<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML xmlns:o = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:st1 = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18702"></HEAD> <BODY style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 10pt" id=role_body bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 rightMargin=7 topMargin=7> <DIV> 4. Deutsch-Pennsylvanischer Tag – 4th German-Pennsylvanish Day (Friday, Oct 9, 2009) <o:p> </o:p> Last Friday morning my wife and her friend Margret started a three-days-walk through the Eifel mountains in middle west Germany, about 20 miles north of Trier at the Mosel River. After I got her there by car, I had the weekend off. Thus I turned the car – in fact: her car – I like it very much, especially on the Autobahn as it goes a good thing faster than my own. I was on my way to Alzey on the other side of the Hunsrueck mountains south of the Mosel River. Before I reached the Moselle I saw a sign displaying a German military cemetery. I remembered another project on rootsweb. There is a forum whose members list German Memorials of Wars in and outside country and the soldiers killed in action. So I stopped and took photos both of some graves and the side – and a written list of all soldiers burried there at the Kriegsgraeberstaette (War Graves site) of Schwarzenbruch near Kruchten, Eifel mountains, Germany. All soldiers had fallen during the Bulge in December 44 and January 1945. <o:p> </o:p> Instead of taking the Autobahn I rode "cross country", i.e. down into the Mosel Valley where I stopped at Cues, home of Nicolaus von Cues or Cusanus. He was one of Germany's most important scientists in 15th Century and a famous man of the church as well. Our parish of St. Wendel had strong bounds to him as he was its master for more than 20 years (way back in the 1440s). In case you'd "meet" him somewhere somewhen – his coat of arms shows a huge red lobster which stands for his family name "Kryffz" = "Krebs".   Then I climbed the beautiful Hunsrueck mountains nearly on the tracks of one of George Patton's corps, I believe it was the 15th Corps of his Third Army in World War Two. But while Patton's GIs followed their maps, I followed my navigation computer and he directed me – but not into the direction I wanted to go. Once I realized that I had to turn and thus lost about an hour. <o:p> </o:p> At four p.m. I reached Alzey, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, not too far away from Frankfurt. I parked the car at the town's square and at once met Dr. Helmut Schmahl, a German historian specialised in emigration from Hessen-Darmstadt in 18th and 19th Century. Together with famous German emigration researcher Roland Paul from Kaiserslautern he had put together an exhibition called "Aufbruch nach Amerika 1709-2009 – 300 Jahre Massenauswanderung aus Rheinland-Pfalz" – "Departure for America 1709-2009 – 300th Anniversary of Mass Emigration from the Palatinate" including lots of items to the subject. Like books, tickets, photos, lists, descriptions, documents, whatever you may think an exhibition like that should contain. I had seen the exhibit two months before in Kaiserslautern and now they had moved it to Alzey but only parts of it. <o:p> </o:p> After a welcome adress by Dr. Dietmar Peter, chairman of the local history association of Alzey, Dr. Schmahl led us through the exhibit giving explanations etc. When I had seen it two months ago I had no camera available. But there was one item I was particularly interested. That was a list of recommended hotels and guest houses in or around New York City but in 19th century for German imigrants. Years ago I had the opportunity to translate a diary of Wendelin Merk, an emigrant from the Blackwood Forest in Germany. He and his fellows got betrayed by a German landlord near Albany, New York, on 29 Sept 1852: "hier wurden wir wieder recht geprellt von diesem Deutschen Hunde von Wirth, seine Firma und Namen ist "Deutsches Wirthshaus für Auswanderer" von Kreuder No 70 an der Eisenbahnstrasse" (Here we got cheated by this damned dog of a German inn-keeper. His company and name is "German Inn for emigrants" run by Kreuder at <st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">70 Railroad Street</st1:address></st1:Street>.). And now on this list of recommended guest houses I saw the name again: "Union Halle, G. Kreuder, 15 Montgomery Street, Albany, New York". I don't know the year of the list but it seems that Mister Kreuder has changed the etablisment from Railroad to Montgomery Street. You can find him on 1860 Census in Albany: Georg Kreuder, 43 years old, and his wife Caroline, 30, both from Germany, Hotel-keeper. <o:p> </o:p> That German-Pennsylvanish Day had been organized by "Deutsch-Pennsylvanischer Arbeitskreis" (German- Pennsylvanish Association), short: dpak, under its recent chairman Dr. Michael Werner. On the website you can find their goals: <o:p> </o:p> "The German-Pennsylvanian Association was founded in order to facilitate the exchange of ideas between initiatives in Germany, to intensify the cooperation between the Old and the New World, and to provide US and Canadian institutions a central contact address on this side of the Atlantic." (http://dpak.wordpress.com/english-version/) <o:p> </o:p> I was delighted to meet again two American historians whom I first met in June during a three-day-seminar about 300th Anniversary of Mass Emigration from the Palatinate. First was Prof. Dr. John Delaney, Director of Pennsylvania German Studies, from