica. The churches are full of frescoes and icons, and there were plenty of worshippers today. There is a particular relationship between the spiritual and the physical in the Orthodox religion; people pray visibly, kiss icons, make the sign of the cross multiple times, are fervent in their communication with their saint or their God. Each monastery had a fountain nearby with water that was special or blessed. I was moved in each place we visited, and the physical surroundings were a perfect setting for each place. They were in the valleys, between the heavily wooded hills, often richly coloured on the outside, and covered with colour on the inside. Our guidebook warned us of 'monastery fatigue', but I could have seen more of them.

The skies opened up on our way to Bac, the oldest town in the Vojvodina. We tried to take the shortest route from the Fruska Gora to Bac,, but it happened to cross into Croatia, and we were worried about begin held up in border crossings, so we turned back to Novi Sad to cross the Danube to the northern side. When we arrived in Bac, it made no sense to get wet, so we drove by the poorly preserved Franciscan church and monastery, the much better preserved Orthodox one, and stopped at the Turkish fortress ruin for a few photos, and drove on through the plains to Apatin. We consciously chose not to turn right to Backi Brestovac, which is on our agenda for tomorrow, and arrived on the Danube just as the sun was setting, turning the sky red and gold.

Watching the skies and the river and reflecting on our journey thus far and reaching the beginning and the end tomorrow kept us preoccupied for the evening. We have seen so much these last fifteen days.

EXIT festival Novi Sad

We joined 40, 000 young people at the largest European music festival at Petrovaradin fortress this evening. We arrived at Novi Sad after a leisurely day, and made our way immediately to the centre of the city, to meet with Milka and her friend for tickets, and a ride to the castle. I was surprised at how well organized the event was. The fortress is so extensive, that the many stages and styles of music were spread out enough in almost natural amphitheaters, so they did not interfere with each other. There was tight security and many policemen, but the atmosphere was friendly and carefree and that was unexpected. The music was of variable quality; I am not too appreciative of repetitive droning dance music, which is so popular today. But I LOVED the 2CELLOS, two young men, one from Slovenia and the other from Croatia, who play both classical and also pop and rock music adapted to their two cellos. Maya has showed me videos of them playing, and they were AMAZING on stage.
The music was very loud, however, and after a while I could feel my heart resonating to the vibrations and I worried that my heart would go into an arrhythmia. I suppose I was the oldest person at the festival! I enjoyed it anyway. We paused to watch a fashion show with very unhappy models, watched dancers at a silent rave and at the Latin stage, saw Netherlands beat Brazil at the soccer stage, wandered all over he very extensive grounds of the castle, until it was time for us to escape. The concert goes all night, from 9 PM until 6 in the morning for five days, and then continues with further activity. So many young people!!!!!

Novisad at night is beautiful, and we will return in the daytime to see the sights, but we may also trace back our route to see some of the monasteries in Fruska Gora which we missed today, because we slowed down considerably and enjoyed Belgrade and Zemun at a far more relaxed pace than we have kept thus far. We woke up with sunshine and warmth, and returned to Terasie Square, once again to retrace our father's footsteps. We returned to the fortress in the sunshine and looked over the Danube and Sava rivers, and checked out the statues and  monuments in the sunlight.

We had a coffee date with the mother of a friend of Tara's. She had lived in Belgrade with her Serb husband since 2001, and had a very gentle way of telling us how difficult it has been for the Serbs over the years, how poor and disadvantaged the country is after its wars, and how challenging it is to be perceived so negatively. She described how she gave up explaining anything to her French friends long ago, that her friends have preconceived ideas of the reality of the Balkan conflict and are not open to any new interpretations. She chooses to live in Belgrade and visit France for three or four months a year. She was a lovely woman, measured in her speech, warm and caring, and did not seem particularly French. She suggested that the Serbs were more Mediterranean than anything else. Certainly another perspective for us to consider.

Tara and I noticed today at the festival how impressively large the Serbs are, particularly the men. Her 6 foot 6 boyfriend would feel at home here, and walking amongst all the festival goers, I noticed that I was not the tallest at all, in fact, most of the women are taller than I am.

