Emigrants and Exiles: Book Three, Volume Two

Henry A. Fischer

févr. 2011 · AuthorHouse

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The isolation the Children of the Danube experienced from the upheavals of history in the rest of Europe would no longer hold true in the second half of the 19th Century and beyond. At the outset, Emperor Francis Josephs attempts to preserve the position of the House of Habsburg in the face of the rising power of Prussia among the German states would inevitably lead to a disastrous war. Austrias defeat set the stage for the rise of the German Empire and the struggle for supremacy in Europe among the major powers resulting in the catastrophic wars of the next century which would destroy the only life the Children of the Danube had ever known.

The agricultural sector was in a shambles in Hungary during the last decades of the century which had repercussions for the Children of the Danube among whom the landless were the fastest growing part of the population and among whom poverty had become a way of life. Land was expensive and simply unavailable. As in the past, the only remedy was emigration. The first wave of emigrants from Swabian Turkey sought their future in Slavonia recently opened for colonization. It was just the prelude for the massive emigration movement soon to take place to the New World.

Some of the surviving emigrants and exiles will meet in a railway station in a small town in Canada as the final phase of the Schwabenzug takes place and the Children of the Danube transplant their roots in their new Heimat.

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Henry A. Fischer was born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of Swabian immigrants from Hungary whose lives and family history form the backdrop for the trilogy Remember to Tell the Children that followed the publication of Children of the Danube, his original historical survey of the Great Swabian Migration of the 18th Century into Hungary. The trilogy is written in the form of historical fiction but it is based on extensive historical research and family tradition. Although it focuses on the authors own extended family it is a reflection of the broader historical experience of all the families who shared it with them as Children of the Danube. The Pioneers, the first book in the trilogy, dealt with the early settlement years of the first three generations and Strangers and Sojourners which followed highlighted their coming of age as a distinct society within the wider context of life in Hungary up until the mid 19th century. Emigrants and Exiles, the current work, is the last in the series and follows their ongoing quest for the Promised Land that leads to emigration to the Americas and the tragic fate and dispersal of the exiles following the Second World War. He and his wife Jean reside in Oshawa, Ontario. Following his ministry as a Lutheran pastor he was a co-founder of InterChurch Health Ministries and introduced Parish Nursing Ministry to congregations across Canada during his first retirement. His writing career followed after years of historical research. He is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. His other vocation is being Ota to his four grandchildren.