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.
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