Francoise, our French friend, suggested a restaurant in Zemun to try. We were planning to visit Zemun anyway, to look for the military academy where my father attended the cavalry from 1939-1941 for about 12 to 16 months. He had been at the University of Subotiza in 1938, but had to fulfill his military service, and chose the cavalry, which was still a part of the army at that time. It was only after his military service that he attended the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law in 1941, before it was closed after being bombed by the Germans.

It was suggested that a building bombed in 1999 by NATO was likely the military academy my father  attending, but upon discovering it, we decided that it looked more like the air force. Behind it however, another older, more baroque looking structure looked more likely, but we will ask my father if he remembers where in fact he lived and kept his horses.

We drove down the tiny little streets and found parking along the Danube, and ate freshwater fish at the restaurant recommended by Francoise, called SARAN, and full of Saturday customers. The town was packed with cars and people, and many weddings were taking place in the churches and the receptions in the restaurants on the water. We had perch with prunes and onions, and catfish with a tomato/pepper sauce. Both were delicious, and we tried a tomato/pepper 'ayver' spread, which was great on bread. We enjoyed our meal looking out at the Danube, and later walked along the water and then into the town, wondering what it looked like when my father lived there. We climbed up to the tower at the highest point for a view of the town and the river, and further to the Sava and Belgrade int eh distance. The fortress Kalemegdan was visible!

Before we left Zemun, we sat near the Danube, admiring the view and eating our Turkish desserts, knowing that dinner would be unnecessary after our very plentiful lunch.

It as good to have a quiet, non stressful day. 

Great Energy, Great Vibe, in a Grey City

Belgrade is a city of contrasts. So much history flows through the streets and buildings, and the stamp of years of communist rule remains (ugly, unkempt grey constructions), but the energy of the people walking freely through the streets with enthusiasm is infectious. The day was grey, with the threat of rain, and later in the day several hours of intense rain, and the buildings were grey, but the cafes and the restaurants and the stores were full of colour.

We all slept poorly and woke up tired (the beds were far too hard at in our hotel), and started the day late, after using the lobby to make phone calls and catch up on our lives at home. I am impressed with the availability of wifi here; generally every coffee shop and restaurant had wifi available, often without a password necessary, so one can be connected all day, which is as it should be. Our room, unfortunately, must be too far to connect easily.

We were staying directly in the centre of the old city, Stari Grad. Our first destination was Terazjie Square, where my father  lived during his time in Belgrade. He was uncertain of the exact address. We had passed by the Hotel Moskva last night, but today we walked up and down the street again, imagining that it looked much different when my father was here, with streetcars, mostly baroque and art nouveau buildings, but perhaps just as many people on the streets. My father took streetcars to get to his university classes and the university cafeteria.

We then found our way to Republic Square with the National Museum covered by scaffolding and under construction and not available for viewing for who knows how long, and the National Theatre, which was closed for the season, and not to open until October 1. A grand statue of Mihailo Obrenovic, hailed as the liberator of the Serbs from  the Turks, lords over the square, but there are so many unattractive buildings competing for attention, I had to start just focussing on one thing at a time, trying not to be too distracted. We headed to Students' Square, which was originally a Turkish graveyard. My father had attended the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, in 1941, and we thought that perhaps he had taken classes in a light coloured Gothic/Roman/Renaissance style building with red ornamentation.  Over the years, the university has spread out over the city with different faculties in different locations. This building housed the Rector's and administrative offices and the department of philosophy. We were told that the Faculty of Law was in another building on Alexander Street, and no one could tell us if the Faculty of Law had originally been in this building. We decided to visit the Faculty of Law and find out more. Later, when we asked our father, he was quite sure he had taken classes at the new Faculty of Law building.

But first, we visited the mausoleum of Sheik Mustapha nearby, one of the rare residua of Turkish rule. It once stood in the courtyard of a dervish monastery that has disappeared. There is apparently a mosque nearby, but we did not see it, as we were ready for breakfast, and Tara had found an interesting 'concept' restaurant (selling clothes, shoes, books, knick knacks, much like Urban Outfitters, but more upscale) called 'The Supermarket'. Breakfast was healthy, with smoothies and muesli and yoghurt and passable coffee.