Kutztown University, PA, who later spoke about "Pennsylvania-Dutch activities in Berks County and the development of the Pennsylvania German Minor Program of Kutztown University". The lecture was very interesting as we learned a lot about that particular program: "Kutztown University's Minor in Pennsylvania German Studies offers students multiple opportunities to pursue intellectual and hands-on experiences in Pennsylvania German history, culture, dialect, crafts, and historic preservation. The Minor allows students to pursue their own interests within the structure of the Program with courses and experiences offering inter-disciplinary learning opportunities. Each student must complete the Minor's introductory course and an internship. Students are free to choose a variety of electives from a number of different disciplines." <o:p> </o:p> Second was Dr. Philipp Otterness from New York who had held a fascinating lecture – more or less a summary of his book "Becoming German". Therein he wrote about that particular mass emigration in 1709. People emigrated from the Palatinate because they had heard heard of a particular book which shall have stated that the British crown would donate them land in the colonies. There was nothing essential behind that rumor. But thousands of people went. They left their homes and went to the Netherlands. John Churchill, Duke of Malborough, had just received new soldiers so the emigrants were allowed to take the ships back to England. No one was more surprised to see them coming than the Queen. More than a years later several of them were send to America to work in a British military program and produce tar. But the Palatines were looking for their own way of life. They didn't want to be Britains. Thus they moved away and became – weird – Germans as until then there had been no Germany at all. They made working contracts with the Indians and lived in peace with them. Until the 7-years-war. It's a long but never boring story and become Philipp Otterness' dissertation. <o:p> </o:p> Another guest – actually he was the V.I.P. that evening – was Prof. Dr. Don Yoder, Devon, PA, the Old Man of researching German-Pennsylvania folk life and migration history. In the 1950s he was among the founders of Kutztown Folk Festival and Pennsylvania Folklife Society and has been doing permanent research for at least 60 years now. He was made Member of Honor of the Association that night. <o:p> </o:p> But he himself made a lecture talking about his most favorite subject "Introducing Pennsylfawanisch: America's Special German Muddersprooch". That was the weirdest hour of that evening - at least for me. The lecture was in English but his examples in Pennsylvania-Dutch … well, they sounded like some long forgotten terms I had learned from my grandmother when I was a kid. Well, actually some of the words I learned not from Granny but in the Kindergarten, words like "scheissdreck" (= bullshit). But I couldn't stopp laughing when Dr. Yoder told us that exactly that word had been the first German word he had learned from his father when he was five. See, the word needs a specific pronounciation when spoken. And Dr. Yoder showed tremendous skills in pronounciation. Nevertheless his speaking the word was a somehow American way to do it – like my style in the way of writing this a little to long email is a German one. Oh, I know for sure. <o:p> </o:p> Then Dr. Yoder started talking about the German slang word for a sawmill. As the cutter went up and down, the word was "noff onn nunna"-mill (up and down mill). Actually I'm very much interested in water mills. The very old German term for a sawmill came from the cutter but it didn't go up and down but to and froe. And this to and froe was mentioned in another word which today has only one meaning – and that's a very vulgar one: "ficken". Two hundred years ago it was a German word like anything else and used without any resentements. English speaking people still have it in the word "fight" for a fight with swords is a fight of two swords beating to and froe. And even the vulgar meaning is that movement "to and froe". Thus our dialect word for sawmill had been "Fickmill" (by the way: our dialect word for "mill" is pronounced exactly the same way as yours: "mill", high German: "Muehle"). <o:p> </o:p> Dr. Yoder who became 89 in 2009 talked for more than an hour. But no one was ever bored. Especially not me. Later when we had dinner in a local restaurant in downtown Alzey I had the privilege in sitting next to him and we talked a lot about our recent slang and Pennsylvania-Dutch and exchanged old words and terms. A most interesting man is he. You may give him eighty but never nearly ninety. <o:p> </o:p> Between the lectures a German folk band called "Reinig, Braun and Boehm" played traditionals as well as songs of emigrants and own compositions. I had heard them in K'town in June first and really love their way of making music. Their last CD is called "hiwwe und driwwe" (on this side and on that side) relying to the big pond. <o:p> </o:p> A long but fascinating day nearly was at his end when I entered my car and rode home through the night. Doing this I changed the subject completely in listing to an audiotape version of one of my favorite science fiction novels "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury. <o:p> </o:p> <o:p>Thanks for "listening" to me so long. </o:p> <o:p></o:p>  <o:p>Good night and God bless you. </o:p> <o:p></o:p>  Roland Geiger, St. Wendel, Germany</DIV></BODY></HTML>