Danube-Networkers
Evoke the past
Text: Gerti Zupanich
Translation: Eva Linton
The fuss of Christmas is over and there again the travel bug to the South gets me. While I was working I needed places to relax, sun and the sea. Afterwards: the search for adventure, foreign worlds and cultures: Namibia, through the Kalahari desert to Botswana to the Khoi-San, the Negritoes, travels through the U.S.A. and the West of Europe. The personally undiscovered “white” spots of Eastern Europe stayed.
Just in 2005 I took my first bigger trip to the Eastern part of the Danube:
Only the train ride and a stay overnight in a hotel in Brasov were booked in advance. All the other things - during our search for traces of father’s birthplace in Romania and his school time in Brasov - would be found later we thought. Would we even be able to see something of the parents house and the cloth factory?
We made the mistake that we asked for information at the police station in A. We were asked by an uniformed porter, entrenched behind thick bars, about the reason for our inquiries, had to wait for a long time until the commander finally called us into his room. There we two ladies sat, not frightened, on two narrow chairs, he on the opposite side behind a mighty desk. He was able to speak many languages only German not: questions, questions, why we came, were we spent the night, in Romanian/French and the rough tone of an interrogation. “Are we still in a socialistic state, is this the year 2005? This doesn’t work, we need a translator.” We returned with one, an intensive palaver started between the two. What is so complicated here, we just wanted the address of father’s house!
The commander gave us two forms that we should fill in and return the next day. He definitely won’t get them from us, we rather would travel on! It is not until later that I realize: many former German-Romanians were coming at this time and wanted their houses back. He assumed the same about us. In future we gave the Romanian police a wide berth. I prefer our “friends and helpers” in Austria.
We found the house of our parents, even without the help of the commander, thanks to many villagers who supported us. When we were standing quite wistful in front of our parents house, the new owner came out quite excited. We have already known why she was anxious, eradicted the suspicion and immediately pointed out that we only wanted to take pictures of the house and the factory.
We learnt our lesson: two strange visitors that evoke the past, create problems for both sides.
I have just felt connected with the Eastern states of the Danube since our encounters with the Danube networkers. It makes a great difference if you drive from Vienna to the dentist at the border to Hungary, visit Bratislava or Budapest as a tourist or you rather have direct contact to the people of a country and lead personal conversations.
With the time the differences get smaller, the cultures more transparent, the fates and biographies of a long life start to get similar.
We all wish for a peaceful, carefree life without diseases and great blows of fate.
Then it doesn’t matter which nationality, religion, skin colour or ethnicity we belong to!