The Ethnographic Museum caught our eye, and we spent an hour or so admiring the costumes of the different ethnic groups who had lived in Yugoslavia. The museum was erected before Yugoslavia broke up, so all parts of the country were represented. It was remarkable how much of an influence the Turks had, exemplified by the materials and styles and the use of kilim items of clothing. We did not find Donauswabian attire, but we did find a typical Vojvodina house, that reminded me of the homes in Brestowac.

Kalemegdan Fortress and Park were nearby. My father had recommended that we visit this massive complex on the hill looking over the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and further across the plains in all directions.  The view to the rivers and 'New Belgrade' is spectacular. The park is massive, covering a total of 30 hectares. The Celts built here, and later the Romans, Serbian despots in medieval times, the Turks and the Hapsburgs. The fortress is remarkably well preserved, with gates after gates, walls all around, churches (the orthodox Rose Church of Our Lady has three chandeliers made of swords, bullets and other military objects), chapels, a military museum, a zoo, art galleries, monuments, trees, fountains and more museums. 'Kale' means 'field' in Turkish and megdan means 'battle', but the Turks also called the site 'Fitchir-bayir' which means 'hill for meditating'. I imagine my father would come here to sit and read the paper, or a book and look out in all directions.

We scrambled around the fortress and park looking for specific gates, statues and monuments. Above the Sava River looking out toward 'New Belgrade' stands the 'Messenger of Victory' high above on a column. Apparently, he was supposed to be erected in the city centre as a celebration of Serbian victory, but people were uncomfortable with the statue's full frontal nudity, and so he looks away from the fortress in all his splendour. I learned that the French were instrumental in aiding the Serbians establish their country after the First World War, having held all the Serbian debt at the time, and therefore there is a 'Monument of Gratitude to France' in another part of the park. Many more busts and statues are dotted between the massive trees all over the park, including one of the three surviving Turkish religious monuments, a tomb of 'Damad-Ali Pasa',  and entertained us during our walk.

Serbian food is simple, ingredients are fresh and basic, and flavours are subtle. Tara struggles, because she does not eat meat, but we managed to order roasted peppers, salad, grilled vegetables and stuffed cabbage, so a meal of sorts came together in a restaurant immediately next to the park.

Our next destination was the Faculty of Law, a twenty minute hike away, passing grand neoclassical, baroque, art nouveau, but mostly grey and hideous buildings. The parliament building had huge statues of men in awkward positions with horses. We were delighted to pass many green leafy parks as well, a relief from the grey sky and the grey buildings. The building we were looking for looked more recent than 1941, but it was in fact built from 1937 to 1941, and was to open in April 1941, but by then the war was happening and it was occupied by German troops. We were able to learn about the history of the building, which was well documented in a small museum in the basement. We had asked the security guards whether they knew if the building had been used for the law faculty in 1941, and encountered a young man, who led us to the museum and tried to answer our questions in his halting English. His professor apparently knew of a book about the building, and we met with him briefly and he promised to mail the book to me after I gave him my address.  Significant was that he had studied at the Sorbonne and spoke excellent French and English.  He had to go to a meeting, but insisted we go to his office to talk to a woman named Milka, who was meeting with him about a book she was writing. The young man joined us, as did another student. We were hoping to speak with the professor, Branko Rakic, who was a law professor but was teaching a course on European Integration, but he did not return to his office in the two hour discussion we had with the young Serbians. The fellow was 25, in his third year of law school, and had many more years of school and apprenticeship and exams to finally become a lawyer. Milka was an author, and was educated in physical education, theatre, and technical product management and was a professor in three universities and had two books written and translated into English and Italian. She was from Novi Sad originally and planned to travel there tomorrow to go to the EXIT festival, and offered to get us tickets. We never did get the name of the second woman who chain smoked in a corner.

Milka gave us some tips about traveling to Novi Sad, but her English was limited and mostly she asked the young man to translate for her. She promised to send us copies of her books, one of which or three of which were about women Olympic athletes. More interesting was the discussion with the young man, who did not give us his email and gave his name once, and unfortunately it did not register with me. Very gradually, as we asked questions about being Serbian and living in Belgrade, and also about thoughts about joining the EU, our young man became more and more animated. He told us that the population was divided, with 50 % wanting to join the EU and 50 % not wanting to. He described the origins of the 1999 war. According to him, when Tito was in power, the Croats, Bosnians and Serbs all lived peacefully together. He felt they were all the same people, all Slavs, and therefore had everything in common with the Russians. When Tito was in power, the country received help financially and otherwise from both the Russians and the West, both trying to exert influence. With the death of Tito and later, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Russian hegemony, the West stopped investing in Yugoslavia, and the country's economy deteriorated. The young man felt that poverty and loss led to enhanced differences between the Catholic Croats, the Muslim Bosnians and the Orthodox Serbs, who began fighting amongst each other. The young man felt that the Catholics had converted Serbs, and the Orthodox Church had told the converted Serbs that they could no longer be Serbs, so they became Croats. When the Turks converted the Serbs to Islam, the Orthodox Church once again said they could no longer be Serb, so the Muslims became Bosnians. The Croats and Bosnians were all Serbs, who were all Slovenes, or Slavs, as were Poles and Russians and Rumanians, and Bulgarians etc. The young man felt that the war was essentially created by the West, which aimed to 'colonize' the broken up parts of Yugoslavia, and eliminate the influence of the Russians.

We listened politely, and when we returned to the hotel watched a film by a young Serb Canadian, who presented a very similar story, blaming the west for essentially creating conditions that ultimately made war inevitable. This was an entirely different perspective for me, and perhaps reflects the views of many Serbians. I imagine that this is what this young man has been brought up to believe, and there are parts of his story that ring true. We believe our stories, we are our stories, this man was fervent about his beliefs.

Tara, who perhaps was not as informed about the wars between the Bosnians, Croats and Serbs, was most disturbed about the young man's statement about his aspirations; he wanted to finish his law degree, become a lawyer, find a wife who will stand by him and support him, and certainly not someone who would work and be as independent as we three women were. He was surprised our husbands allowed us to travel without them. The two Serbian women, on the other hand seemed delighted with our independence and appeared to aspire to a more self determined life than the wishes of the young man.

It was a very interesting encounter, and merited much further discussion as we tried different Serbian desserts at a very old patisserie down the road from the law school. Zito is a wheat concoction with nuts and raisins and is served with a pile of whipped cream. We also tried a fried dough like pastry soaked in sugary syrup and a wonderful nut crescent cookie. That was our dinner, which gave us enough energy to run through the pouring rain to our hotel room to watch the film the young man recommended, which was so contrary to anything I had ever heard in the past about the war, and thus will have to read and research much more. Most significant about the young man's story was his feeling that the Serbs had been unfairly demonized, that they did not deserve the reputation they have earned. 

Steps Into Serbia

Our day was absolutely wonderful with no untoward mishaps or anxiety or stress. We were well fed last night despite our wandering cockroach, we had a huge apartment with two bedrooms, kitchen living rooms, dining room, large bathroom with a jacuzzi (we did not take advantage of all that space, unfortunately). We watched Argentina win their match against Netherlands, we slept well, and had an outdoor breakfast on the patio with a breeze from the Danube.

Our first destination was directly to a bank in the middle of the town, and then to the sprawling fortress on the shores of the Danube. Smederevo was a medieval fortified city and temporary capital of Serbia in the middle ages. The fortress was built in a very quick couple of years between 1427 and 1430, which is the year 6938, the number of years elapsed since the world was first created, according to the Orthodox calendar. The dimensions of the fortress are huge, with walls several metres thick and the perimeter around the walls over 1.5 kilometers. Most of the inner fortress is a park, with a castle in one corner. The most entertaining character who lived in the castle was the tyrannical wife of the despot who built it. She bathed only in milk and was quite horrid. to everyone around her. The fortress was built as a barrier to the Turks, but after 20 years, the fortress finally surrendered to Sultan Mehmet I. It was the Turkish headquarters until 1805, and remained intact until it was damaged during the Second World War. There is a lovely view of the Danube from the towers. I saw a heron fishing near two fishermen. Frogs were swimming in the moat. Everything looked so very peaceful. Why had we been so worried about coming to Serbia?

The reason we headed so far east was to visit the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire. The Danube was the border of the Roman Empire, and along the boundaries were built towns to house legionnaires, and often parallel towns to accommodate the people who followed the army. The Emperor Hadrian decided to built more comfortable lodging for his armies, so amphitheaters and baths and all the usual Roman trappings were found in each settlement. Viminacium was the capital of the Roman province Moesia Superior. Seventeen Roman emperors were born in what is now Serbia, which is rather astonishing. The site is stunning, probably because it was covered up for so long and was not excavated until recently, so is remarkably well preserved.  There is an extensive bath complex, an amphitheatre with remains of frescoes and bones of camels and a bear, a necropolis, palaces, and more modest homes. We entered underneath a tomb complex to see frescoes from the third and fourth century. According to the Romans, heaven is full of birds and peacocks and a servant to take care of the deceased.

Most entertaining to me is the evidence of the Dacian campaign on Trajan's column in Rome. I have passed that column so many times in Rome and never get up close to examine the pictures. The reliefs are representations of the God of the Danube and of legionnaires crossing the river. To be at the site of the town, from whence the legions left on their campaigns against the Dacians to the north of the Danube was very exciting. The Huns attacked and destroyed the settlement in 440, but it was rebuilt and only in the sixth century was finally destroyed by the Avars. It is amazing to imagine that the Romans had extended their reach so far, and that they built up their cities with every possible comfort for their soldiers and their settlers. It appeals to me to be reminded that a  legionnaire has the possibility to rise in ranks to the level of emperor, I never thought the Romans to be so democratic.

The city of Viminacium is immediately next to a power plant and not too far from the coal mine tearing up the hill behind. Most of the site is covered by sunflowers and other fields and the archeological digging has just begun. They have used electronic devices to map out the extent of the remains, and know exactly where to find each building. In the nearby coal mine, the 1,000, 000 year old skeleton of a mammoth was discovered in 2009, and another dating from 180,000 years ago in 2012. The skeletons are on display near the Roman ruins.

We headed towards Belgrade later in the afternoon; we had simply been too excited at the Roman site, and our guide was enthusiastic and knowledgeable and took care of both Serbians and English speakers in our little group. Our ride through the fruit orchards outside of Belgrade led us to a row of ladies selling apricots, peaches, nectarines and watermelons. My father would always tell us of the wonderful watermelons of his youth, and we are desperate to buy one, but without a proper knife, we chose not to buy one. We stocked up on everything else for sale and were entertained by the competing ladies, who were equally entertained by our visit.

Driving into Belgrade was not easy. Lots of cars, and speed limits of 30 and 40 kph. I am so afraid of a ticket or an encounter with the police, that I followed all posted signs and consequently irritated all the cars that queued behind me. Finding our hotel in the centre of town was rough, and I was much relieved to park my car underground and leave it for a day or so. Our hotel is modern and clean, but small and charmless. The city looks grey with too much evidence of socialist building projects. My guide book tells us that although the city looks uninviting, we must give it a chance, that there are delightful little corners and great people, so we plan to look for them.

My father called when we arrived. He is so very excited that we are here. He suggested we go to the University of Belgrade where he studied law in 1941, but I discovered that the university has spread all over the city and the original building where he went to school is no longer used as the law school. It is in the centre of the city on Student's Square. He liked to eat at Terasie Square, which we found near the Hotel Moska. The military academy he attended in Zemun was standing until it was bombed by NATO in 1999, but there remains a building there, no longer in use. Why would I bleive that anything would be the same after 74 years? He suggested we stroll around the Kalemegdan fortress nearby and try various dishes he remembered, as well as desserts. As always, he loved to listen to music, but it is summer and the concert season is off, although there are many festivals happening.

We found our way to Skadarska where the street was lined with restaurants and musicians, and enjoyed our meaty dinner and rambunctious patrons and music and felt entirely comfortable late into the evening. I suppose we should not be surprised that the Serbians are friendly and helpful and we are enjoying our second day in the country.